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Message:: [QUOTE="Sallent, post: 2883012, member: 76194"]What I meant was that he had the humor to be portrayed as bald. Remember, many emperors had their portraits enhanced to make them look different than what they actually looked like. For example, Augustus and Tiberius had young-looking portraits of them cranked out even after they were both extremely old. Other emperors are depicted with flawless skin and no blemishes, even though they ruled until they were quite old and infirmed. Thus was a marked contrast from Republican times when portraits were realistic and depicted wrinkles, moles, baldness, and skin blemishes. So the fact that Carus chose to depict his baldness is what's comical, not the baldness itself. It shows the man was very sure of himself and had a sense of humor. He could have had himself depicted as a 35 year old man with a full head of hair, but instead had the confidence to depict himself old and bald (a true likeness of himself).[/QUOTE]