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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 2976526, member: 19463&quot;]The variation in Septimius portraits in the early period makes you wonder what he really looked like but the fact that he had been away with the army for years makes it easy to understand.&nbsp; There is even a 193 AD Rome mint portrait that has something of a triple fork.&nbsp; Perhaps that really is how he wore the beard when he had time for grooming but the field expedient cuts were less formal.&nbsp; We will never know.&nbsp; One thing we lack in ancient history is a complete set of their equivalents of today&#039;s tabloid journalism.&nbsp; I might not go so far as to say I am happy that we have <i>National Enquirer, The Sun, Entertainment Tonight </i>and a thousand other purveyors of all the news that really might not be fit to print but sells well anyway.&nbsp; I will say that our knowledge of &#039;news&#039; (real and &#039;fake&#039;) from antiquity is painfully compromised from a lack of multiple and contemporary sources.&nbsp; Few of them emphasize things like how the emperor wore his hair and who designed gowns for the &#039;First Lady&#039;.&nbsp; If we had such things, we would have less trouble getting young people to sign up for Latin in school (but much more convincing the school board that it was a proper subject). </p><p>[ATTACH=full]731478[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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