Julius Caesar

OK, please forgive my ignorance in advance... I get a daily e-mail from National Geographic that hands out teasers to get people to subscribe. The latest one poses the proposition that we really don't know what Julius Caesar looked like. I know there are few coins that have his image, however I am pretty clueless about other representations of him (statues, murals, etc.) Now I could do some research and find out a bit about this, however, I feel (perhaps wrongly) that there are other CTers who are equally as clueless, and others who are experts, so I thought I would pose the question here... What did Julius Caesar really look like? (I'm rooting for Rex Harrison )

 

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Probably in his younger days like this....

 

According to coinage, something like this:


But, my initial interest in Roman history was triggered by the HBO/BBC series "Rome". So when picturing him in my mind, all I see is:

 

The reconstitution by antropoloog Maja d'Hollosy is not Julius Caesar, it's my Maths teacher when I was an 8th grader, I remember very well, he looked at me exactly like this every time the hamster had eaten my homework.
More seriously, historians think these portraits may be portraits of Julius Caesar. But there is much debate about it!

 

Screw Rex Harrison. He was a chump. Two women died because of him. Google it.

Not counting insulting Audrey Hepburn & Julie Andrew and more.


Julius Caesar (February-March 44 B.C)
AR Denarius
Lifetime Issue
O: Wreathed head of Caesar right; CAESAR downward to right, DICT PERPETVO upward to left.
R: Venus Victrix standing left, holding Victory in outstretched right hand and vertical scepter in left; L • BVC[A] downwards to right. L. Aemilius Buca, moneyer.
Rome Mint
3.92g
17mm
Crawford 480/8; Alföldi Type XIV, 62–3, 67, and 69 (A13/R22); CRI 105; Sydenham 1061; RSC 23; RBW 1683.

 

He probably looked something like this:

 

I don't recall where this portrait bust is from, but it's the one I usually see when an accurate depiction of Julius Caesar is sought. I wish there were a profile shot of this bust, but I think this lines up very well with the scarce portraits on his coins:

 

This portrait was discovered in Tusculum in 1825 by Lucien Bonaparte, brother of the late Napoleon Bonaparte and amateur archaeologist. It is presently in the Museo d'Antichità in Turin, Italy. It has been identified in 1940 as a possible portrait of Julius Caesar.

 

Mark Anthony



Julius Caesar

 

I dunno... his most famous coins depict him as:


RR Julius Caesar is an Elephant AR Denarius 49 BCE Traveling Mint trampling snake-Pontificates Sear 1399 Craw 443-1

 

Ok ok... I think I was wrong about that he was an elephant.

Still not totally convinced. He was a pig in history, killing off 2 million Gauls, etc.

Imagine if we we had that proportionate amount of the World population of Humans killed in Modern times... oh, wait... wasn't that WWII ??? Or maybe WWII was tame compared Caesar's impact on the total Ancient population.

However, this coin depicts him in the FINAL TWO WEEKS prior to his execution. I imagine the pic is pretty close to his looks...

GAIVS IVLIVS CAESAR

Minted Last TWO Weeks of his life...


Roman Imperiatorial
Julius Caesar Lifetime
P Sepullius Macer
AR Denarius, 1st 2 weeks-Mar 44 BCE, 19 mm, 4.03g.
Obv: CAESAR – DICT PERPETVO Veiled and wreathed head of Caesar R.
Rev: P·SEPVLLIVS – MACER Venus standing l., holding Victory and sceptre resting on star.
Ref: Syd 1074a Sear Imperators 107e Crawford 480-14 Rare

- minted in last two weeks of his reign, or two weeks before he was assassinated.
- veiled, as he held the offce of Pontifex Maximus for several years, and that office was very important to him personally.
- wreathed... just short of being king... big no-no
- DICT PERPETVO - yeah, he was a king... so Roman Republic inherently and culturally hated kings.
- fairly difficult to capture with the star on reverse
- reasonably centered with most/all devices and legends (this is not as important to me cuz its numismatic vs the intrinsic Historical impact.)

Alföldi arranges Crawford 480 series coins in (44 BC) month order as follows:

RRC 480/1, Buca - January
RRC 480/2, DICT QVART - early February
RRC 480/3/4/5, CAESAR IMP - late February
RRC 480/6/7/8/9/10/11/12/13/14, DICT PERPETVO - early to mid March
RRC 480/17/18, CAESAR IMPER - late March
RRC 480/19/20, PARENS PATRIAE - April
RRC 480/15/16, MARIDIANVS - April
RRC 480/21/22, CLEMENTIAE CAESARIS and Mark Antony - April

 

Sulla/ Crassus/ J.C. where a trio of evil.

 

This portrait (posthumous) is the work of a very talented engraver.


The coin goes up for auction tomorrow at CNG. It’s way out of my price range.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tusculum_portrait

 

Wow, some strong feelings about Julius...what about the number of people Churchill killed...or FDR?

 

Is that you Mr. Vonnegut?

 

Just for fun, I tried to combine the two accepted portrait busts of Julius Caesar:

 

Nice job. Did you cut the face of B and paste it on A's head, or did you use an AI morphing application?
Morphing is developing fast, with this you can merge two ID photographs into one that will spoof facial recognition systems. Very useful for passing borders with an usurped identity.

 

Lots of hostile comments, about Caesar and other leaders. Sadly, most of the people we consider great leaders are people who won a lot of wars, i.e. caused the deaths of lots of innocent people. (Most, but not all. I can think of a couple of exceptions, but not many.) Apparently, coin collecting is not for the squeamish.