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Message:: [QUOTE="Volodya, post: 2633694, member: 19615"]Several years ago in another discussion group, Carthago solicited opinions as to whether the OP Hostilia type in fact is a representation of Vercingetorix. I said then: "My answer to carthago's original question is: yes and no. On the one hand, there's virtually no chance this is intended as a portrait of Vercingetorix. That's just not the way the Romans did things. If they ever depict an enemy, it's as a defeated captive. For that reason, Crawford 452/4, showing a captive Gaul (with a distinctively large head) beneath a trophy, may well be intended to represent V. That humiliated pose is a far cry from the defiant head in question. But... Some of these "Vercingetorix" denarii, such as the coin I've attached [same coin I posted upthread here], really do seem to be too detailed and "realistic" not to have been drawn from life. Who better to serve as a model than the most famous and feared Gaul of all, conveniently languishing in a Roman jail? I don't find it far-fetched to imagine the moneyer arranging a well-guarded sitting, with the real V. serving as the model for the archetypical Gaul depicted on the coin. That doesn't mean it should properly be thought of as a "portrait" though; that's not how the dynamic between model and artwork ever functions. The US Sacagawea dollar coin is a portrait of Sacagawea, not of the anonymous (at least to me)  real-life woman who modeled for it. Phil Davis"[/QUOTE]