Featured The Palatine Museum. An emperor's bust.

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The seventh bust was Antoninus Pius.

Now for the eighth bust. The rules remain the same.

Here is the eighth bust from the Palatine Museum. Please post a coin of the emperor (at least, who you think it is), but do not identify the emperor.



After a few replies I'll post the attribution from the museum and one last bust from the Palatine Museum.

 

Eighth bust is of this fellow, I believe:

 

Is it this guy?



Well, at least he thought he was Hercules in his self-delusion and paranoia, but history knows him better as....



The emperor under whose rule the decline of Rome started...though I'd argue modern historians would not quite agree with that assessment.

 

Not to rain on this thread ... but here is a lecture presented by Mary Beard about the problems of identifying a Roman emperor's bust. In a lot of cases its just guess work.



The lecture begins at the 7:00 min mark.

 

I’m going to go against the grain on this one.

 

I watched it. Mary Beard (author of SPQR, an excellent book on Roman history) says that most busts are identified by their resemblance to busts on coins because very few are still associated with their original base that would have had the name on it. Her talk is mostly about busts said to be of Julius Caesar. Collectors know that most portraits of Caesar on coins are pretty crude, unlike, say, profile images of emperors Claudius, Nero, Vespasian, etc. I know some CT members have excellent examples of Julius Caesar portrait coins (Would you post some?). One problem is that if an old bust is found there is a very strong incentive to claim it is a bust of Julius Caesar (What a find that would be!) even though it may bear only a passing resemblance to the coins and the written descriptions given by ancient authors. I got the impression from the talk that among about 200 busts with some claim to be of Caesar not one has been fully accepted as being a genuine ancient bust of Caesar.

On the other hand, everyone on CT who was willing to respond about a bust said to be of Nero thought is was Nero from familiarity with coins. Maybe Julius Caesar is hard to identify (and maybe his genuine busts are extremely rare--if any exist), but some later emperors are not hard to identify.

Let's continue with the identification of Palatine bust number eight, but I'd be happy to see Julius Caesar portrait coins. Mary Beard only showed one and it would be good to see how varied they are (Give the date of the coin if you know it so we can tell if it might have been a portrait from life).

 

I don't think so. That is definitely Co****us and not L. Verus. That being said, I dig your coin. As I rarely get to post mine, may as well share it also.

 

Some emperors are a lot easier to identify than others. There's no mistaking a Trajan, Hadrian, Augustus, Vespasian, etc. for any other emperors. The ones that take a little bit of extra guess work are usually the emperors from the Crisis of the Third Century, as coinage portrait quality severely declined so its a lot harder to compare their coins to their statues. As far as Late Republic and early Empire, Julius Caesar is the tough one to identify for the reasons Mary Beard lays out.

 

The eight bust has been up 18 hours and there has been no consensus. To me, the tall pile of hair makes the distinction. Later today I will post again about it, but I wish for a few more replies first.

 

I think it's this guy. As @Valentinian said, this guess is mainly based on that massive hairdo which would have easily qualified him to play guitar in an 80's glam metal band.

 

The chin looks a bit receded and the bear doesn't stick out as much as it does on the person shown on many of the coins above... if it's not the person shown in many of the above posts it may be his dad:

 

Here's my guess - no name visible, but lots of curly hair -

 

The eighth bust was Lucius Verus.

Now for the ninth and last Palatine bust. The rules have changed. If you don't have a coin of the person you think it is, I encourage you to post the name anyway.

Here is the ninth bust from the Palatine Museum.



Please post a coin of the emperor (at least, who you think it is, or might be) or just the name of the emperor if you don't have a coin to compare to the bust.

I solicit your guesses and suggestions for possibilities. After a few replies I'll post the attribution from the museum. Personally, I am not sure that this bust can be confidently identified. I think the combined experience of members of this list is probably as likely to get it right as the Palatine Museum staff.

Then I'll take a break. I could start a similar thread for busts in the Capitoline Museum, but that can wait.

 

The short beard, which threatens to be a neck beard, reminds me of some coin portraits of Geta. The features don't look like the neck bearded person we usually think of (Gallienus), so I'm going with Geta.

 

My post above is posthumous Lucius Verus...I almost never get these quizzes right. I'm so happy right now!

As for the newest one, my guess is another great Roman Neck Beard:

 

If we're talking great neck beards and it's not Gallienus... it's this guy.