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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Valentinian, post: 3908836, member: 44316&quot;]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.</p><p><br /></p><p>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.</p><p><br /></p><p>Let&#039;s continue with the identification of Palatine bust number eight, but I&#039;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).[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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