Ancient genomes from Iceland reveal the making of a human population

[Rizla]

The Romans never pretended to conquer in order to bring civilization to the "natives".

I'm sorry Angela. But this statement is simply not true.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/romanpropaganda_article_01.shtml

I've seen you getting into this debate again and again. You're obviously entitled to what ever opinions you have about various cultures. But in my opinion though, it doesn't make much sense to use a modern perspective to pass judgement on past historic and pre-historic cultures, because they existed in a greatly different time. It's nonsensical.

Blaming the nazi's for what they did for instance, is something different. They lived in a time were people should have known better.

I find the germanic people and the romans equally fascinating - why not just leave it at that.

 

[Angela]

I'm sorry that you feel that this has anything to do with my personal feelings about the relative worth of these groups of ancient people. Much of my academic training prior to my post graduate work was in history. This is historical analysis, and nothing more.

And I'm sorry, Rizla, but your interpretation of both what the article said and what I said is faulty. You're reacting emotionally, in reaction to some imagined slight, imo, and therefore you're not at all following the logic of what I said in relation to that article.

Let's turn to the article first. Clearly, the Romans thought that the tribes with whom they came into contact, i.e. the Celts, Germans etc. were "barbaric", as in wild, savage, lacking in civilization. (The Greeks felt the same way about the non-Greeks in Europe with whom they came into contact.)

That absolutely doesn't mean that they based or said they based their conquests on a desire to civilize them, although it may mean they believed that gave them the right to conquer them. Surely you can see the difference between those two things?

One way you can see what I mean is with the Greeks. The Romans never considered the Greeks savages. If anything they thought the Greeks were effete, too civilized. Did it stop them from conquering them and enslaving a lot of them? Clearly not. It just meant that Greek slaves, since they were literate, educated, conversant with "civilized" norms, were the most prized slaves.

The thing to do, Rizla, when studying warfare, is to always, absolutely always "follow the money", or follow the economic gain. Tribes fight other tribes, countries fight other countries over resources: land, minerals, water, gold, women, slaves, you name it. If you can paint your opponents as barbaric sub-humans it helps to justify it in your mind.

Here's another way of seeing what I mean. The European countries, predominantly England, engaged in large scale conquests of other lands for economic reasons as well. However, the twist they added, which I personally think is hypocritical, is to state that they were doing it for the good of these savages.

Rudyard Kipling wrote a very famous poem for its time called the White Man's Burden which served as a sort of banner for the concept.

"In the later 20th century, in the context of decolonisation and the Developing World, the phrase "the white man's burden" was emblematic of the "well-intentioned" aspects of Western colonialism and "Eurocentrism".^[16] The poem's imperialist interpretation also includes the milder, philanthropic colonialism of the missionaries:

The implication, of course, was that the Empire existed not for the benefit — economic or strategic or otherwise — of Britain, itself, but in order that primitive peoples, incapable of self-government, could, with British guidance, eventually become civilized (and Christianized).^[17]

The poem positively represents colonialism as the moral burden of the white race, which is divinely destined to civilise the brutish and barbarous parts of the world
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man%27s_Burden

This is the kind of attitude to which I was referring. There's nothing really like it in antiquity.

In fact, the Romans sort of invented the concept later revived in France after other large scale encounters with less "civilized" people of the "Noble Savage", whom they contrasted with their more civilized and therefore corrupt societies. Obviously, anyone with a head on their shoulders should know that both the "barbarity" and "nobleness" are exaggerations, formulated for their own benefit and not having anything necessarily to do with the "natives" themselves.

For example:
"Thus it is that the German women live in a chastity that is impregnable, uncorrupted by the temptations of public shows or the excitements of banquets. Clandestine love-letters are unknown to men and women alike. Adultery in that populous nation is rare in the extreme, and punishment is summary and left to the husband. He shaves off his wife's hair, strips her in the presence of kinsmen, thrusts her from his house and flogs her through the whole village. They have, in fact, no mercy on a woman who prostitutes her chastity. Neither beauty, youth nor wealth can find the sinner a husband. No one in Germany finds vice amusing, or calls it 'up-to-date' to debauch and be debauched. It is still better with those states in which only virgins marry, and the hopes and prayers of a wife are settled once and for all. They take one husband, like the one body or life that they possess. No thought or desire must stray beyond him. They must not love the husband so much as the married state. To restrict the number of children or to put to death any born after the heir is considered criminal. Good morality is more effective in Germany than good laws in some places that we know."

https://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/tacitusc/germany/chap1.htm

I don't know how you get from that to saying I was somehow disparaging the tribes of northern Europe.

In so far as I have a personal opinion about the "Fall of Rome", of course I'm not "for" something that destroyed not only our infrastructure, but decimated our people. However, I would feel the same way if I were not Italian, contrary to what you are implying. My opinion, academic as well as personal, is, as I have said again and again, the fact that I am always "for" the civilized "core" against the incursions of the less "civilized" peripheral peoples.

Frankly, I don't know how anyone not blinded by "ethnic" feeling and bias could think otherwise. How could one think it's a good thing for humanity as a whole to have all our carefully acquired technology and culture, built up over thousands of years, including literacy, be lost, and to be plunged into a "Dark Ages" of hundreds if not thousands of years, where we have to climb our way back up all over again, be something to be applauded. My attitude is the same whether we're talking about the Han Chinese, or the Indians, or certain cultures in Africa and South America. It has nothing to do with my personal ethnicity. I know it seems to be the cycle of human history, but I don't have to like it. For goodness sakes' both sides of my family are from Ligure areas. The Romans killed the Ligures, enslaved them, exiled them. Only some survived. I don't bear grudges, and not just because I'm also descended from the invaders. It's because the Ligures chose the wrong side, imo. They were much better after their incorporation into the Roman world than they were before.

Honestly, when I go through this over and over again, I am constantly amazed that so many people in this hobby think these are novel opinions, only held by Italians or other Southern Europeans. People, you have to read some of the thousands of books and papers written on the subject in English, books and the ideas from them to which I was introduced in AMERICAN universities, by AMERICANS of primarily Northern European ancestry.

 

[Northener]

I'm sorry that you feel that this has anything to do with my personal feelings about the relative worth of these groups of ancient people. Much of my academic training prior to my post graduate work was in history. This is historical analysis, and nothing more.

And I'm sorry, Rizla, but your interpretation of both what the article said and what I said is faulty. You're reacting emotionally, in reaction to some imagined slight, imo, and therefore you're not at all following the logic of what I said in relation to that article.

Let's turn to the article first. Clearly, the Romans thought that the tribes with whom they came into contact, i.e. the Celts, Germans etc. were "barbaric", as in wild, savage, lacking in civilization. (The Greeks felt the same way about the non-Greeks in Europe with whom they came into contact.)

That absolutely doesn't mean that they based or said they based their conquests on a desire to civilize them, although it may mean they believed that gave them the right to conquer them. Surely you can see the difference between those two things?

One way you can see what I mean is with the Greeks. The Romans never considered the Greeks savages. If anything they thought the Greeks were effete, too civilized. Did it stop them from conquering them and enslaving a lot of them? Clearly not. It just meant that Greek slaves, since they were literate, educated, conversant with "civilized" norms, were the most prized slaves.

The thing to do, Rizla, when studying warfare, is to always, absolutely always "follow the money", or follow the economic gain. Tribes fight other tribes, countries fight other countries over resources: land, minerals, water, gold, women, slaves, you name it. If you can paint your opponents as barbaric sub-humans it helps to justify it in your mind.

Here's another way of seeing what I mean. The European countries, predominantly England, engaged in large scale conquests of other lands for economic reasons as well. However, the twist they added, which I personally think is hypocritical, is to state that they were doing it for the good of these savages.

Rudyard Kipling wrote a very famous poem for its time called the White Man's Burden which served as a sort of banner for the concept.

"In the later 20th century, in the context of decolonisation and the Developing World, the phrase "the white man's burden" was emblematic of the "well-intentioned" aspects of Western colonialism and "Eurocentrism".^[16] The poem's imperialist interpretation also includes the milder, philanthropic colonialism of the missionaries:

The implication, of course, was that the Empire existed not for the benefit — economic or strategic or otherwise — of Britain, itself, but in order that primitive peoples, incapable of self-government, could, with British guidance, eventually become civilized (and Christianized).^[17]

The poem positively represents colonialism as the moral burden of the white race, which is divinely destined to civilise the brutish and barbarous parts of the world
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man%27s_Burden

This is the kind of attitude to which I was referring. There's nothing really like it in antiquity.

In fact, the Romans sort of invented the concept later revived in France after other large scale encounters with less "civilized" people of the "Noble Savage", whom they contrasted with their more civilized and therefore corrupt societies. Obviously, anyone with a head on their shoulders should know that both the "barbarity" and "nobleness" are exaggerations, formulated for their own benefit and not having anything necessarily to do with the "natives" themselves.

For example:
"Thus it is that the German women live in a chastity that is impregnable, uncorrupted by the temptations of public shows or the excitements of banquets. Clandestine love-letters are unknown to men and women alike. Adultery in that populous nation is rare in the extreme, and punishment is summary and left to the husband. He shaves off his wife's hair, strips her in the presence of kinsmen, thrusts her from his house and flogs her through the whole village. They have, in fact, no mercy on a woman who prostitutes her chastity. Neither beauty, youth nor wealth can find the sinner a husband. No one in Germany finds vice amusing, or calls it 'up-to-date' to debauch and be debauched. It is still better with those states in which only virgins marry, and the hopes and prayers of a wife are settled once and for all. They take one husband, like the one body or life that they possess. No thought or desire must stray beyond him. They must not love the husband so much as the married state. To restrict the number of children or to put to death any born after the heir is considered criminal. Good morality is more effective in Germany than good laws in some places that we know."

https://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/tacitusc/germany/chap1.htm

I don't know how you get from that to saying I was somehow disparaging the tribes of northern Europe.

In so far as I have a personal opinion about the "Fall of Rome", of course I'm not "for" something that destroyed not only our infrastructure, but decimated our people. However, I would feel the same way if I were not Italian, contrary to what you are implying. My opinion, academic as well as personal, is, as I have said again and again, the fact that I am always "for" the civilized "core" against the incursions of the less "civilized" peripheral peoples.

Frankly, I don't know how anyone not blinded by "ethnic" feeling and bias could think otherwise. How could one think it's a good thing for humanity as a whole to have all our carefully acquired technology and culture, built up over thousands of years, including literacy, be lost, and to be plunged into a "Dark Ages" of hundreds if not thousands of years, where we have to climb our way back up all over again, be something to be applauded. My attitude is the same whether we're talking about the Han Chinese, or the Indians, or certain cultures in Africa and South America. It has nothing to do with my personal ethnicity. I know it seems to be the cycle of human history, but I don't have to like it. For goodness sakes' both sides of my family are from Ligure areas. The Romans killed the Ligures, enslaved them, exiled them. Only some survived. I don't bear grudges, and not just because I'm also descended from the invaders. It's because the Ligures chose the wrong side, imo. They were much better after their incorporation into the Roman world than they were before.

Honestly, when I go through this over and over again, I am constantly amazed that so many people in this hobby think these are novel opinions, only held by Italians or other Southern Europeans. People, you have to read some of the thousands of books and papers written on the subject in English, books and the ideas from them to which I was introduced in AMERICAN universities, by AMERICANS of primarily Northern European ancestry.

@angela I agree no white man’s burden and certainly no racialism.....but as said this Roman frame did in fact certainly dehumanize the ‘barbarians’. I have no number but I guess the Romans probably did slaughter more Celts and Germans than Greek.....and that’s partly because of the dehumanizing of the ‘wild barbarians.’

By the way did you see this recent reconstruction of Caesar that’s whole lot of different than the statues of him.....
https://goo.gl/images/Y2ZNok





Sent from my iPad using Eupedia Forum

 

[Salento]

By the way did you see this recent reconstruction of Caesar that’s whole lot of different than the statues of him.....
https://goo.gl/images/Y2ZNok

You have to be kidding me. This guy doesn’t even look human. Is this a joke or is it for real?

 

[Cato]

He looks like one of my relatives but uglier lol

Utilizzando Tapatalk

 

[Jovialis]

There's lots of other busts of Julius Caesar. To suggest that bizzare one is an accurate representation is absurd. That reconstruction is based on a bust as well, that was severely damaged, and remade with a 3d program. Obviously it's not a good one, if every other depiction has him with a normal skull. So I don't know why the artist would choose an outlier, unless it was for blatant sensationalism.

 

[Northener]

no sensationalism....a respectable museum did the reconstruction:
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2018/06...-on-his-head-new-3d-reconstruction-shows.html

 

[Northener]

for better pictures see:
https://www.hln.be/wetenschap-plane...erlijk-en-overwinningen-dan-gedacht~a3a43ca4/

google translate:
The Roman ruler Julius Caesar, murdered on March 15 of the year 44 BC, has a new face. Physical anthropologist Maja d'Hollosy made it for the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, where it is unveiled today and can still be seen for free.
The bust was the idea of ​​archaeologist Tom Buijtendorp, whose book "Caesar in the Low Countries" was published at the same time. D'Hollosy used, among other things, his research results that have now been published. She went on for the face of Caesar further from two busts, one from Leiden and one from Turin, and from coins with Caesar from his own time. Especially the head in Turin seems certain that it is made alive and reasonably realistic, says Buijtendorp. "So he has a crazy bulge on his head. A doctor said that such a thing occurs in a heavy delivery. You do not invent that as an artist. And realistic portraits were in fashion ".


The image in Leiden is very similar to that in Turin, although the most powerful man of his time lost a piece of his forehead, mouth and nose. D'Hollosy made a 3d print of the head from Leiden. There she took off the top layer and then applied a new one, using clay and silicone rubber. That way Julius got a lifelike face. "I do not let him look happy and friendly. He was a general who was about corpses, "says d'Hollosy.


Defeat
According to ancient sources he had almost black eyes and a somewhat white skin. That gave D'Hollosy him, just like pepper-and-salt-colored hair. It is not much hair, because the hair of posthumous images is made up. "He falls a bit of his pedestal now," says Buijtendorp. "He was less heroic than expected in terms of victories and looks".
He probably calls it that Caesar suffered the greatest defeat near the Limburg Sint Pietersberg. He really must have walked around there personally. "The Jekerdal is exactly right with the description given by Caesar," he says. "While it has long been assumed that Caesar did not or hardly ever came to the Low Countries, recent discoveries and analyzes indicate that he is about half of his campaign time in the north. with considerable setbacks ".

 

[Jovialis]

And it is based on a single bust from the museum's collection that looks unlike other busts of Caesar. So regardless, it's absurd to say this is what ceasar looked like.

 

[Northener]

And it is based on a single bust from the museum's collection that looks unlike other busts of Caesar. So regardless, it's absurd to say this is what ceasar looked like.

No not based on a single source....see the article. I guess he is much more human and less statue now!

 

[davef]

for better pictures see:
https://www.hln.be/wetenschap-plane...erlijk-en-overwinningen-dan-gedacht~a3a43ca4/

google translate:
The Roman ruler Julius Caesar, murdered on March 15 of the year 44 BC, has a new face. Physical anthropologist Maja d'Hollosy made it for the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, where it is unveiled today and can still be seen for free.
The bust was the idea of ​​archaeologist Tom Buijtendorp, whose book "Caesar in the Low Countries" was published at the same time. D'Hollosy used, among other things, his research results that have now been published. She went on for the face of Caesar further from two busts, one from Leiden and one from Turin, and from coins with Caesar from his own time. Especially the head in Turin seems certain that it is made alive and reasonably realistic, says Buijtendorp. "So he has a crazy bulge on his head. A doctor said that such a thing occurs in a heavy delivery. You do not invent that as an artist. And realistic portraits were in fashion ".


The image in Leiden is very similar to that in Turin, although the most powerful man of his time lost a piece of his forehead, mouth and nose. D'Hollosy made a 3d print of the head from Leiden. There she took off the top layer and then applied a new one, using clay and silicone rubber. That way Julius got a lifelike face. "I do not let him look happy and friendly. He was a general who was about corpses, "says d'Hollosy.


Defeat
According to ancient sources he had almost black eyes and a somewhat white skin. That gave D'Hollosy him, just like pepper-and-salt-colored hair. It is not much hair, because the hair of posthumous images is made up. "He falls a bit of his pedestal now," says Buijtendorp. "He was less heroic than expected in terms of victories and looks".
He probably calls it that Caesar suffered the greatest defeat near the Limburg Sint Pietersberg. He really must have walked around there personally. "The Jekerdal is exactly right with the description given by Caesar," he says. "While it has long been assumed that Caesar did not or hardly ever came to the Low Countries, recent discoveries and analyzes indicate that he is about half of his campaign time in the north. with considerable setbacks ".

Sorry, no offense but with her saying he was all about corpses and how he "falls off his pedestal" due to her alterations (on top of using a damaged, outlying bust as Jovialis pointed out) leads me to believe she's trying to degrade his reputation. Could be wrong but something is suspect

 

[Northener]

Sorry, no offense but with her saying he was all about corpses and how he "falls off his pedestal" due to her alterations (on top of using a damaged, outlying bust as Jovialis pointed out) leads me to believe she's trying to degrade his reputation. Could be wrong but something is suspect

May be typical Dutch Davef....they want to humanize him.....Dutch don’t like statues I guess [emoji6]


Sent from my iPad using Eupedia Forum

 

[Northener]

I don’t know if this I accurate or not....but keep in mind that the statues were mostly not free artist products, they got paid for delivering a heroic statesman not a n ordinary man....but after all he was ordinary, or is this also too Dutch davef hahahaha


Sent from my iPad using Eupedia Forum

 

[Jovialis]

No not based on a single source....see the article. I guess he is much more human and less statue now!

Oh excuse me, two damaged busts and some coins.

Nevermind the countless other busts that depict what the man looked like...

2000 years from now, will they think this is what Cristiano Ronaldo looks like?

Cherry picking a couple bad statues out of the many others doesn't sound like a fair representation to me.

Also, the artist chalks up this shape due to a "heavy birth", so it says nothing from an anthropological stand point. But it probably just has to due with the fact the they're inaccurate depictions of Caesar to begin with.

This is what Julius Caesar looked like:

 

[Salento]

I don’t know if this I accurate or not....but keep in mind that the statues were mostly not free artist products, they got paid for delivering a heroic statesman not a n ordinary man....but after all he was ordinary, or is this also too Dutch davef hahahaha

Caesar’s life and accomplishments were clearly not ordinary and this rendering is amateurish at best.

 

[Angela]

@Northener,
Strange rejoinder to our discussion, but since you asked me...

@Members
I don't see why a reconstruction based on a single or even two damaged marble portrait busts (not, I would emphasize, his actual skull, but two busts she has chosen from among many) would be held to definitely portray his appearance, much less be grounds for speculation about his birth delivery etc.

Moreover, I don't think this anthropologist did a very good job even in reproducing a life like or even accurate image of the bust itself, whether or not the bust is representative of Giulio Cesare in the flesh. How could anyone think that "reproduction" looks anything like the portrait bust on which it's supposedly based?

The eyes are definitely not as closely set in the bust as they are in the reproduction, nor is the head so strangely shaped. I'd never guess it was based on these busts. It also took me about two to three minutes of close examination to see what could possibly be the "crazy bulge" on his head. (Some of you don't find a statement like that sensationalistic? What is it? Scientific?) Is she talking about the thing that looks like a fatty tumor or something that's on the left side of his forehead as you look at his face? I can't see anything else that looks like a "bulge" in the "reproduction", much less a "crazy" one.

She also seems to want her cake and to eat it too. The busts, and particularly the busts she's chosen, must be incredibly accurate, well, except for the hair, which must be fake. Why? Because they're the ugliest they must be the most accurate? (The ancient sources do say he was balding; perhaps he's the one who set the fashion for the "Caesar" cut. ) Even if he was balding, how does she know he wasn't totally bald, or to the contrary just had male pattern baldness and a comb "over" or "down". Why would she give him those silly wisps of hair? I also don't get the whole thing about he's stern or whatever she said, not smiling, as if that's a surprise. I'm quite familiar with Roman art and I can't remember a single one where a Roman statesman is smiling. It sounds as if at the least, before she set to work, she should have done a thorough review of Roman statuary.

Sorry, I don't think I'm being overly sensitive when I say it looks like what we call a "hatchet job". There's also a give away in having to bring it to my attention as well in what was presumably thought to be some sort of "gotcha" moment, although I don't quite know what this has to do with our prior discussion.

All of that said, I'm sure he was stern: he was a ruthless general and a ruthless politician. You don't rise to those heights otherwise. I would bet he also wasn't what they or we would call beautiful. The Julio-Claudians weren't a very attractive bunch, for one thing. No one in antiquity ever described him as such either. Plus, even given the cultural differences in modern versus ancient standards of attractiveness, I don't think any of the portrait busts depict male "beauty". They do depict intelligence, strength, even ruthlessness, but not beauty. I'm sure it was immaterial to him. It was power that interested the Julio-Claudians, not their own looks.

Indeed, it wasn't even good looks that necessarily interested them in their own relationships. Cleopatra, if the coins struck during her reign are accurate, was a singularly unattractive woman physically, as even the ancient sources hint by never once claiming she was beautiful. Fascinating, yes. Beautiful, no. The same could be said of him. The gossip of the time was that he was insatiable sexually, and never short of conquests, often of other men's wives, even when he was poor and struggling. Of course, when they were interested in beauty, they could buy it.

Here is the Turin bust, by the way. It's indeed an outlier in the way it depicts him. Does that make it more accurate?

This is the front view I think. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Is the unevenness at the top what she means by the "crazy" bulge? Christ, good thing I have a lot of hair and she can't ever see my skull. I have a lot of bumps too.

Anyone have a picture of the Leiden bust?

I must say it seems Bicicleur isn't the only person from the Low Countries who still harbors a grudge from two thousand years ago.

We get it, you hate him. Do you have to make him look like and label him a freak of some kind? It smacks of how the Lancastrians described Richard III. I mean, I'm sure the Irish hate William of Orange too, and I'm not pleased with the invasions of Alaric, or the Lombards, or Charles V, or Barbarossa, or on and on. I could name dozens and dozens of invaders of Italy. It's not personal at this late date, however. Well, it's personal with Germans during WWII, but that's much closer to home. Honestly, guys, get a grip. If we had this kind of personal animosity for all our foreign invaders we'd hate every nation in Europe.

Btw, Giulio Cesare was handsome by comparison with some Roman statesmen. Whatever else, they had no vanity if they approved these busts.

Here's Cato the Elder. He was from a famous Plebeian family of soldiers, and possessor of a magnificent reputation as a soldier, statesman, and sage. My husband likes him: his stubbornness and determination to never give up until his enemies were ground into the dust, I think; I personally think he was a bore. I wouldn't put it past him to send a copy of this bust to the Carthaginians. That would give them nightmares and remind them that he meant what he said when he repeated over and over again: Carthage Must Be Destroyed.

Pompeo Magno was no beauty either, nor did he seem like a barrel of laughs, as can be seen above.

Some other, perhaps more objective "reconstructions" of portrait busts, and not by Italians to my knowledge, I might add.

[/IMG]

[
/IMG]

[/IMG]

I'm going to copy and paste this on the more appropriate thread, and this one should be reserved for discussions of Iceland.

 

[Govan]

IM SO used to Asterix comics Caesar , feels weird.

 

[Jovialis]

@Northener,
Strange rejoinder to our discussion, but since you asked me...

@Members
I don't see why a reconstruction based on a single or even two damaged marble portrait busts (not, I would emphasize, his actual skull, but two busts she has chosen from among many) would be held to definitely portray his appearance, much less be grounds for speculation about his birth delivery etc.

Moreover, I don't think this anthropologist did a very good job even in reproducing a life like or even accurate image of the bust itself, whether or not the bust is representative of Giulio Cesare in the flesh. How could anyone think that "reproduction" looks anything like the portrait bust on which it's supposedly based?

The eyes are definitely not as closely set in the bust as they are in the reproduction, nor is the head so strangely shaped. I'd never guess it was based on these busts. It also took me about two to three minutes of close examination to see what could possibly be the "crazy bulge" on his head. (Some of you don't find a statement like that sensationalistic? What is it? Scientific?) Is she talking about the thing that looks like a fatty tumor or something that's on the left side of his forehead as you look at his face? I can't see anything else that looks like a "bulge" in the "reproduction", much less a "crazy" one.

She also seems to want her cake and to eat it too. The busts, and particularly the busts she's chosen, must be incredibly accurate, well, except for the hair, which must be fake. Why? Because they're the ugliest they must be the most accurate? (The ancient sources do say he was balding; perhaps he's the one who set the fashion for the "Caesar" cut. ) Even if he was balding, how does she know he wasn't totally bald, or to the contrary just had male pattern baldness and a comb "over" or "down". Why would she give him those silly wisps of hair? I also don't get the whole thing about he's stern or whatever she said, not smiling, as if that's a surprise. I'm quite familiar with Roman art and I can't remember a single one where a Roman statesman is smiling. It sounds as if at the least, before she set to work, she should have done a thorough review of Roman statuary.

Sorry, I don't think I'm being overly sensitive when I say it looks like what we call a "hatchet job". There's also a give away in having to bring it to my attention as well in what was presumably thought to be some sort of "gotcha" moment, although I don't quite know what this has to do with our prior discussion.

All of that said, I'm sure he was stern: he was a ruthless general and a ruthless politician. You don't rise to those heights otherwise. I would bet he also wasn't what they or we would call beautiful. The Julio-Claudians weren't a very attractive bunch, for one thing. No one in antiquity ever described him as such either. Plus, even given the cultural differences in modern versus ancient standards of attractiveness, I don't think any of the portrait busts depict male "beauty". They do depict intelligence, strength, even ruthlessness, but not beauty. I'm sure it was immaterial to him. It was power that interested the Julio-Claudians, not their own looks.

Indeed, it wasn't even good looks that necessarily interested them in their own relationships. Cleopatra, if the coins struck during her reign are accurate, was a singularly unattractive woman physically, as even the ancient sources hint by never once claiming she was beautiful. Fascinating, yes. Beautiful, no. The same could be said of him. The gossip of the time was that he was insatiable sexually, and never short of conquests, often of other men's wives, even when he was poor and struggling. Of course, when they were interested in beauty, they could buy it.

Here is the Turin bust, by the way. It's indeed an outlier in the way it depicts him. Does that make it more accurate?

This is the front view I think. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Is the unevenness at the top what she means by the "crazy" bulge? Christ, good thing I have a lot of hair and she can't ever see my skull. I have a lot of bumps too.

Anyone have a picture of the Leiden bust?

I must say it seems Bicicleur isn't the only person from the Low Countries who still harbors a grudge from two thousand years ago.

We get it, you hate him. Do you have to make him look like and label him a freak of some kind? It smacks of how the Lancastrians described Richard III. I mean, I'm sure the Irish hate William of Orange too, and I'm not pleased with the invasions of Alaric, or the Lombards, or Charles V, or Barbarossa, or on and on. I could name dozens and dozens of invaders of Italy. It's not personal at this late date, however. Well, it's personal with Germans during WWII, but that's much closer to home. Honestly, guys, get a grip. If we had this kind of personal animosity for all our foreign invaders we'd hate every nation in Europe.

Btw, Giulio Cesare was handsome by comparison with some Roman statesmen. Whatever else, they had no vanity if they approved these busts.

Here's Cato the Elder. He was from a famous Plebeian family of soldiers, and possessor of a magnificent reputation as a soldier, statesman, and sage. My husband likes him: his stubbornness and determination to never give up until his enemies were ground into the dust, I think; I personally think he was a bore. I wouldn't put it past him to send a copy of this bust to the Carthaginians. That would give them nightmares and remind them that he meant what he said when he repeated over and over again: Carthage Must Be Destroyed.

Pompeo Magno was no beauty either, nor did he seem like a barrel of laughs, as can be seen above.

Some other, perhaps more objective "reconstructions" of portrait busts, and not by Italians to my knowledge, I might add.

[/IMG]

[
/IMG]

[/IMG]

I'm going to copy and paste this on the more appropriate thread, and this one should be reserved for discussions of Iceland.

Very well put!

Here's something else I noticed from the article:

for better pictures see:
https://www.hln.be/wetenschap-plane...erlijk-en-overwinningen-dan-gedacht~a3a43ca4/


google translate:
The Roman ruler Julius Caesar, murdered on March 15 of the year 44 BC, has a new face. Physical anthropologist Maja d'Hollosy made it for the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, where it is unveiled today and can still be seen for free.
The bust was the idea of ​​archaeologist Tom Buijtendorp, whose book "Caesar in the Low Countries" was published at the same time. D'Hollosy used, among other things, his research results that have now been published. She went on for the face of Caesar further from two busts, one from Leiden and one from Turin, and from coins with Caesar from his own time. Especially the head in Turin seems certain that it is made alive and reasonably realistic, says Buijtendorp. "So he has a crazy bulge on his head. A doctor said that such a thing occurs in a heavy delivery. You do not invent that as an artist. And realistic portraits were in fashion ".




The image in Leiden is very similar to that in Turin, although the most powerful man of his time lost a piece of his forehead, mouth and nose. D'Hollosy made a 3d print of the head from Leiden. There she took off the top layer and then applied a new one, using clay and silicone rubber. That way Julius got a lifelike face. "I do not let him look happy and friendly. He was a general who was about corpses, "says d'Hollosy.




Defeat
According to ancient sources he had almost black eyes and a somewhat white skin. That gave D'Hollosy him, just like pepper-and-salt-colored hair. It is not much hair, because the hair of posthumous images is made up. "He falls a bit of his pedestal now," says Buijtendorp. "He was less heroic than expected in terms of victories and looks".
He probably calls it that Caesar suffered the greatest defeat near the Limburg Sint Pietersberg. He really must have walked around there personally. "The Jekerdal is exactly right with the description given by Caesar," he says. "While it has long been assumed that Caesar did not or hardly ever came to the Low Countries, recent discoveries and analyzes indicate that he is about half of his campaign time in the north. with considerable setbacks ".

The article goes on to talk about the color of his eyes being less "heroic", under the subtitle “Defeat”, just because they were dark... I would expect his eyes to be dark. That sounds like a value system only Nordicist racists care about. I don't think the Romans based their heroism on eye color, like Nordicists do. Romans based it on achievements.

 

[Salento]

IM SO used to Asterix comics Caesar , feels weird.

Asterix is a ridiculous character, and so is the way the Romans are portrayed in the comic books and Movies.
IMO was created out of Resentment, and the Inability to accept the Final defeat of the Gallic Tribes led by Vercingetorix by Julius Caesar at Alesia.
(Besides the illustrator Uderzo, who did it for Money.)
I’m Glad that in the USA most people have NEVER heard of Asterix, and I hope that stays this way.

 

[Northener]

Very well put!

Here's something else I noticed from the article:







The article goes on to talk about the color of his eyes being less "heroic", under the subtitle “Defeat”, just because they were dark... I would expect his eyes to be dark. That sounds like a value system only Nordicist racists care about. I don't think the Romans based their heroism on eye color, like Nordicists do. Romans based it on achievements.

Davef I think Angela got a good story!!! But this is too far fetched....


Sent from my iPad using Eupedia Forum