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