Gaius Marius, hero of the Republic, destroyer of Vikings, all-around badass leader, right? Yeah, abo

Gaius Marius, hero of the Republic, destroyer of Vikings, all-around badass leader, right? Yeah, about that. This bust of Marius can tell us more about the history of Rome and the world than sometimes we want to admit to ourselves. See his sliced-off nose? You could interpret that as 1) wear and tear, or more interestingly 2) damnatio memoriae, a process of systematically erasing disgraced figures from history, which was a fate worse than death for the Romans. But why would anyone want to do that to Marius, since he was so good at fighting Danes? Well, towards his later life, dude’s political allies and puppets got a little out of control, got themselves assassinated, and Marius ended up retiring in embarrassment. So maybe somebody got really mad and slashed the nose off his statue. This is all fine and plausible, but I want to raise an interpretation that will call into question everything we know about the Western world. Since, after all, this bust was carved in a time when Romans were really into realistic portraiture of old men, is it not more likely that this is just what Marius looked like? If my suggestion is correct, it is likely that Marius was actually someone we know under a different name: Voldemort. Marius retired in disgrace not because of political scandal, but because he was gathering his dark magical powers to one day rise against all Europe. More research is necessary to determine the full ramifications of this interpretation. -- source link

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