This buff champion right here, whom we have caught just before he dons his armor, is the good old em

This buff champion right here, whom we have caught just before he dons his armor, is the good old emperor Vespasian (b. November 17, 9CE, d. June 23, 79CE; ruled 69-79; was a Scorpio). He and his dynasty, the Flavians, took rulership over from the Julio-Claudians, who had really let things go with Caligula and Nero. After the J-Cs threw in the towel there were four emperors in a single year, and when Vespasian got back from putting down Jewish rebellions out east, he knew what he had to do (establish himself, a well-known military badass, as emperor). And that’s great and all, but what interests me are his kooky portrait statues. As you can see, Vespasian had a jolly, toadish smirk, and his cranium was massive. He was a brainiac. He was also clearly not a spring chicken–when he became emperor he was already sixty. Although it is possible he was a very buff old dude, it’s pretty unlikely. So what’s with the statues? If you’ve ever been in the old part of a fine arts museum you’ve probably seen Greek and Roman statues with the wrong head for a body. Usually it’s really obvious, because the head is a different kind of stone, or there’s a not-very-matchy seam. Sometimes it’s the Romans who knocked off somebody’s head and stuck on their own; usually it’s Victorian archaeologists who were just a bit slapdash. Only there aren’t any seams on Vespasian’s head–no Frankenstein here! Well, here’s what’s going on. The Romans loved a good wrinkly pudgy wise-looking old guy. If you were an oldish Roman dude without a lot of wrinkles, you might tell your portraitist to put a couple extra in there to make you look really authoritative and important. This kind of portrait is called “veristic” because it is true to life, and because it sounds like it could be “viristic”, which would mean “manly as hell” if it was a word (it’s not). Here’s the problem: the Romans didn’t want to look at a wrinkly old-dude body in their statuary. While they had less access to plastic surgery than we moderns, at least they could tell the sculptor to make the body hot! And hey, less posing if you’re just putting your wizened old head on a sexy buff bod. Vespasian was just trying to show off how wise and yet youthful he is. What a guy, he was really the whole package. He sure knew how to strike a pose while quelling provincial rebellions. -- source link

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