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What Did Constantius II Really Look Like?

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Doctorwho2485's Avatar
New Zealand
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 Posted 10/27/2016  11:27 pm Show Profile   Bookmark this topic Add Doctorwho2485 to your friends list Get a Link to this Message Number of Subscribers
Hi Everyone this topic is about Constantius II and how did he looked like in real life I saw on a website that he was sort with blond hair sounds like Caligula to me but I'll like to hear from everyone because his coinage is so very common e.g. Fallen Horseman. Got a pic here too.



What-Did-Constantius-II-Really-Look-Like?
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sel_69l's Avatar
Australia
21788 Posts
 Posted 10/28/2016  02:41 am  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add sel_69l to your friends list Get a Link to this Reply
Google:
"Constantius 11 plaster bust"
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echizento's Avatar
United States
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 Posted 10/28/2016  09:39 am  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add echizento to your friends list Get a Link to this Reply
Other than the images on coins and a few carved busts which are artistic conceptions they are going to be the closest we are going to get to his true image.

http://www.ancient.eu/image/5150/
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captainyesterday555's Avatar
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 Posted 10/29/2016  02:22 am  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add captainyesterday555 to your friends list Get a Link to this Reply
Here is the description of Constantius II from Gore Vidal's novel, Julian (one of my favorites), when Julian first meets the emperor. It is fiction, but I think it does a good job:

Constantius was a man of overwhelming dignity. That was the most remarkable thing about him: even his most ordinary gestures seemed carefully rehearsed. Like the Emperor Augustus, he wore lifts in his sandals to make himself appear tall. He was clean-shaven, with large melancholy eyes. He had his father Constantine's large nose and thin, somewhat peevish mouth. The upper part of his body was impressively muscular but his legs were dwarfish. He wore the purple, a heavy robe which hung from shoulder to heel; on his head was a fillet of sliver set with pearls.

...

For an instant I was so close to Constantius that I could make out every pore in his face, which was sunburned dark as a Persian's. I notices the silkiness of his straight brown hair, only just beginning to turn gray. He was thirty-two, but I thought him ancient. I also remember thinking: what must it be like to be Emperor of Rome? to know that one's face on coins, on monuments, painted and sculptured, is known to all the world? And here-so close to me that I could feel the reciprocal warmth of his skin--was the original of that world-famous face, not bronze or marble but soft flesh and bone, like me, like any other man. And I wondered what IS it like to be the center of the world?
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Doctorwho2485's Avatar
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 Posted 10/29/2016  04:07 am  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add Doctorwho2485 to your friends list Get a Link to this Reply
Awesome Everyone
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 Posted 10/29/2016  11:59 am  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add FVRIVS RVFVS to your friends list Get a Link to this Reply
Later representations of the Roman emperors depicted them as they wanted to be seen.
Generally "pious and holy" with eyes looking upward and a rather benign look about them.
(Despite having usually killed off more than half the blood relatives !)

The illustration you posted is interesting. I am no expert on Constantius II but it seems a bit odd to me that the emperor is flanked by two horsemen that are certainly meant to represent Dacian warriors ! They both carry aloft the 'Draco' which was worshipped by the Dacians and was/is a national symbol.
I am unsure if the "pious" emperor Constantius II would have entered Rome with pagan banners flying beside his quadriga !
But I suppose stranger things have happened.
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sel_69l's Avatar
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 Posted 10/31/2016  9:55 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add sel_69l to your friends list Get a Link to this Reply
Whenever a new emperor came to power, it was important that his image appeared on the coinage as soon as possible.

The coinage was a crude form of a 'newspaper' in the Roman World. The coinage was the best way in inform the populace that a new Emperor had come to power.

The various mints throughout the Empire were required to stike his image on the coinage, and the way to make that image consistent throughout the mint system was to quickly make plaster busts of the new Emperor and send one to every operating mint.
The die cutters used the new image of the plaster bust to enable them to put that new image on the circulating coinage.
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