Posted on 06/27/2024 1:05:45 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Experts have found a rare bronze bust depicting one of the most colourful characters in Roman history – the mad, sexually-depraved Emperor Caligula.
Considered lost for nearly 200 years, the 5-inch-tall bust was originally excavated at Herculaneum, a Roman town destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79...
After a determined decade-long search, the bust has been found by Dr Silvia Davoli, curator of Strawberry Hill and historian at the University of Oxford...
At some point in the 18th century, the bust was gifted to renowned English writer and politician Horace Walpole (1717-1797) by Sir Horace Mann, a distant relative who was the British envoy to Italy.
Both he and Walpole marvelled at the expressiveness on its face that according to them represented the Emperor 'at the beginning of his madness'.
Like many of his treasures, Walpole kept it at Strawberry Hill House, his Gothic Revival villa built in Twickenham from 1749...
But in 1842, the Bronze Head of Caligula was sold in the 'Great Sale' when most of his collection disappeared into private hands – and had since been unaccounted for...
Although excavated from Herculaneum, the experts can't be entirely sure whether it was cast during Roman times or much more recently.
The smoothness of the bronze surface may indicate it a Renaissance sculpture that somehow got entangled with the Herculaneum excavation in the 17th century...
He is quoted as having the catchphrase: 'Remember that I have the right to do anything to anybody.'
...In AD 41, Caligula was stabbed to death, along with his wife and daughter, by officers of the Praetorian Guard led by Cassius Chaerea.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Actually I like that aspect. So many modern movies use all this new AI to make it look spectacularly real and it still doesn’t.
These old film producers essentially decided the audience would know they couldn’t recreate such scenes to perfection and instead concentrated on characters, plot and acting with wonderful results.
Proof? Watch any modern day marvel or Disney (or others) and watch these just awful movies with great special effects and WOKE messaging BTW.
Even in bronze, them’s crazy eyes.
But at least he did not name his horse a Consul, only bragged that he could.
Caligula may have threatened to make his horse a Senator, but it took the U.S. to do that, and even then we only use part of the horses.
The very wealthy in Rome drank from containers made of glass. The glass making process used lead.
lol
Considering he was just in his 20s, “Little Boots” could well have been developing schizophrenia which would explain his descent into madness.
Could be, or he’d been terrorized for most of his life by his predecessor and great-uncle.
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