EXPLORE | THE BIG IDEA
dictator, firmly identified it as a portrait of Julius
Caesar, taken from life. So accurate was it, he claimed,
that the strange shape of the head, which you might
easily put down to an incompetent sculptor, was in
fact the reflection of congenital deformations of
Caesar’s skull (clinocephaly and plagiocephaly, to
use the technical terms). Never mind that there was
something circular here (there is no evidence for
Caesar’s skull conditions apart from this sculpture);
the Bonaparte portrait has not only prompted the
same kind of purple prose as the British Museum
head, it has given us the illusion that we are doing
more than looking the man in the eye—we are taking
his medical notes.
But this head too is falling. That is not so much
because it is thought to be a fake, or not to be Caesar
at all, but because beyond all the hype it is in fact a
rather rough-and-ready piece. Our best guess now is
that it might be a later Roman copy of some contem-
porary head of Caesar, but certainly not a product of
careful observation (and the odd shape of the skull
is probably just that, an odd shape).
Enter, just in time, the head from the Rhône. The
city of Arles had political connections with Caesar (he
settled some of his veteran troops there). The neck
of the sculpture has the required wrinkles, and the
Adam’s apple is prominent enough (though it hardly
has the gaunt aspect of the coins). It will be the face
of Caesar for a few decades and will decorate any
number of glossy book jackets. Indeed, it may be
him. But my guess is that sooner or later, doubts will
grow, and a quite different head will be rediscovered
to take its place.
The true image of Julius Caesar is always just out-
side our grasp. Each generation finds a new Caesar
for themselves. jBut two pieces in particular have been the stars
of the Caesar show, and through much of the 19th
and 20th centuries they held sway as the real face of
Julius Caesar. The first,^4 bought in 1818 from a British
collector who had picked it up in Italy, is in the British
Museum. It entered as an unknown Roman, but by
the 1840s it was confidently identified as Julius Cae-
sar himself and given pride of place in the museum
display—thanks to its wrinkly neck, Adam’s apple,
and hollowed cheeks that seemed a close match for
the silver coins.
For decades this face decorated the cover of almost
every book on Caesar, and it was lauded in rapturous
prose by Caesar’s modern fans. “This bust represents,”
wrote one, “the strongest personality that has ever
lived ... In the profile it is impossible to detect a flaw.”
John Buchan—scholar, diplomat, and author of The
Thirty-Nine Steps—judged it “the noblest presentment
of the human countenance known to me.”
This bust was an early modern celebrity, but its
authenticity was eventually toppled. After decades of
increasing doubts, in the early 1960s it was officially
declared a fake; there were traces of abrasion and
artificial staining designed to make it look centuries
older than it really was. It certainly was meant to be
Julius Caesar, copying the head on those coins (no
unknown Roman here), but it was made in the late
18th century. It has been relegated to a traveling
exhibit on ancient Rome and occasionally emerges
in exhibitions of notorious fakes.
There was, however, another head of Caesar wait-
ing in the wings to take its place in the limelight. It
had been excavated near Rome by Lucien Bonaparte,
Napoleon’s younger brother, who was a keen archae-
ologist. But when he hit hard times, it was sold and
taken to its new owner’s estate outside Turin, where
it remained anonymously (“unknown old man”) for a
hundred years. In the 1930s an Italian archaeologist,
perhaps playing to Mussolini’s enthusiasm for thePHOTOS (FROM LEFT): BORIS HORVAT, AFP/GETTY IMAGES; ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM/HERITAGE
IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES; DEAGOSTINI, GETTY IMAGES; THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUMMary Beard is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge.
She is the author of many books about ancient Rome, including
the best-selling SPQR. Her most recent book is Twelve Caesars.FACE OF AN EMPEROR?
123 4
Rhône Caesar
Rescued from the Rhône
River, this celebrated bust
(it’s appeared on a French
postage stamp) resides at
an Arles museum.Silver Coin Caesar
Before Caesar’s death in
44 B.C., a series of silver
coins was minted, the only
firm surviving evidence of
what he looked like.'Green Caesar'
Some archaeologists spec-
ulated that this green stone
head, originally from Egypt,
was commissioned by
Cleopatra, Caesar’s lover.British Museum Caesar
Once given pride of place
at the museum, this likeness
was declared a fake in the
1960s and is now relegated
to a traveling exhibit.