This marble lifesized bust of Marc Aurele depicts the Emperor with bushy curly hair and a beard. He wears a breastplate and a toga clasped at his right shoulder. The figure looks serious as he gazes straight ahead.
Located in the Louvre's Roman Antiquities Room, the Museum's website (
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"This beautiful portrait was executed in Greece from an archetype created by the Roman imperial workshops in 161 AD. AD, when the advent of Marcus Aurelius. Although this portrait is true to the official iconography, the Greek tradition that permeates his execution approaches and the emperor of the fourth century BC philosophers. AD differs from those made this portrait in Rome.
The Emperor Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius, which recognizes the curly hair and eyes "with the head", is represented here battleship. Under the hair mass, less detail than in most portraits of this type, face down in faraway look appears serious and meditative. The breastplate, that overlies a mantle fastened on the right shoulder, is decorated in the center of a mask of Gorgon, or Gorgon, and a monster on the shoulder anguipède right.
Funerary
This bust was found in a tomb at Probalinthos, near Marathon in Attica. The same burial are from a portrait of Herod Atticus (1164 Ma) and another of Lucius Verus, the emperor spouse, kept at Oxford. This association is not fortuitous: the philosopher Herod Atticus was the friend and master of the two emperors. It is possible that this tomb is his, we know that Herod Atticus owned a villa near Marathon, which region he came from and where he died in 177 AD
A Greek work from a model Roman
The Greek origin of the bust of Marcus Aurelius, makes one suspect that his place of discovery is confirmed by the stylistic analysis of the work. For if this statue, like all imperial portraits, following a model from formal workshops - created by a guy at the coming of the Emperor - his achievement stands out from the Roman production. The broad and sober style, supported by moderate use of the bit in digging the hair, is not he who guides the execution of effigies usually Roman, it is more use of Greek sculptural tradition.
On the other hand, iconography, if it generally follows that of the official model, also evokes the memory of Hellenic art. On the character of the Emperor, face down and internalized expression, reminiscent of the Greek philosophers of the fifth and fourth centuries BC. AD, while the Gorgon in the armor is traditionally a pattern adorning the armor of Athena, patron goddess of Athens, or that of Alexander the Great.
The artist, probably of Greek origin, has managed to remain within the constraints of an official iconography while printing the mark of artistic tradition from which he sprang."
Wikipedia (
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"...ruled with Lucius Verus as co-emperor from 161 until Verus' death in 169. He was the last of the "Five Good Emperors", and is also considered one of the most important Stoic philosophers. During his reign, the Empire defeated a revitalized Parthian Empire; Aurelius' general Avidius Cassius sacked the capital Ctesiphon in 164. Aurelius fought the Marcomanni, Quadi, and Sarmatians with success during the Marcomannic Wars, but the threat of the Germanic tribes began to represent a troubling reality for the Empire. A revolt in the East led by Avidius Cassius failed to gain momentum and was suppressed immediately.
Marcus Aurelius' Stoic tome Meditations, written in Greek while on campaign between 170 and 180, is still revered as a literary monument to a philosophy of service and duty, describing how to find and preserve equanimity in the midst of conflict by following nature as a source of guidance and inspiration."
Wikipedia brief entry on the asteroid (
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"7447 Marcusaurelius (1142 T-3) is a main-belt asteroid discovered on October 17, 1977 by Cornelis Johannes van Houten, Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld and Tom Gehrels at Palomar Observatory."