Roman Emperors from Augustus to Constantine

I have a few years ago linked to a website which has offered facial reconstructions of the Roman Emperors from Augustus through to Constantine the Great. This has now been reissued or revised.

The portraits are based on surviving busts of the Enperors. For the few for whom there are no known surviving sculptures the site includes excellent coinage portraits.

The complete website can be viewed at The Faces of Roman Emperors-Augustus to Constantine

As the comments on it point out some of the more degenerate, depraved or bizarre manage to look amongst the more normal or indeed attractive of this decidedly mixed bunch. As a group they could be candidates for any forthcoming election, or colleagues, or neighbours. With just one portrait it does not allow for aging, although Augustus was never shown to have aged in his images over a very long reign. Some of the others were, by contrast, hardly in power long enough to be commemorated in sculpture.

That said for several of the more well known Augusti the view of later centuries does often reflect the prejudices of those who successfully recorded their lives and reigns, and who thereby determined the judgment of future ages. These are matters which today are legitimate points of discussion amongst historians. That is also true of political leases of later centuries. It is also true that judging leaders on the basis of notions such as “handsome is as handsome does” and “judging a book by its cover” or, indeed, of their inverse, is not usually the best way of assessing character or achievement.