Nero’s portraits are awfully fun if you (like me) allow yourself to indulge in his (maybe mostly apocryphal) biography and bask in all the really nasty things that were written about him…
Much of what we think we know about the emperor comes from takedowns written by viper-tongued detractors (Suetonius I’m looking at you). Nero started off as Claudius’ adopted successor and great teenage hope of the Senate before power went a bit too much to his head. Ultimately he’s been remembered as a spoiled mama’s boy then pudgy potentate ruled by various intemperate appetites (sex, luxury, etc.). Above all, he was a flamboyant showman who embraced the Roman penchant for spectacle and went hard into his hobbies – notably as a musician and charioteer. The young Apollo!
Julio-Claudian features go a bit awry in his portraiture, particularly in the later ones (such as this example in Munich) likely made during the last four or so years of his reign: eyes engulfed in flesh and becoming a tad porcine, ears a touch flappier than dignified, a serious double chin in the works, and that remarkable coiffure topping it off.
This last choice – the ‘coma in gradus formata’ intricately curled and terraced into bangs lying slick and flat on his brow – is as telling as it is unflattering. It seems to be an imitation of the style favored by contemporary charioteers and somehow, and perched on Nero’s bloated face in this official self-representation, it betrays (to me at least) an almost tragic lack of self-awareness….
