Re: Portrait head of Nero

Ralph Hancock <[email protected]> Wed, 27 Feb 2019 22:48:43 +0000

Newsgroups	gmane.education.classics
Message-ID	<CALBWZwY_nMo-5gKvdcUeVcjFrMu__t5mb1zCFjeayMUB1_8z8g@mail.gmail.com>

... There's no art
To find the mind's construction in the face.

Leaving routine Trump-bashing aside, I wonder whether Nero grew that
horrible neck beard to conceal a goitre. The profile heads on his coinage
show his neck as even more swollen:

https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cointalk.com%2Fattachments%2F6c-nero-ar-denarius-dual-jpg.290397%2F&amp;data=02%7C01%7CCLASSICS-L%40lsv.uky.edu%7C7e497de0b0494ace526608d69d05c1c1%7C2b30530b69b64457b818481cb53d42ae%7C0%7C1%7C636869045389313562&amp;sdata=%2FhsExAvtaPS34vqAWrB04bH3uRCwfyEhMO1JrkiO0xg%3D&amp;reserved=0

But in that case you would have thought that bitchy old Suetonius would
have said something nastier than the mere _cervice obesa_.

In 1950, when MGM were about to make the film _Quo Vadis_, they were
wondering whether or not to cast the podgy Peter Ustinov as Nero. The
studio moguls considered that Ustinov was too young for the part. Ustinov
reasonably pointed out that he was just coming up to the same age, 30, as
Nero was when he died, so if they didn't hurry up and choose him he'd be
too old. He got the part.

RH