Roman Emperors - They were all so hot!

By the way, these are photorealistic portraits published by the Smithonian.

Florianus was...unfortunate. Otho? Ohno!

But HELLO Cladius Gothicus!

Hey Hostillian! And Carus could get it! Aurelian - call me!

fdr at harvard crew was very doable

R3 - THAT's FDR?

Jesus - people aged so badly back then. And I guess the polio didn't help much either.

Vespasian looked like Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Hello Caligu..... Never mind

Well hello Romulus Augustus.

Can we really trust the statues ?

Otho looks like my 7th grade math teacher.

He was an asshole, BTW.

Florianus looks special.

[quote] Can we recall even one president who was as good looking as these guys?

Warren G. Harding was said to have looked like a bust of a Roman emperor, and that that superficiality was about the only pretense he had to be a leader.

Why does Caligula look like Gerard Butler?

Nero was quite the fatty, I notice.

You have to remember that many of these guys were pretty young. Caligula was about 25 when he became Emperor. Nero was 17. Lots of presidents were totally fuckable in their 20s and 30s (Hayes, Teddy Roosevelt, Ford, Reagan, etc.).

Romulus Augustulus was the last Roman Emperor in the West. He was dethroned in 476 AD, which is the end date of the Western Roman Empire.

r3 that's FDR Jr., not FDR.

I have a weakness for twinks, so hello, Elagabulus.

Where's Constantine?

r17 - that's an awful painting. Here's a better rendition

Even by Roman Emperor standards, Elagabulus was a freak.

Commodus - blond? I think only his hairdresser knows for sure. But pretty hunky.

Here is Julius Caesar who was the greatest Roman ruler of all and one of the most famous people to have ever lived.

They do not do justice to Lucius Verus' do.

R23 = Olivia de Havilland

R22 Julius Caesar always wore his famous red cape into battle which apparently struck some of the enemy soldiers with fear.

Didn't all Roman soldiers wear red capes?

I doubt the color of an opponent's cape would have any significance on the battle field.

That's just mythology.

"Girl - he's wearing RED!" "Oh no Lucy! What are we gonna doooo??!!"

I had the same question re: Constantine and JC too. Clearly a few missing but so cool! Caracalla is so hot... And so were his baths, I am guessing.

[quote] Caracalla is so hot... And so were his baths, I am guessing.

They were hot, cool and warm.

The average reign of a Roman Emperor was only 8 years.

And the leading cause of death for Roman Emperors was the Praetorian Guard.

R30 - too long when you consider Donald.

I would have loved to service Hadrian through the glory hole in his wall.

I would have done all of them.

The list only takes the emperors up to the point before Diocletian established a tetrarchy, possibly because it was a convenient stopping-point (the empire stabilized politically for the most part after that, even though the tetrarchy itself didn't last long), but I suspect also because portraiture changed to a less realistic, more stylized type that might not lend itself to their technology as well.

Many don’t factor the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) emperors when considering Roman Emperors. They are quite fascinating in their own right and so intricate and complex, well Byzantine.

The baths of Caracalla are a marvel! I would have lived in the complex. No reason to ever leave!

Busts are weird but death masks are even weirder.

What R35 said. Carinus (last emperor pictured) died in AD 285. Constantine became emperor in 306.

Julius Caesar doesn't appear because he wasn't an emperor. During his time, Rome was still officially a republic. Augustus was the first Emperor of Rome - and a handsome one at that, if this portrait is to be believed.

For those of you wondering, here is one of many portraits of Constantine the Great. They vary considerably, so take it with a grain of marble, but he was rather a creepy looking sort if you ask me.

Slim pickings if you ask me.

Fuckable:

Hadrian Commodus Caracalla

Possible cast:

Augustus - Daniel Craig

Caligula - Topher Grace

Vespasian - Gene Hackman

Hadrian - Jon Bernthal

Lucius Verus - Rossel Crowe

[quote]Augustus - Daniel Craig

Yeah, and I'm gonna play James Bond!

Wow, Nero really does look like a huge douchebag.

The eyes of all their statues were enlarged to show their " divinity".

Shouldn't they look a little more white-adjacent, as DL would put it? They're all Mediterranean and Middle Eastern people. Caracalla (sexy bruiser, damn) had a North African father and Syrian mother. A lot of the earlier ones were basically central Italian (long before Germanic invasions). But here they made some of the younger ones look like douchey white frat boys.

Most statues of Alexander the Great ( I know not Roman) were made hundreds of years after his death. They are idolized versions. He looks like Apollo redux or Matthew McConanughey The only bust copied from a bronze by Lysippos that he sat for in life is the Azara herm. This is what Al actually looked like...

This must be sarcasm. There are MAYBE five in that entire group that I would deem attractive. But I do appreciate seeing what they may have looked like.

R46 Prefer the surfer McConaughey .

R47 Compared to this batch of boner killers?

[quote]A lot of the earlier ones were basically central Italian (long before Germanic invasions). But here they made some of the younger ones look like douchey white frat boys.

Central Italians are caucasian, and have been forever. The Germanic invasions didn't "turn them white."

The facial recreation did some favors to Vitellius and Vaspasian, both famously ugly.

[quote] Shouldn't they look a little more white-adjacent.

Not really sure about what they 'should' look like. If I remember correctly, Hadrian and lots of other emperors came from Iberia. You would assume they may have had a dark look. But the dark hispanic look is really more from the time of the Arab invasion a thousand years later. On the other hand, the south of Italy and south of Spain used to be Greek colonies before the Romans came. And also: Tuscanny used to be populated by Etruscans who had some of their roots in Anatolia, today's Turkey. So there is a lot unknown. And the gene pool from back then was not at all what we see today.

DNA testing has shown that the gene pool is pretty similar for modern and ancient peoples of the Mediterranean region. There wasn't as much of an admixture as was previously thought.

Whatever the gene pool was, Mediterraneans would have looked "ethnic" compared to the British Isles/northern European look. Suetonius says Augustus' skin color was between dark and light (inter aquilum candidumque) and his hair was "somewhat blonde" (subflavum—dirty blonde?)—which the reconstruction kind of gets. For the record Suetonius also says that Augustus had a monobrow (supercilia coniuncta).

Caracalla, whom some of you seem to fancy here, was the nastiest asshole of them all. He stabbed his cuter and nicer brother Geta in the arms of their mother and had a thousand Alexandrian hotties killed because they mocked him with a dance. He was cut down while taking a shit on the roadside because everybody feared him and hated him. If you are into the Caracalla types check our Maximinius Thrax. The next Severan, Elagabalus, must have been very beautiful but was a gender-confused, murderous Twink. Think Luca Magnotta. Of course, that makes him irresistible to certain quarters of the DL.

R3 That's FDR Jr, not FDR.

[quote]Whatever the gene pool was, Mediterraneans would have looked "ethnic" compared to the British Isles/northern European look.

Excuse me? Why are Brits and northern Europeans the standard by which we judge how "ethnic" other appear? The Romans conquered the fucking world when the Brits were painting their faces blue.

*others

Caracalla is widely thought to have been Rome's first black emperor.

Jesus, R57, I put quotes around "ethnic" specifically to signal that I was talking about one viewpoint and (ab)use of the term, not some objective standard. Don't flip out.

R59, can you specify how "widely"? Caracalla's mother was from Damascus in Syria and his father was North African, presumably related to modern Berbers. He didn't have the sub-Saharan African background that we'd call "black" nowadays.

Philip the Arab was, presumably, Arabian, although from an Arabic group in modern-day Syria, not the Arabian peninsula.

To get an idea of the luxury the emperors lived in, below is Caligula wedding ring to his fourth wife. The ring is carved from a single sapphire, the intaglio represents his fourth wife. The intaglio was not supposed to be representative, it was a stylized version where they need to fit in the nose and chin. Caesonia, his wife, was supposedly very beautiful.

In the interior is a gold band for ease of wearing. Sapphires, hyacinths to the Romans, are a hard stone to carve and are very rarely seen in intaglios. Nowadays the deeper the blue, the more desirable the sapphire, but the Romans preferred sapphires with a delicate balance of transparent, sky blue and light purple, which matches the color of the ring exactly.

This is interesting from the standpoint of history (and hotness - if you say so) but I hate how there are so many threads on the ruling classes, on DL.

That carving is such incredibly fine, detailed work. That's an amazing piece.

Hadrian for the win.

No wonder Antinous drowned himself when that cock was no longer thrust up his tight hole.

R59, widely thought in the U.S. Because the entire world must be seen through the lens of the U.S. . The Severans were from Leptis Magna, a Roman colony in Libya, but most likely not black, whatever the current definition of this is.

R46 resembles Justin Trudeau.

I would not try to claim Caracalla for my community because he was the worst of the worst. The magnificent baths wer started by his father, btw. The Severan dynasty really deserves an HBO series...

R49 I would have fucked Bill Clinton

Antinous, the boytoy of Hadrian, was the hottest thing in the world. He burned so brightly, so briefly. I'd love to have witnessed the moment they met, or the moment they were first alone together. That must have been hotter than Hades. Or Pluto.

For you, R69. DL won't let me link, so copy/paste: images.app.goo.gl/Uxq2XAaVM4ibM9JG9

Oops, better url for R69: images.app.goo.gl/Uxq2XAaVM4ibM9JG9

Dammit, it keeps screwing up. Try this: images.app.goo.gl/Uxq2XAaVM4ibM9JG9

Fuckit, never mind. Spaces and a hyphen keep getting insert between b and M in the url.

Send nudes

Elagabalus and Nero were non-binary.

R33 You are much too old, ugly and fat for Emperor Hadrian. He had extremely high standards in his bottoms.

Caligula was an insatiable cumdump bottom.

Was Caligula the one who took a twink as his bride?

Rutherford B. Hayes, seriously gorgeous (when young).

R79, do you also consider quarterback Drew Brees seriously gorgeous? He is said to resemble the young Hayes.

Emperor Hadrian was depressed and cynical at the end of his life. An early datalounger.

Animula, vagula, blandula Hospes comesque corporis Quae nunc abibis in loca Pallidula, rigida, nudula, Nec, ut soles, dabis iocos…

R81 Hadrian became depressed after his hot teen bottom boy Anitnous died.

So HOT they were that they were able to sign your death warrants for your slight which you and the "sister" did oven masters or claiming it.

The miss had many friends. She always promised me...

Hadrian defeated the revolt of Judea, torturing and killing thousands of Judeans and demolishing the temple in Jerusalem to make way for a temple to Jupiter. Among the penalties he imposed, some DLers must be thrilled that he outlawed circumcision. But as rabbinical literary sources always add after mentioning his name, "May his bones be crushed."

These emperors really weren't very nice people. Don't romanticize them even if a tech guy turns their official portraits into pinups. (Antinous, of course, is another story; but was he much more than Hadrian's sex slave?)

What did Augustus look like in late middle age, when his reign was at its peak? The portraits I've seen come from his younger years. In them, he looks slightly built with fine features - neither of which term remotely describes Brian Blessed's Falstaffian Augustus in I, Claudius. I know Blessed is an actor and was playing a role; I don't imagine that the real Livia Drusilla resembled Sian Phillips but rather just wonder how far off they were.

The only thing is - Blessed's appearance perfectly matched the big personality of his portrayal of Augustus. It's hard to imagine the little guy with the face of a handsome accountant that we see in portraits being quite as hail-fellow-well-met as the fictional emperor was (when it suited his purpose).

Antinous was worshipped as a God for centuries after his death. Until the Judeo-Christian sex fiends destroyed the cult.

R85, I thought Rodney McDowell was pretty good as Augustus in Cleopatra.

Augustus in his early years was played by Roddy McDowall in the Taylor-Burton *Cleopatra*, complete with a curly golden wig. So maybe picture Roddy McDowall in late middle age? (Augustus lived to almost 77.)

Alternatively: in the *Cleopatra* miniseries where Billy Zane played Mark Antony, Augustus' younger self was played by DL fave Rupert Graves—so just do the appropriate age progression there.

Oh Dear, R88, this is R87. Should have looked that name up....

R86 Those freaks used Antinous’ image to mold their early version of Jesus though. It wasn’t until Constantine that the long haired/bearded version of Jesus was created.

I love these DL Threads. This is both the best and worst of DL, concurrently.

There is an a amazing podcast called “Emperors of Rome” from La Trobe University, highly recommend!

R91 I love that there is always one poster that thinks they are the Mary Beard of Datalounge.

Okay let's play Shag Marry Kill: Ancient Roman edition...

SHAG: The hottest of all the men that could ascend to Caesar was: Marcus Antonius (aka Marc Anthony). Romans sources thought he as HOT AS Fuck, so SHAG.

MARRY: Marcus Antonius was also the smartness choice to marry. Even a seasoned politician and ruler thought so.. Yes, I am speak of Cleopatra. So MARRY.

KILL: Nero was a complete psycho asshole. Also, he looks like Mark Zuckerberg.

Can DL queens evolve beyond seeing EVERYTHING, including ancient history, as if it were an issue of Tiger Beat magazine? Roman Emperors: Who Is The Dreamiest?

You're embarrassing.

DL wants to know who's the cutest boy on Death Row?

Eh, screw you, r95. I could go to gun shows, or get drunk every day or even worse listen to country music all night. But I'm not. I'm not watching Real Housewives or Dancing with the stars. DL is my way of escapism. Other than ruining your day, my time on Datalounge doesn't hurt anyone. Just chill.

Let's face it, Italians are disproportionately good looking.

[quote] I love these DL Threads. This is both the best and worst of DL, concurrently.

Why the worst?

R93 it’s because I am “learned but accessible “.

Italians are a handsome race.

R78 I thought Caligula was in love with his sister and wanted to appoint his horse to senate or some fucked up nonsense.

Caligula wanted all sorts of contradictory things.

Although, in fairness to the detestable Caligula, his appointing his favourite horse Incitatus to the Senate was likely his attempting to shame the corrupt Senators. "A horse is more just, honourable and wise than the Senators" etc etc

It bothers me more that he housed Incitatus in a marble stall. Not soft and horses are very sensitive to sound - the constant echo from the marble must have driven that poor horse insane.

For god sake you gullible fools. I don't care what they've told you about "accuracy", these are not photographs.

Perhaps, R104, Caligula had the marble stall padded with silken upholstery double-dyed in the most costly Tyrian purple. Something tells me he would have spared no expense.

"I don't imagine that the real Livia Drusilla resembled Sian Phillips but rather just wonder how far off they were. "

There's a partial bust of Empress Livia at the Getty Villa, even accounting for the fact that the bust is of a young woman and the BBC show showed Livia from middle age to crone-hood, she doesn't seem to have looked anything like Sian Phillips.

But that's okay, mainstream audiences don't care what Roman historical characters looked like, they have no expectations and filmmakers are free to cast who they like.

Give a WW if you watched HBO's Rome in it's entirety and liked it

Caligula looks hawt. You know it.

r62

[quote]This is interesting from the standpoint of history (and hotness - if you say so) but I hate how there are so many threads on the ruling classes, on DL.

That's funny. I saw the thread on Roman Emperors, remembered this ring, and thought DL might like this. Still archeology doesn't have many artifacts from the lower classes.

If you don't think the sculptors of Rome exaggerated their emperors' looks into the most flattering forms, I've got an aqueduct to sell you.

Did he, r106?

That makes me feel much better.

r111, yep, most of them were probably much uglier

I was once in the Correr in Venice and caught sight of a really good-looking emperor bust (slight overbite), and was horrified to discover I was attracted to Caligula. He was a tyrant, but had good taste, not least in his own portraiture. In real life, of course, he might have been a dead ringer for John Hurt.

Caligula was always reputedly hot, r114.

It was Nero who was a tubby momma's boy.

Nero was the one who had a boy castrated and made him appear in public as his wife.

Nero was a trans activist, you BIGOT!

Suetonius disagrees with you about Caligula, R115: says he was tall and ungainly, balding and hairy, "wherefore he made it a capital offense for anyone to look at him from above as he passed or make any mention of goats."

Balding AND hairy?

Hadrian and his boi toy for the win.

95 percent of them liked the homo sex..

Not me, R121!

Clau-Clau-Claudius liked the Markles of this world

Fake picture at R120. Antinous waxed, and those are NOT Hadrian's abs.

R62 why don't you add some subaltern history and celebrity gossip about the lumpen?

I'm not sure that's realistic R120, given that Antinous was 12 and Hadrian was 47 when they met.

R126 When they first FUCKED.

Love that pic r20. Know anything more about it you can share? I like the hands holding and Hadrian's pubes peeking out

It is Caligula that look like zuckerberg. Ops, I got my psycho roman emperors screwed up.

Citizen of DL

Great and Learned

I give to you

Michael Sheen as Nero

(a bbc production)

Citizen of DL

Great and Learned

I give to you

Michael Sheen as Nero

(a bbc production)

R124 How would you know Lipstick?

All I wanted ever wanted to do was to ACT for my PEOPLE!

Was that so AWFUL (back of hand to brow)?!?!??

You must be mortified, R133, that you were played by Peter Ustinov when your great-grandfather was played by Richard Burton.

Why do you Angles and Saxons act so besotted with Ancient Greece and Rome? The way you go on and on, even wearing absurd togas, one would think they were your ancestors or something. They only occupied you for a few years FFS. Why not write some plays about Ethelred or something?

We are more interested in the Real Housewives of Londinium, r135.

I like how Romans reclined on pillows to eat. It looked very comfortable.

Our ancestors are a bit embarrassing, R135. Besides, the Angles and Saxons were interlopers, too. Our true origins are - how humiliating! - Celtic. Despite the Romans' best efforts, it took the Normans to drag us into the civilized world.

Who is R135 to assume that everyone posting on here is an Angle or Saxon? Many, many English speakers have heritage in the Mediterranean, including Rome.

Anyway, such magnificent emperors as Vespasian, Hadrian, and Septimius Severus spent time in Britain, conquering bits and pieces of it and shoring up the defenses against the pesky Picts.

Were the Normans originally French or Scandinavian?

Both, r140. The French king offered some vikings a place to stay, and in return they would stop attacking Paris. So vikings, men from the north, settled in Normandy. A few hundred years later, William conquered England from there. But at that point Normans were more French than Scandinavians.

Nonsense, the Normans were Germanic.

^bump this

^ bump this

This thread is inspiring me. I think I am going to watch ROME on HBO. I think I can still access it. Is this a good show?

Yes R145, it is. It should have had more seasons.

R145, season 1 of "Rome" was great, I gave up on season 2 a few episodes in. I don't think there was a 3rd season, for a reason.

It had Mark Antony full frontal, played by James Purefoy. Also various other characters frontal. Augustus' mother played a sluttier version of Livia from I Claudius (for which there's no historical evidence, although Asclepiades of Mendes did put about a tale that she'd conceived Augustus by Apollo in the form of a snake).

Caesar and Pompey were great, the female characters too slutty/chaste, the storyline with Octavian’s incest stupid an unnecessary

Fuck. Rome is not on Netflix is it?

I have HBO, so I can get it right? Anyone know this?

[quote] Is this a good show?

I think one must also ask whether it’s a positive show.

Rome is a GREAT show.

One of the best HBO has ever made.

Antoninus Pius was hot and apparently a good emperor.

I just binged watch HBO's Rome. I loved Polly Walker. What a performance.

R114, is this the bust you saw?

Tiberius used to throw his child sex slaves off the cliff on Capri when he was tired of them.

Have italians today inherited a streak of cruelty I wonder.

R155, Polly Walker was outstanding. Should have won the Golden Globe for season two.

Probably, R156.

The Normans were Scandinavians, Normans as in Norsemen, as in North Men. Eventually French of course, but still very Norwegian as they were running around Europe taking places like Sicily, and also you know, founding Russia.

Hadrian could punch me in the pooper

Damn, could he ever, r162

And Probus could probe me.

C'mon, daddy!

damn that was lovely r148. They should have had a whole episode of Mark Antony just wandering around Rome, showing off his dick.

60% look like Maoris

[quote] 60% look like Maoris

Many emperors once were warriors.

Kerry Condon was a real slut on Rome. They had her fucking her brother, old man Pompey & Brutus’ mother Servilia. I liked her best friend Jocasta, who was a Roman stoner.

Polly Walker’s Atia was 80% Edina Monsoon.

I am not a fan of the Romans, such brutality. And do not get me start of their color palette. It's atrocious.

Biggus Dickus was my favowite.

For those of us with daddy issues? We'd have been in heaven and back. A few times.