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Museum of Classical Archaeology Databases

Caracalla

Caracalla was emperor from 211 to 217, the son of Septimius Severus. He is noted for extending Roman citizenship to all free inhabitants of the Empire, though this may have been to extract more tax revenue to pay for his extravagances. Some biographers, notably Edward Gibbon, have represented him as unstable and brutal.

This portrait is unusual for the tense facial expression and the turn of the head, which are in contrast to the refined portraits of the Antonine emperors who preceded Caracalla. It also marks the return to fashion of close-cut beard and hair. These early decades of the third century CE were the last major flourishing of Roman portrait sculpture

Number: 
536
Material: 
Marble
Location of Original: 

Naples, National Museum 979

Size: 
0.54m
Accession: 

Transferred from the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1884

References: 

Vessberg: Romersk Portratkonst, 59
Ruesch: Guide to the National Museum, Naples, 235-6
Walston: Catalogue of Casts in the Museum of Classical Archaeology (1889), 116, no.616 (?)
Reporter: 19 June 1885, 895, no.538

Date: 
Early C3 CE
Provenance: 

From the Farnese collection

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