The overall affect the facial configuration gives the gazer is of wise man in repose of thought. But the piece is not beautiful in the conventional sense. It is realistic in its slightly unbalanced facial formulation. The emperor Marcus Aurelius is slightly bearded, with unruly, curly hair. His small and slightly bulbous nose is not the idealized, hawk like profile favored by the elites in their portraiture. His thick, curly hair also stands up from the forehead, making the subject look more ordinary than domineering, as might a more prominent and protruding skull shape. If the gazer did not know the subject's identity, the depicted emperor would seem like an ordinary, rather unattractive man.

Thus, despite the fact he was an emperor, evidently the Stoic Aurelius eschewed idealism in his official stone portrait. He had no need to lionize himself in image -- his face was already on every coin...
[ View Full Essay]