A while ago I posted a series of what I considered exceptional Roman busts. I photographed them while visited Rome and Vienna. There has been ongoing interest in them from around the web. So I’ve decided to post a followup. Number III appears to depict a barbarian of some sort, probably a German or a Gaul. The last one might not actually be Roman, but merely Roman style (she resides in Vienna). Numbers VIIII and X are on display underground at the Palatine in Rome, but were found at Pompeii.
I
II
III
IIII
V
VI
VII
VIII
VIIII
X
XI
For the benefit of those who didn’t know, the ancient Romans did not use the same Roman numeral system familiar to us today. In the detail of the Colosseum below, we can see 53 and 54 represented as LIII and LIIII respectively.
I’ve seen this (older) system used in books that are merely 200-300 years old as well. I don’t claim that the newer system is inferior to the old one; I used the old one so that my ancient guests would feel at home.
Gorgeous
The Roman numeral for 9 is IX, not VIIII.
That was a late innovation. The ancients, as seen on the Colosseum, used the system I use here. Perhaps I should post a photo of the Colosseum too.
Ah, the birthplace of Western Civilization. Not only the Romans and Greeks, but all North Africans from Egypt to Iran were of Caucasoid stock. That is, until the hamitic moors came pillaging and raping, bringing along their monkey pets from sub-saharan africa.
No matter how much afrocentric, revisionist malarkey gets shoveled down our throats by the left, such beautiful busts speak louder than all of their lies..
And to think that they call us revisionists.
Beautiful busts, indeed. I envy you that you’ve seen such beauty.
While Egypt was once more phenotypically “caucasoid” its natives were not whites— the East African element is clear in some of the art (and some modern East Africans retain this less–”negroid” phenotype as well); the Coptic tongue of the natives is a Afro–Asiatic (closely aligned to the Semitic tongues and sometimes included in them) one that is uncontroversially understood now to be the descendent of the ancient Egyptian tongue. The Afro–Asiatic nature of Egyptian religion is very important for understanding both Judaism and Christianity— I say this as a Christian believer.
The ancient number system was superior. This is my opinion only–there is no need to mix tacit concepts of addition and subtraction in representing a simple number. I guess that is me at my most reactionary. (But I wouldn’t part with Hindu number system (AKA “Arabic numerals”) in any event, because decimals and percentages are pretty important.)
III is not a Germanic, nor a Gaul. It is a Dacian — so arguably only half-barbarian — vanquished by Trajan… Constantine later refurbished what he could from Trajan’s forum, and put Dacians on his triumphal arch in Rome. By that time, the Dacians were pretty much wholly integrated into the Empire (e.g., Emperor Galerius once even demanded that the name of the Empire be changed into the “Dacian Empire”…)
<> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_of_Constantine#Main_section
A video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiYKoM08W8c
And some images:
https://resources.oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/leach/www/2000/dacian2.jpg
http://sights.seindal.dk/img/orig/8184.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Boboli%2C_prigionieri_parti_05.JPG
http://sights.seindal.dk/img/orig/8185.jpg
http://sights.seindal.dk/img/orig/8187.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Statua_di_dace%2C_forse_dal_foro_di_traiano.JPG
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Testa_di_dace%2C_dal_foro_di_traiano%2C_inv._2214.JPG
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Testa_di_dace_dal_porto_di_traiano%2C_inv._2220.JPG
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Testa_di_dace%2C_età_traianea%2C_inv._2293.JPG
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Roman_bust_of_a_Dacian_tarabostes,_Hermitage,_St_Petersburg,_Russia_-_20070614.jpg
http://cnes.cla.umn.edu/courses/archaeology/images/Dacian.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7d/Captive_dacian_pushkin.JPG/276px-Captive_dacian_pushkin.JPG
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/66/RomeConstantine'sArch04.jpg/449px-RomeConstantine'sArch04.jpg
Thanks for the info. Very interestinng!
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Does anyone know who ‘II’ is?