ANTONINE PERIOD, LATE 2ND CENTURY A.D.

Lucius Aurelius Verus (130-169 A.D.), along with his adopted brother Marcus Aurelius (121-180 A.D.), had the distinction of being the first two co-emperors of the Roman Empire, a practice that became more frequent towards the end of the Empire. Verus was already the adoptive grandson of the Emperor Hadrian when he was adopted by the Emperor Antoninus Pius in 138 A.D. and, after Antoninus Pius’ death in 161 A.D., both Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, as his adoptive sons, were confirmed by the senate to rule the Roman Empire. Marcus Aurelius was quietly understood to be the more senior of the two - being Pontifex Maximus and consul more times that Verus.

Their early rule was calm and prosperous, however in 162 A.D. Lucius was sent to the East and spent the next three years directing the Roman army against the Parthians over the territories of Armenia and Mesopotamia. His critics claimed however that he spent the time in Antioch, enjoying the pleasures of a new mistress, gambling and feasting with friends. In 163-4 A.D. he travelled to Ephesus where he married Lucilla, the 13 year old daughter of Marcus Aurelius, who had been sent out to the East early by her father, perhaps to curb Verus' profligate ways.

Whatever the actual extent of his participation, Verus returned to Rome a victor, but once more fell into a luxury lifestyle of parties and gambling - the Circus Maximus and chariot racing being his favourite pastime. In 168 A.D. both Verus and Marcus travelled to the Danube to put down a rebellion by a local tribe. On their way back to Rome it is thought he caught smallbox, or the "Antonine Plague" as it was known, dying at the age of 38. Marcus Aurelius mourned his adoptive brother and co-emperor and honoured him with funeral games and deified him as Divi Verus.

The highlight of this portrait is the rendering of the hair - it is a faultless example of how the characteristic heavy drill work of the Antonine period can produce a conspicuous play of light and shadow to produce depth and volume. This fine portrait shows the Emperor with thick hair, rising vertically from his head in luxurious haphazard curls. It corresponds to Type Four of his portrait styles, dating to about 160-170 A.D. which shows three small curls pointing horizontally along the edge of his hairline, across to the middle of his forehead (Type One shows Lucius Verus as a child, Type Two as a beardless young man, and Type Three with a much shorter beard). This type also shows a strong similarity in hairstyle with Marcus Aurelius. The beard on the above portrait has developed into a more vigorous curling mass which his prominent moustache almost flows into. Physiognomically he has narrow eyes under shallow brows, with a modest amount of upper eyelid visible under the orbital mass and his long face narrows to his chin.

Several ancient works of this principle type survive in museum collections around the world, including the leading example which is a monumental portrait bust of Verus in the Louvre (no. 1101). The work’s larger-than-life dimensions suggest it was commissioned posthumously, honouring Verus after his death, perhaps by his widow and the daughter of Marcus Aurelius, Lucilla. Another fragmentary head in the Metropolitan Museum (see P. Zanker, Roman Portraits, Sculptures in Stone and Bronze, New York, 2016, pp. 84-85, no. 26) also depicts the emperor in over-life-size proportions. Zanker notes that the absence of drill-work on the moustache and on the hair over the chin of the Metropolitan head, as in the portrait here, suggests a posthumous date, as this deliberate detail corresponds with later portraits of Marcus Aurelius, made late in his reign or even during that of Commodus, therefore after the death of Verus in 169 A.D.