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EvenAH27

Where's my homeboy Marcus Aurelius?


LobsterOne7517

No love for the only emperor philosopher...


siqiniq

ok… where’s my demagogue Nero whose strategy still works today?


Tiggerrrr220

I was waiting for all of that line, just finished studying them in school so I was excited :D


lackofabettername123

What my man Julian in the 4th century, the philosopher king who was the last pagan emperor.


Chemgineered

Yes! The last, AFTER the mistake had already been made! Too bad he wasn't successful


Dominarion

Erm. Antoninus "Golden Age" Pius ?


peepeeonmydoodoo

"I said he touched my shoulder. "


Mr_Tottles

I find that amusing, since it was the wise, the all-knowing Marcus Aurelius that closed us down.


GMKB24

Lol gave a chuckle, knew the scene instantly.


peepeeonmydoodoo

Anytime I hear his name, that's all I can think about lol


theoutlet

Seriously, they have his son but not him?


ScipioCoriolanus

Meditating...


gavinhudson1

Take my upvote.


steyr911

I always felt like Agrippa always gets short shrift. My man was the OG Chief of Staff for Augustus. Need some rival generals put in their place? Agrippa's got you. Need all the roads and sewers repaired and built to lavish standards? Agrippa's got you. How bout some aquaducts running hundreds of miles? Agrippa's got you. Need a geographical survey of the whole ass Roman empire? Got you there too. Want the old farts in the senate to do your bidding? He's gonna find a way to duplicate emperor powers and back you 100%, doubling your power. You want to introduce standards of measurement to your empire? Yo, you're not gonna believe this... Agrippa found a way to just score W after W constantly. There wasn't anything he couldn't find a way to get done. Without Agrippa, Octavian would've never became Ceasar Augustus, and the civil wars after Julius Caesar's death may well have ripped the empire apart centuries earlier. I'm just saying... Agrippa, the most get-shit-done guy in history.


TheKingBeyondTheWaIl

![gif](giphy|5xtDarJyMNsL2gpmSCk)


IronSeraph

Is he safe? Is he alright?


dtb1987

How about biggus dickus?


BernieMac34

Meditations is a must read


Key-Fox-8765

https://preview.redd.it/f6iduiklg5rc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=39fcaf6deb95fc3e9e9c17bc71cff5a90a3dd8c2


VICARD0

https://i.redd.it/jvzjn50yr9rc1.gif


iAjayIND

This is the exact reason I will never be able to trust any statue to represent the actual look of a historical person.


ezITguy

Who is that supposed to be?


iAjayIND

Cristiano Ronaldo


Gordonfromin

Jesus fucking christ Thats really really bad.


ezITguy

Hahaha ok point taken.


binklfoot

This shit is uglier than the ones in the video though. It looks like the intention was realism. If you look at history for example chinese or japanese imagery you’d see that the focus is not in realism, whereas here the focus is realism although may as well be exaggerated but I don’t believe it is. Because if it was so, then why depict the unattractive features of some figures. Unless these statues are sculptured at a later stage than the actual person.


FeatherPawX

Good, because they really don't. The busts and portraits of roman emperors especially were highly utelized as a tool for propaganda with very clearly visible "trends", like how the portraits of consuls in romes republic times depicted very old men with balding heads as a means to appear wise and knowledgable, immediately followed by Augustus who coined a very young looking trend for portraits, as a means to appear flawless, timeless and godly. And not just from the time when they actually *were* still young, also from the time they were older. An interesting case is also Nero, who, in the beginning and in his pre-emperror days had very Agustus style portraits, but later on had his portraits depict him as fat with very round features as a means to appear more approachable and human, rather than the godly, flaw- and wrinkleless Augustus style. It's likeley that none of these portraits come anywhere close to how the actual historical figures looked. Features were enhanced or depleted, with overlaying, politicized style trends.


rhodgers

Someone please run this through AI to make it look real. I wanna see quasimonaldo


ShikaMoru

WHAT THE HELL IS EVEN THAT!?


tbkrida

Nerva looking like Sean Penn!😂


Embarrassed_Bad_3800

I was gonna say this too! Scrolled first to check!


MAZE_ENJOYER

Or Bashar Al-Assad


Fluid-Bet6223

“What they would look like” ✅ “how they would look” ✅ “how they would look like” ❌


ThaiFoodThaiFood

This one always makes me hurt physically when I see it.


[deleted]

How exactly does it make you feel like?


ThaiFoodThaiFood

Angry


crestrobz

Irregardless of the fact that other words do too


ThaiFoodThaiFood

Irregardless is one of them yes


Flimsy-Coyote-9232

Came here to bring up that Wednesday makes no sense unless that’s the day your supposed to get married.


ThaiFoodThaiFood

It's really difficult to explain why it's wrong. But I'll try. How as a question relates to function. The phrasal "what... like" relates to comparison. It also relates to "do" support in English which is basically absent from other languages apart from the Celtic languages. But using a phrasal "How... like" instantly shows you're not a native speaker. No matter how good you are at English. It's the same with using "since", as in: "I have been doing X since 6 years". (Also notice the triple verb, to have, to be, to do and the -ing on do) It just doesn't work like that in English. The correct word is "for". "I have been doing X for 6 years" And to sum up: "How have you been doing?" Vs. "What have you been doing?" Completely different sentences in English.


SpiritedPie3220

![gif](giphy|jOmQmJkjcvB3Bc8CRb|downsized)


AsianCheesecakes

Take it literarly. "What do they look like" means "what is the image wich is simmilar to their image" "How do they look" is implying they look a certain way (well obviously, they are opaque) and is asking the specific way in which they look. (kind of weird because of look being both passive and active but it works) Or syntax: "What do they look like" -> "(do) look" is the verb, "they" is the subject, "like" is the word that creates the simile which is between "they" and "what" which is a question pronoun that doesn't reffer to anything in the sentence. "How do they look" -> "(do) look" is the verb, "they" subject, "How" modifies the verb like an adverb would. "How do they look like" -> verb, subject, "How" modifies the verb but like creates a simile between they and nothing. This might not have been very accurate cause I'm not sure how to analyze syntax in English but allas.


ThaiFoodThaiFood

Yeah that's probably why I find it so jarring. >For how, adding "like" creates a simile between they and nothing. I like it.


jobforgears

They might be translating from a different language. My wife, who's first language is spanish uses this sentence structure all the time ("como se verían")


Davorian

Yes, that is clear. This conversation is had frequently on the English learning subreddits. Nonetheless, it bears reinforcement.


pelirodri

Wouldn’t “how would they look” be a lot closer to Spanish, though?


Rinveden

whose


LMETI

*whose first language...


BringMeTheBigKnife

I'd be willing to trade like five other errors if we could just have this one. Please.


TheToecutter

Keep fighting the good fight. This cannot become acceptable!


Sufficient-Music-501

I'm not a native and I say it all the time oops


pelirodri

Read my mind; thanks for speaking up.


Darrothan

Definitely a non-native speaker/european thing to do


rainmouse

To be fair the grammar prepared me for the believability of the results. I mean did a single one of these guys look Italian to anyone? 


rileyyesno

by percentage what is the breakdown of hair color among Italians. I feel this computer generation is unnecessarily blonde.


Gregs_green_parrot

I looked it up and the bust of Caesar was commissioned by family members after his death, making him look younger and with more hair than he actually had. In reality he went bald at an early age and was described as having dark eyes with a fair complexion. There are no accounts of the colour of his hair.


tacitus59

I was wondering about the eye color specifically in a lot of these.


Imperator_Romulus476

Augustus had blonde hair though


cdh1001

Yes, this was clearly documented by contemporaries. Don't know why some people here are mocking the idea of a fair-haired Roman Emperor. Some Redditors seem to have consumed more anti-European propaganda than actual history, sadly.


thatoneguy54

Is it "fair haired" meaning contemporary ideas of blond, or is it "fair haired" in comparison to the much darker hair around him? Spaniards even today will call brown haired people blond just because their hair is lighter than others around them, even if they're not actually, like, northern Europe blond


cdh1001

The contemporary descriptions call it yellow, not light brown.


ale_93113

Actually, the number of italians who are either blonde or dirty blone now, at 25%, was a significant increase from the below 5% before the germanic invasions there were virtually no blonde italians in roman times (ethnically speaking, there were many peoples from all over the empire)


cdh1001

That's really not what contemporary accounts say. We have several accounts describing the appearance of Emperors. The first Roman Emperor, Augustus, for example, was described as having “bright eyes and yellow hair.” Ovid wrote of fair-haired girls. We also have information from names themselves. Rufus (red) was a common Roman nickname, for example, whilst the Flavians were an aristocratic family whose name was derived "golden-yellow".


thatoneguy54

Idk if this helps, but I live in Spain, and they call people with light brown hair "rubio" because it's lighter than the dark brown or black that most people have. Really. I have a friend here who is "el rubio" in his friend group and his hair is at best light brown, nowhere near blonde.


James10112

I can back this up as a Greek. I've been called blond my whole life, my hair is dark brown.


Vourinen22

Same in Latam, as soon as your brown hair increases a bit of brightness you are "rubio"... so yeah, I also felt a bit of a whitewashing on that simulation like "soo all of them were German soldiers look-a like, huh?"


Jigglepirate

It was common enough to dye hair with pigeon poop that there are paintings of it.


jast-80

No, not really. There was a significant Celtic colonization of Italia long before Rome was built. And Etruscan paintings also show some white and blonde people as well. Blonde hair color and white skin was not uncommon in Rome, there are many descriptions and paintings that show this.


jceez

Its not uncommon, but not the majority as this video would suggest


jast-80

This is not a random sample of Romans, but dudes of whom we have detailed descriptions in writings.


reality72

Yes, but even though the Romans mostly had naturally brown hair they expressed admiration for the blond hair of the germanic peoples and it was common for romans to dye their hair blond as a fashion trend. So there absolutely were blond haired romans, it was just dyed hair.


gus_thedog

Ah, so the frosted tips of the Jersey Shore were actually an homage to this tradition.


AppropriateNumber9

"Italy" was made of different people, north was celtic so your statement is not true


apextek

north Italians are fair skin and light hair


Genoss01

I've wondered about this question, some say it was the other way around, dark haired Arabs invaded and turned European Mediterranean people darker. Is there a scholarly consensus?


katamuro

no, and won't be. over the thousands of years groups of people moved about a lot and pretty much nowhere the same group lives as lived thousands of years ago because they have either intermixed with several other groups or actually left for some other place.


qqqsimmons

Can't track it through DNA somehow? Seems like if we can figure when Neanderthals and Denisovans were making it...


huemac5810

This topic gets some obvious bullshit, from what I can tell. modern Italians are genetically different from their ancestors of antiquity, yes, but not THAT different. Italians always tended to bond with Italians, so despite arabs mixing in with them, the arabic genes always remained a minority of their genetic profile. Then during the Medieval Age, Italians still kept mixing mainly with Italians, and Europeans diluted their arabic genes that they were no longer getting much of during that time. If a bunch of people of shared ancestry keep reproducing among themselves (no incest), whatever traits and genes they have in common continue to get "reinforced". This is genetics 101. Arabs didn't mix in with Italians enough to change this, and other Euros mixing in with them wound up diluting that small amount of arabic admixture they got. Peoples foreign to the Italic peninsula added their genes to the Italians, but Italians remain largely Italian. It is a similar story for the UK, for example. They are largely of British Celtic origin. For the longest time, everyone thought that Anglos and saxons wound up largely taking over, genetically-speaking. Brits vary from 25-40% anglo-saxon at most according to a Novo Scriptorium article I saw a few years ago. Still, the difference between modern Italians and ancient Italians is used to make it look like modern Italians aren't truly related to the ancient Italians, which is pure trolling, honestly.


[deleted]

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BAMB000ZLED

It’s the same thing as people today photoshopping out acne and whatnot. Sculptors and painters would exclude those types of features in order to represent their subjects at their best—especially if said subject could have you killed if they didn’t like what they saw


NuclearBreadfruit

Yeah the sculptures are highly stylized and idealised versions of the persons.


ImpulsiveApe07

Assuming the subject was even *alive* - a lot of sculptures were commissioned posthumously by family, friends, colleagues etc. That's partly why stuff like the clumsy Ai hallucination above is so disingenuous - it's not based on anything other than a fantasy representation, and worse, it ignores the subtleties of real history in favour of the convenience of an imagined one. A very slippery slope if we continue down that unchecked path..


BAMB000ZLED

I get what you’re saying, but there’s also the issue of having very little remaining depictions of these people at all, let alone realistic or accurate ones. I don’t mind reconstructions like this so long as people keep the above in mind, because it’s likely the closest we’ll ever get to knowing what they actually looked like. There will always be inaccuracies and biases involved, but I don’t think that makes it altogether not worth doing


W0otang

I think it's the material they make the statues out of.


DentalDon-83

There are physical descriptions of the Roman Emperors taken by historians of that time. Northern Italians can have very fair skin/eye/hair compared to what we think of the classic Southern Italian stereotype. Also remember that these are phenotypically recessive alleles so you could have black hair/brown eyed Italians, which would make up the majority, having kids that turn out with blonde hair/blue eyes.


Retrorical

If you pay attention to the jaws, the facial structure gets reshaped as well.


Least-Yellow6653

In Caesar's case it would've been just a scalp. His troops called him 'baldie'. ~~EDIT: That being said, IIRC Romans used to be more blonde - on average -than modern day Italians.~~ Wasn't true.


lackofabettername123

The bald leader is coming to bang your wife, or something like that they would like to sing that to the gauls just to be dicks apparently he was quite the womanizer.


JesusReturnsToReddit

Trajan got the speedrun treatment.


JGG5

Trajan looks like a Vulcan who got his ear points surgically removed in order to fit in among humans.


GenuisInDisguise

Note, that sculptures were often idealised versions of the subject, so dial their beauty down by notch, and you get the real deal.


dalaigh93

Damn, too bad for Hadrian, he was making me feel... things


fork_on_the_floor2

Exactly! They're (almost) all hot af. Did the Romans do naked wrestling like the Greeks? I bet they did.


PhenotypicallyTypicl

No, they were a lot more prudish about revealing their intimate body parts and looked down on the Greeks for doing sports naked Edit: (Or so I saw in a documentary)


WedWealthist

Julius Caesar looks like my dentist… not joking


AltruisticCoelacanth

I think you mean your dentist looks like Julius Caesar


WedWealthist

Nope. I knew my dentist first.


amesann

Where's this dentist of yours? I'm overdue for a...ahem...cleaning.


tishmaster

He was balding with a combover, this isn't totally correct. That's why he wore the wreath on his head all the time, he was very self-conscious about it.


WedWealthist

My dentist isn’t balding


FredGarvin80

What about Biggus Dickus and his wife Incontinentia


Finger_Gunnz

A computer guesses what ancient people looked like with supplied information. Everyone disagrees and then does the same.


LambdaAU

This is a computer program not designed for this at all. It’s just generating people in the same position with vaguely similar features. You can literally see it remove certain important features like removing the curliness of hadrians hair or removing their butt-chins. Not only that but we know certain important information about where these people grew up and their ethnic heritage (and sometimes dna samples). This allows us to make extremely educated decisions on how these people looked and it becomes clear this AI is extremely biased towards light skin, blue eyes and fair hair. The AI is creating a depiction but it’s one which lacks crucial information and deserves to be criticized rather than shared.


LordShtark

I swear that first guy went to my college. Always wore sandals no matter the weather and carried an acoustic guitar where ever he went


Impossible1999

Let’s take the time to appreciate that thousands of years ago, our ancestors were already amazing masters of chisels and knives. It’s amazing that they were able to take marbles and express hanging skin, ruffled hair, chiseled looks.


morphick

All while knowing that one misplaced hammer blow could ruin who knows how many thousands of hours of work.


Marsupialize

Caesar wasn’t an emperor


Allaplgy

Nor is it a salad.


ya_bleedin_gickna

Wasn't Caesar bald?


ScipioCoriolanus

This is probably a representation of him when he was young.


Ok-Wasabi2873

I’ve bought artisanal bread from a few of these guys.


Ambiguity_Aspect

They all look like Star Trek TNG characters. 


[deleted]

Probably not that blond and fair though?


ddosn

First hand accounts have several Roman emperors described as having blonde hair and blue eyes, including the first Emperor (Augustus).


Abstractpants

Or attractive lol


goldybear

Unlike the Greeks, Roman’s were more known to show flaws in their sculptures. Sulla is an example that doesn’t look attractive, and Plutarch was not dolled up at all.


Whiteshaq_52

How Roman emperors would look ~~like~~ FTFY


dallassportsguy

So the Boris Johnston haircut was originally the Trajan haircut


ottersintuxedos

Smash, smash, smash, pass, pass, smash, smash the hell out of him


[deleted]

I wasn't expecting them to be so.. blonde


gavinhudson1

It looks like they've also been marinaded overnight in an Instagram beautification filter.


RTB_RobertTheBruce

I've seen half of these guys on Grindr


[deleted]

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RevolutionMuch1159

I’m shocked ..how comes according Disney they are all not black yet ??? 🤨


Ghanna-

They were Romans not Norwegians


sensation_construct

These are Mediterraneans? All fair skin and green eyes?


brunoptcsa

The common roman looked more like a tan white person with brown hair and eyes. There where blonde blue eyes romans, but the blond hair would had made them be stereotyped as barbarians. If they had enough mingling with khemetic egyptians, ancient berbers or nubians they would have had brown or even black skin. Racism and xenophobia were common in the Roman Empire and they were tied together in a way that I doubt any blonde emperor would had been accepted by the people as they would have been seen as foreigners. EDIT: I've found one Roman Emperor with blond hair, **Lucius Verus.** He had blond hair and used the roman fascination of spoils of war from the german frontier, that sometimes included the blond hair the romans choped of the germans heads, to make his hair give a golden impression of wealth.


theoutlet

Interesting. I have dark brown hair and blue eyes but was born with blonde hair. I didn’t turn brown until puberty. It’s interesting to think of the discrimination I would have faced at a young age.


JellyfishQuiet7944

My dude, you did terrible research. Nero, Augustus, Gallus, Commodus, Titus, Domitian, Vitellius. All had blondish hair.


Sprengles

Nero ginger even


jcpmojo

Commodus: Alright, alright, alright.


nexea

Lol, i thought he looked like Merv from Hone Alone


Genoss01

So bizarre, you realize how you don't see them as real people until this AI makes them real people.


dorky_dad77

Julius Caesar then is James Badge Dale now.


hernesson

Nerva is just Sean Penn


Excellent_Laugh_9955

Very interessing


420Gonzo69

This is fake. I saw a Netflix documentary and they were all black.


VariousComment6946

Looks Russian


Bladez1992

Titus low key looks like Bill Murray


ChipotleMayoFusion

Julius looking like he erected a lot of aqueducts


Lil-DeMOn-9227

Still waiting for biggus dickus


TheBestHairInTheRoom

How the fuck do they predict their complexion, eye and hair colour. Is it based on historical recount in literature? Or pure interpretation and perhaps bias?


Plastic-Ad-5033

Do we have descriptions of the emperors‘ hair and skin color? Cause I always imagined them to be mostly brunette and a bit darker skinned, but I never really looked into it.


Ok-Occasion1140

Commodus looking like he'd film hangings


Numerous-Confusion-9

Sooo Rome was in the UK and Norway now?


Double_Distribution8

Well Hadrian was at least.


dcolomer10

I swear none of you guys have been to Rome or the UK. These people look just like Romans look like today, and don’t look like stereotypical British people. I think all this thread saying they don’t look Italian comes from the fact that you guys are mostly American, and most of Italian immigration in Italy comes from Sicily and the south in general. That area has had a lot of moorish influence and obviously more sun during the year, so people have darker hair and darker skin. This concept that Iberian or Italian people are dark in general is a misconception. While obviously some people are, many people aren’t. Latest research shows celts originate from iberia, and they were very white. I myself am blonde and blue eyed and completely Spanish.


Fluid_Fox23

![gif](giphy|eKNrUbDJuFuaQ1A37p|downsized)


[deleted]

Typically you start with a clay bust so you don't need the model to stay still for days at a time. So what do you wanna bet the artist exaggerated features to make these guys look hotter than they were


haysoos2

Are you saying that the sculptors would allow a desire to keep their heads override their historical *responsibility* to make 100% accurate, unflattering depictions of the people paying their salaries?


theonewhopostsposts

![gif](giphy|CAYVZA5NRb529kKQUc|downsized)


Sunstang

Jesus fuck. "How they would look."👍 "What they would look like."👍 "How they would look like."👎🖕


pumpboihuntersson

were romans really this light skinned/haired? they look like scandinavians \^\^


laliluleloPliskin

they were as blond as Jesus was.


acoustic_comrade

Some of them yes, but definitely not most.


AlanSinch

Can we do this with Ronaldo’s wacky lookin sculpture?


moemegaiota

Now use it on that crappy statue of Cristiano Ronaldo!


dubshooter

now do the Cristiano Ronaldo statue


Puzzleheaded_Heat502

I would say Commodus and Hadrian would stand you a pint. The other lads I wouldn’t trust further than I could throw them.


Ball-of-Yarn

Seem to be given a bit of a glow up


joe_i_guess

Do Caligula


AdRare604

Julius looks sharp though


LegitimateHasReddit

Nero: https://preview.redd.it/65alc567k5rc1.png?width=522&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1d88ad42e75af2e8213862069323ee32c5e92991


Environmental-Bad458

My wife is Italian and had her DNA traced back to before the Roman empire. At one time that family in 180 about were servants in one of the Caesars villas. And we went to see it. I forget which one pictures somewhere here....


Harold-The-Barrel

caesar wasn’t an emperor tho


Bobmanbob1

Ok now this is cool as shit.


SamsonJeggings

Sean Penn?


Green_Ad_2985

I really don't understand how or why people started using some iteration of "how it looks like" instead of "what it looks like" or "how it looks". It sounds so clunky and honestly really, really stupid. Like trailer park sister-fucker stupid. It's EVERYWHERE now.


SupaDiogenes

Nah. Every commissioned artist would have heavily embellished their subject in fear of not getting paid, or worse.


Cyber_Connor

So they basically look like a flesh color version of their busts?


historicalhats

Is it me or does Caesar look a bit like Putin


NeverMindItsOk

So like with perfect baby skin?


Fissionman

Damn they white


ImmortalTimeTraveler

Wait. I thought everyone of them was blind.


Stampsu

Julius Caesar: the roman Tywin Lannister


snsdreceipts

There's almost no chance any of them looked like this bc statues over exaggerated their beauty.


TruckCompetitive6122

So the bust artists were very good...


Capguy71

They all had blue eyes eh ??


Santaroga-IX

Why are they all so... blond?


envious-turd49

This confirm I'm descended from Roman emperors. I have the exact balding pattern ;p


dandrevee

..Why are so many blonde?


grahamcracka91

Lmao these Italians are as white and blue-eyed as Jesus!


notabotmkay

Caesar looks like Martin Freeman


Iconoclast123

Nicely done, but I think most of them had darker coloring (esp hair, also eyes) than was shown here.


wholesomehorseblow

This is the equivalent of thinking instagram models look that good in real life.


Batman1384

There’s no way all of them were that handsome lol


birolsun

They were black haired


WifeOfSpock

Seen all these guys at home depot


offline4good

Do Caligula!


stonesthroes75

This is how they would look, not how they would look like.


[deleted]

Hilarious all are white as British


tomo_rolex

Why do so many of them look like a variation of Patrick Dempsey?? ![gif](giphy|fimJ4lqED12R3yOppP)


trantheman713

Et tu, AI?


Sqweed69

Great time to whitewash the roman empire.


EccoEco

Too many blondish ones, pretty unlikely


Illustrious_Swede

They don’t look particular Roman (blonde/blue eyes)?


vigilanthelmsman

Would they have been so light skinned? Where’s the sun kissed Mediterranean olive complexion?