I tre Cesari

Tusculum  - Farnese - Leiden

The Leiden Caesar

The original image is on the left (Courtesy: Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden)

In the middle, the Leiden bust is digitally restored using the face of the Tusculum bust. On the right you can see my lifelike rendering of the bust.  Actually, the bust is one of two marble heads of Caesar that we can see at a page  of the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden. It is the national archaeological museum of the Netherlands, located in Leiden.

In the above image, th restoration was based on the face of the Tusculum bust, BUT we have other protraits of Caesar that we can use. One is the Chiaramonti Caesar.

Here the result in the following image.

The Tusculum Caesar

This is my reconstruction of the face of Giulius Caesar, in a lifelike style, that I have obtained from the Tusculum bust, today at the Archaeological Museum of Torino.

On the portrait of Caesar from Tusculum - Sul busto di Tuscolo

Dear reader, this post is devoted to a discussion of a portrait of Julius Caesar, known as the Tusculum bust.

In this post I will use the article by Francesco Carotta, published on the Corriere del Ticino in 2017. https://www.carotta.de/subseite/texte/articula/CesareTuscolo_CorriereDelTicino.pdf

and I strongly invite you to read it. The article, entitled IL CESARE INCOGNITO, is linking the marble bust of Tuscolo and a Denario by Buca, to the myth of Selene and Endymion.

Here some extracts.

The story of the discovery of the Tusculum bust has some humor in it. The marble head was found in Tusculum by Luciano Bonaparte. Luciano made profit with the antiquities, in particular those emerging from the ruins of that pleasant town among the Alban Hills (near today's Frascati), where the Roman nobility had built the villas, a famous one was that of Cicero. He used these antiquities to refund his huge debts. However, he did not realize that he had in his hands an original portrait of Caesar, which would have allowed him to restore his financial health. The bust then remained unsold and passed to the House of Savoy. With some others items of Lucien Bonaparte's collection, the bust was taken to the Castle of Agliè, where, a century and a half later, in 1940, archaeologist Maurizio Borda, comparing the profile with some coins of Caesar, recognized that Caesar was portrayed in it.

Believing the marble head had been at the top of a statue of a "togato", Borda fixed the head in a vertical position. This position highlighted two anomalies: a sinking on the apex of the skull and a swelling of the same on the left side. Assuming the portrait as made during the life of Caesar, and without taking into account the notorious "riporto" (lock of hair combed over his baldness)  to hide his harassing baldness, Borda diagnosed in Caesar clinocephaly and plagiocephaly, hypothesizing that these pathological deformations had been caused by epilepsy. "Idle idea, not only because Caesar was estimated the most handsome man in Rome - and this is incompatible with such supposed malformations - but also because, at that time, it had been proven that the occasional fainting of Caesar had not an organic origin, but was simply due to cachexia, exhaustion for the hard life spent in continuous wars. And, [it was an idle idea also because], above all, that marble head has several other anomalies (prominent and non-anatomical eyes, the left ear higher than the right, the flatted left wing of the nose, a slit of the mandible, the dimple of the displaced thyroid-joid area, vertical venus rings, twisted neck, raised right shoulder, etc.). These deformations are those studied by the classical sculptors, which, since the time of Phidias, practised them to make the faces of the statues more beautiful, depending on what was the main perspective to see them, particularly to optimize their view from below. And in fact, if we assume for the portrait of Tusculum a recumbent posture of the subject, mainly viewed from below, all these so-called anomalies are changed into aesthetic excellences. Observed from this point of view Caesar's portrait from Tusculum is beautiful, like a masculine Gioconda. "

Here the best view of Tusculum bust, as highlighted by Francesco Carotta in
https://www.carotta.de/subseite/texte/articula/Sulla_postura_del_Cesare_Tuscolo.pdf 

Cari lettori, in questo post mi servirò dell'articolo di Francesco Carotta sul Corriere del Ticino nel 2017. https://www.carotta.de/subseite/texte/articula/CesareTuscolo_CorriereDelTicino.pdf
che invito a leggere. L'articolo, dal titolo IL CESARE INCOGNITO lega il busto marmoreo  di Tuscolo ed il Denario di Buca al mito di Selene ed Endemione.

Ecco alcuni estratti.

La cronistoria del ritrovamento del busto di Tuscolo "non manca di una certa comicità. La testa marmorea fu trovata al Tuscolo da Luciano Bonaparte". Luciano lucrava sulle antichità, "affioranti dalle rovine di quell’ameno municipio dei colli Albani (presso l’odierna Frascati), dove la nobiltà romana vi aveva costruito le sue ville, di cui fu famosa quella di Cicerone. Reperti che smerciava per pagare i suoi ingenti debiti, senza però accorgersi di avere in mano un ritratto originale di Cesare, che gli avrebbe permesso da solo di risanarsi". Il busto quindi resta invenduto e passa ai Savoia. Insieme a quanto rimasto della collezione di Luciano, il busto viene portato nel Castello di Agliè, "dove un secolo e mezzo dopo l’archeologo Maurizio Borda, comparandone il profilo con monete di Cesare, riconobbe trattarsi proprio di lui."
"Ritenendo aver essa appartenuto ad una statua di togato, fissò la testa in posizione verticale, nella quale risultano però evidenziate due anomalie: un affossamento sull’apice del cranio ed un rigonfiamento dello stesso sulla parte sinistra. Nel suo entusiasmo trattarsi di un ritratto contemporaneo ripreso dal vivo, e senza tener conto del notorio riporto dei capelli in avanti per celare la molesta calvizie, diagnosticò in Cesare clinocefalia e plagiocefalia, ipotizzando essere state quelle deformazioni patologiche la causa del suo famoso mal caduto. Idea peregrina, non solo perché Cesare era stimato l’uomo più bello di Roma, incompatibile con tali supposte malformazioni, ma anche perché è stato nel frattempo dimostrato che gli occasionali svenimenti di Cesare non avevano un’origine organica, ma erano dovuti semplicemente a cachessia, esaurimento per la dura vita passata in continue guerre,  e soprattutto perché quella testa marmorea presenta diverse altre anomalie (occhi prominenti e non anatomici, l’orecchio sinistro più alto del destro, ala del naso sinistra appiattita, mandibola sbieca, fossetta della zona tiro-joidea spostata, anelli di Venere verticali, collo torto, spalla destra rialzata, ecc.), deformazioni del tipo di quelle studiate ad arte dagli scultori classici, che fin dal tempo di Fidia le praticavano per rendere più belli i volti delle statue, a seconda di qual era la prospettiva principale, particolarmente per ottimizzarne la vista dal basso. Ed infatti, se si assume per il ritratto tuscolano una postura reclinata del soggetto con vista principale dal basso, tutte le cosiddette anomalie si tramutano in eccellenza estetica. Osservato da questo punto di vista il ritratto tuscolano di Cesare è bellissimo, quasi una Gioconda al maschile."

Grazie al dottor Francesco Carotta, ora possiamo vedere il ritratto di Cesare nel modo migliore possibile. 

Post archiviato

http://archive.is/wxmd5

On d’Hollosy reconstruction of Caesar - continued

In the post of June 26, 2018
http://stretchingtheboundaries.blogspot.com/2018/06/on-maja-dhollosy-reconstruction-of.html

I discussed the reconstruction of Caesar's head made by Maja d'Hollosy, proposed in http://www.rmo.nl/reconstructiecaesar. She used data from a Leiden bust and the Tusculum bust. So I measured two rectangles to compare the face of Tusculum bust and the face of d'Hollosy reconstruction. Here the result.

The rectangles of the Tusculum bust (left). Rectangles of a frontal view of Maja d’Hollosy’s 3D reconstruction (Courtesy: elu24.postimees.ee Kuvatõmmis/Youtube,  Let me stress that the image on the right is here used for scientific and cultural purposes). The sizes are in pixels.

To the reader, the exercise to evaluate the ratios. Differences are of about 10%.

However, a reader could tell me that I have not investigated the other bust used for the reconstruction, that which is in Leiden. Actually, the bust is in bad condition, so I "restored" digitally its image. And the result is the following. 

For comparison, I rotated a little the image. Here the result and comparison.

The rectangles of the Tusculum bust (left), of a frontal view of Maja d’Hollosy’s 3D reconstruction (middle) and Leiden head (right). The numbers (in pixels) are given to the reader, in such a manner that  any measurement and ratio can be easily evaluated. 

The most evident defect of the 3D  reconstruction is in the fact that it has the head which has a square as its frame, whereas the two busts have rectangles.  

A chi somiglia?

Per far vedere che la mia ricostruzione del busto di Tuscolo non è troppo lontana da persone reali. In alto a sinistra, un particolare del busto di Tuscolo. Coloriamo un po' la pelle ed cominciamo a tracciare gli occhi (in alto a destra). In basso a sinistra la ricostruzione. A destra, lo riconoscete tutti, c'è Fiorello. Allora, il Cesare di Tuscolo a chi somiglia? Un pochino a Fiorello.

On Maja d’Hollosy reconstruction of Caesar's head

As we have previously told in [1], on 22 June 2018 an article has been published by the National Museum of Antiquities (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden) of Leiden [2], showing a new 3D reconstruction of Julius Caesar’s head based on a bust of the museum. 

Ref.3 is telling that this 3D reconstruction is "including the bizarre proportions of his [Caesar’s] cranium." To this conclusion given in [3] we answered in [1], telling the following. Suetonius, in De vita Caesarum [4], is not mentioning any bizarre proportion. And, to the author’s knowledge, no witty remark exists on Caesar’s head, besides his baldness of course.

 In fact, Suetonius tells that Caesar “was tall, of a fair complexion, round limbed, rather full faced, with eyes black and piercing”; only his baldness “gave him much uneasiness, having often found himself on that account exposed to the jibes of his enemies.” 

 In spite of Suetonius’ words, the result of the 3D reconstruction made by Maja d’Hollosy and given in [2], is the following: “Julius Caesar's head reconstructed with 3D technology - and it reveals something odd about his birth. The legendary Roman emperor has a 'crazy bulge' on his head, according to one expert”, as told in [5]. And also, the head reconstruction proposed in [2], is rendering Julius Caesar basically like E.T. [6]. 

 In [2], it is told that Maja d’Hollosy used a bust in Leiden (that shown by the web page) and the bust of Tusculum [7], today exhibited at the Museo Archeologico of Torino [8]. The Leiden bust shown in [2] is in bad conditions.  

Actually, at the web page https://elu24.postimees.ee/4509811/video-3d-busti-kohaselt-ei-olnud-julius-caesar-just-ilus-mees, we have a front view of Maja d’Hollosy reconstruction. So we can use it for comparison (let me stress that the image from the above-mentioned web site is here used for scientific and cultural purposes). In the Figure, the Tusculum bust is given on the left and the so-called 3D reconstruction on the right. The reader can easily note the different proportions of faces’ features. From the comparison, the differences are so evident that we can make easily some measurements. For instance, we could measure the distances between eyes and so on: but, I stress once more, differences are so evident that we can simply use two frames, for instance, two rectangles (red and purple). In the image, the numbers of pixels represent the size of the sides.

On the left, the Tusculum bust. On the right a frontal view of Maja d’Hollosy’s 3D reconstruction (Courtesy: elu24.postimees.ee Kuvatõmmis/Youtube). Let me stress that the image on the right is here used for scientific and cultural purposes. The rectangles are showing the quantitative differences. 

As we can see from the Figure, we have  ratios 113/170 and 235/270 for the Tusculum head and 115/156 and 255/260 for the Maja d'Hollosy's reconstruction. That is: 0.66 and 0.87 (Tusculum), 0.73 and 0.98 (3D d'Hollosy). As a conclusion we can tell that the proportions of the Tusculum bust had not been respected in the 3D reconstruction. But the main defect of  d'Hollosy reconstruction is in the fact that the purple frame is a SQUARE, whereas that of the Tusculum is a RECTANGLE. The square enhances the effect of a rendering based on small and too close eyes, deliberately chosen by d'Hollosy.


References
[1] Sparavigna, A. C. (2018, June 24). Julius Caesar in a 3D rendering from a 2D picture. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1297051
[2] http://www.rmo.nl/reconstructiecaesar
[3] https://www.rt.com/news/430659-caesar-head-reconstructed-rome/
[4] Suetonius, Divus Julius, Alexander Thomson. Available at www.perseus.tufts.edu/
[5] https://www.mirror.co.uk/science/julius-caesars-head-reconstructed-3d-12794457
[6] https://metro.co.uk/2018/06/25/new-3d-reconstruction-reveals-julius-caesar-basically-looked-like-e-t-7658540/
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tusculum_portrait
[8] http://museoarcheologico.piemonte.beniculturali.it/index.php/9-uncategorised/129-museo-di-antichita-di-torino

Leiden marble head of Julius Caesar digitally restored

The head of Leiden "restored" using the Chiaramonti Caesar.

On the left, the head of Leiden as it is, on the right, the face restored using that of the Tusculum bust (Turin).

See please the new post

https://stretchingtheboundaries.blogspot.com/2019/03/un-cesare-chiaramonti-leida-rijksmuseum.html

Taurasia

When Hannibal arrived in the plan near Torino, he found Taurasia with its gates closed. Taurasia was pro-Rome. After a battle of three days, Hannibal destroyed completely Taurasia and also the Celtic people of Taurini. He did it so well that, today, we have no idea where Taurasia was. What happened? The people of Taurini survived only in the name of Torino or are here in our DNA? I think that they are here in DNA. But Taurini disappeared from history, and we know them only from the name of the town, Julia Augusta Taurinorum, in honor of the alliance with Rome.
The emblem of Torino is the bull (toro), but the name of the people, Taurini, had its origin in a Celtic word meaning  "gate", "tower". That is, the people of the Gate of the Alps.

Digital restoration of a Julius Caesar's marble head in Leiden

My digital restoration of one of the two marble heads of Caesar at http://www.rmo.nl/onderwijs/museumkennis/klassieke-wereld/romeinen/de-voorwerpen/julius-caesar

The Rijksmuseum van Oudheden is the national archaeological museum of the Netherlands. It is located in Leiden.

My restoration of the Leiden bust of Caesar

This is my "digital restoration" (on the right) of the Leiden bust of Caesar (on the left). Actually, this is one of  two marble heads of Caesar that we can see at the page http://www.rmo.nl/onderwijs/museumkennis/klassieke-wereld/romeinen/de-voorwerpen/julius-caesar . The Rijksmuseum van Oudheden is the national archaeological museum of the Netherlands. It is located in Leiden.

For the restoration of the face I used that of the Tusculum bust.

Actually "rectangles" are coherent (see the discussion in this post)

Farnese

Il Cesare Farnese

The Pantheon, eye of Rome, and its glimpse of the sky

The Pantheon, eye of Rome, and its glimpse of the sky: The only natural light source of the Pantheon in Rome is its Oculus, a large opening at the top of the vault. Some literature proposed that the rays of the sun, passing through the Oculus, were actng as they could do in a huge sundial. The sun has been also imagined as being involved during some rituals made by the Roman emperors in the temple, to emphasize the celebratons of the foundaton of Rome. Besides to the sun, the temple could also have been linked to the heavens and the stars passing close to the Zenith. Inside this temple, which we could imagine as a huge eye, the gods were guarding the moton of the universe, Mundus, of which the city, Caput Mundi, was the head. In fact, a possibility exists that the architect who planned the temple had been inspired by the form of the human eye to create a building representatve of the link between Rome and the heavens, exactly in the place where Romulus ascended to them. In this artcle, besides proposing this idea, we give also some simulatons made by means of the sofware planetarium Stellarium, of the night sky and the stars visible through the Oculus at the tme of the Emperor Hadrian, who built the temple that we see today.

Wardrobe of Curiosities

Domenico Remps (1620–1699): Cabinet of Curiosities  wikidata:Q19939108 

Current location Opificio delle pietre dure , Firenze

The monk, the polyhedrons and the wardrobe

Fra Giovanni da Verona. Tarsia raffigurante un armadio con poliedri. Courtesy Laurom di Wikipedia in italiano. 

Fra Giovanni da Verona (1457 circa – 1525) è stato un intarsiatore, miniatore, scultore nonché architetto italiano, attivo tra la fine del XV secolo e l'inizio del XVI secolo. Artista poliedrico, è ricordato in particolare per la maestria nell'intarsio e nella prospettiva.

Sfere cinesi (puzzle spheres)

Sfera cinese, in avorio, fatta di diverse sfere concentriche (British Museum. Original photograph from Ged Carroll)

Wikipedia dice che questo tipo di lavori è diventato popolare in Europa grazie alla produzione Cinese del XIX secolo. Ma la creazione di questi rompicapo ha origini ben più lontane. Antikitera.net ci informa che i primi esemplari fecero la loro comparsa durante la Dinastia Song, intorno all'anno 1000 d.C.

http://www.antikitera.net/news.asp?ID=11753

Pierre MEYER and the puzzle dodecahedron

Pierre Meyer is an artist who works with ivory.

https://www.maitresdart.com/pierre_meyer-40/parcours_et_realisations.html

Great his puzzle dodecahedron!

A puzzle ball

Puzzle ball. This image is a courtesy of   " The Puzzle Museum http://puzzlemuseum.org". 

Chinese and European ivory puzzle balls

From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory_carving

"By the 18th century China had a considerable market in items such as figures made for export to Europe, and from the Meiji Period Japan followed. Japanese ivory for the domestic market had traditionally mostly been small objects such as netsuke, for which ivory was used from the 17th century, or little inlays for sword-fittings and the like, but in the later 19th century, using African ivory, pieces became as large as the material would allow, and carved with virtuosic skill. A speciality was round puzzle balls of openwork that contained a series of smaller balls, freely rotating, inside them, a tribute to the patience of Asian craftsmen."

Usually, many of these balls have a decorated stand made of ivory too.

Chinese puzzle ball, with openwork and a series of twelve smaller balls, ivory, 19th century. British Museum. Original photograph from Ged Carroll

Form http://tinglefactor.typepad.com/thetinglefactorbox/2013/07/where-is-the-seam-chinese-puzzle-ball.html

"Originally, they (Chinese puzzle balls) were made almost exclusively from ivory, or the tusks of elephants and were the playthings of rich men because of the time and effort involved in making them. ... Usually, puzzle balls are symbols of good luck, and are decorated with a variety of feng shui symbols. The outermost layer often features the phoenix and dragon, symbols of yin and yang. The phoenix represents the wife while the dragon is the husband and emperor, and balls decorated with these symbols are thought to bring good luck and happiness to a marriage. In fact, almost all of the symbols most commonly associated with puzzle balls are associated with ensuring a long and happy marriage. Some balls even have different symbols on different layers, though the most common is a highly decorative outer ball and ‘latticed’ balls inside (with geometric patterns of holes)."

Detail of an ivory ball on show in the German Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum. It has 16 layers, which can spin. Courtesy Till Niermann , Wikipedia.

In the above image we see an example of Canton ivory carving. From Wikipedia (on the Lingnan culture or Cantonese culture). "Canton ivory woodcarving is another well-known product from Lingnan. With a history of 2000 years, it traditionally uses ivory as raw material to make sculptures, with the Canton-style renowned for being particularly delicate and detailed without being brittle. The Cantonese people have also successfully produced the legendary craft product - Ivory ball. After the 1980s, however, international ivory trade has been banned. This results in the Cantonese people now trying to find substitute materials - materials that look and feel like but are actually not ivory - in their attempt to pass on this ancient art."

From http://www.odditycentral.com/pics/chinese-puzzle-balls-the-rubiks-cube-of-the-ancient-world.html

"Chinese puzzle balls are ornate decorative items that consist of several concentric spheres, each of which rotates freely, carved from the same piece of material. ... These detailed works of art are usually made up of at least 3 to 7 layers, but the world’s largest puzzle ball is actually made of 42 concentric balls all enclosed one within the other. Although the inner balls can be manipulated to align all the holes, Chinese puzzle balls got their name from people who, through the ages, pondered the mystery of making such objects. So how exactly are puzzle balls made? .... Chinese masters rotate a solid ball on a lathe and start by drilling holes toward the center of the objects. Then, using special “L”-shaped tools, they begin to separate the innermost balls. ...  Because it is easier to work with, the exterior shell is the most elaborately carved, usually featuring an intertwined dragon and a phoenix."

Antikitera.net tells us that the first puzzle balls appeared during the Song Dynasty, around 1000 d.C.
http://www.antikitera.net/news.asp?ID=11753

After having shown the Chinese ivory balls, it seems that the puzzle balls became popular in Europe thanks to Chinese products of the later XIXth century. However, puzzle balls existed in Europe in XVI or XVII century. Here an example.

European puzzle ball, XVI-XVII Century (Image Courtesy: Maureen and Renato Bucci, Italy). It was exhibited with a rosary having the beads made in the same manner of the ball. 

The rosary, XVI-XVII Century (Image Courtesy: Maureen and Renato Bucci, Italy).  

The ball shown in the image is remarkable because it looks like a Roman Dodecahedron. Actually Renato Bucci was so kind to send me the picture because of this similarity. Probably, this was an object of a Wunderkammer (in italiano, camera delle meraviglie o gabinetto delle curiosità o delle meraviglie), encyclopedic collections of objects of the Reinassance Europe.  

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_curiosities

"The Kunstkammer was regarded as a microcosm or theater of the world, and a memory theater. The Kunstkammer conveyed symbolically the patron's control of the world through its indoor, microscopic reproduction."

An example of Kunstkammer
http://wonder-cabinet.sites.gettysburg.edu/2017/cabinet/carved-ivory-puzzle-balls/

Besides the balls, we have also the polyhedra. Here the dodecahedra created by Egidius Lobenigk (1581 - 1584). From https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/m0t50361?categoryid=artist we can see them. 

These dodecahedra are at Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, (courtesy image from Jürgen Karpinski, photographer).

Let me conclude remarking that today puzzle balls are created too. Here the image of one of them, which is showing a contempoary "puzzle dodecahedra". The artist that created it is Pierre Meyer is an artist who works with ivory. https://www.maitresdart.com/pierre_meyer-40/parcours_et_realisations.html

Pierre Meyer's ivory "puzzle dodecahedron".

Also "new production of ornamental turning ivory of '600" is evidenced by the works of Andrea Pacciani, architect in Parma, by the web https://www.etsy.com/it/listing/225172225/tornitura-ornamentale-da-un-modello-in. A piece "is inspired by a piece of the museum's collection of Rosenborg in Denmark (*). Another piece is inspiered to the drawings of Grollier de Serviere, (1596–1689), French inventor and ornamental turner.
According to Andrea, "Thanks to the new generation of 3D technologies we could bring back the light of contemporary production about this object collection of great visual impact". That is, new technologies for creating objecs for our modern Wunderkammer.

(*) the reader can see the pieces at http://www.bobkatsjaunt.com/denmark.html.

A drawing from a book on the works of  Grollier de Serviere

La fragole di Sophia

Ho trovato questo articolo, molto bello.

Sofia e la scoperta delle fragole, di Marco Bersanelli
"Il valore dell'ipotesi positiva nella ricerca scientifica. L'imprevisto, un avvenimento che porta a una novità irriducibile al già noto. L'adeguatezza della realtà all'io"
http://diesselombardia.vigevano.biz/imgdb/Scopertascientifica1997.pdf

Marc Antony's speech

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones; So let it be with Caesar.
The noble Brutus Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault, And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest – For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men – Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me: But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill: Did this in Caesar seem ambitious? When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition? Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause: What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, And I must pause till it come back to me.

Arcobaleno

Torino, ore 6:30, 6 Giugno 2018

The Elephant - the symbol of the Caesar family

Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) is known by his cognomen Julius Caesar. Caesar was born into the gens Julia, descent from Iulus, son of Aeneas. The family originated from Alba Longa. The cognomen "Caesar" originated, according to Pliny the Elder,  with an ancestor who was born by Caesarean section. The Historia Augusta suggests three possbile explanation: that the first Caesar had a thick head of hair (Latin caesaries); that he had bright grey eyes (Latin oculis caesiis); or that he killed an elephant (caesai in Moorish) in battle. Caesar issued coins featuring images of elephants, suggesting that he favored this interpretation of his name.

Silver Denarius - Military mint in Italy, circa 49 B.C. Elephant walking right, trampling on serpent, CAESAR in exergue. Sacrificial implements, simpulum, sprinkler, axe and priest's hat. 

The obverse type may symbolize victory over evil, whereas the reverse refers to Caesar's office of Pontifex Maximus.