Does anyone know what’s going on here? Is it a Western Empire/Eastern Empire thing?
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Fascinating to see the realism of these portraits degrade toward the end of the empire....pic.twitter.com/wHOMHduxUQ
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tag yrself im this guypic.twitter.com/g5v3lKIvNm
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did u think i was jokingpic.twitter.com/ISpJdDUWCk
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Wtf happened with Olybrius (472)?
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haha either a disfigured coin or a realistic depiction of a disfigured face
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This trend continued till the portraits were scarcely recognizable as humans. E.g this Merovingian coin.pic.twitter.com/MBSdxleAF9
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"Realism" is relative here, as coins were (since Julius Caesar) a means of propaganda. So you can see series of similar faces to show "I am like emperor X". The first series until Claudius does this with Augustus, for instance.
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Then you see a marked change in Vespasian, who needed to distance his new dynasty from the Julio-Claudian line, leading to more rough faces being accentuated. His sons Titus and Domitian emphasise this.
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From my understanding, it's not necessarily a decline in artistic standards or ability, but a combination of changing fashion in portraiture and the Eastern shift of the Empire which included lower expenditures on minted currency.
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