Skip to content
Virtue & Power

Ancient object

Portrait of Hadrian

Marble portrait

Capitoline Museums, Rome

Marble bust of the Emperor Hadrian, bearded in the Greek manner, 2nd century CE, Capitoline Museums, Rome.
Hadrian · 2nd century CE · MarbleCapitoline Museums, Rome · Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)

Object provenance

Record incomplete
Object
Marble portrait
Made
Evidence level: Probable2nd century CE
Found
Not recorded in this catalogue
Excavated
Not recorded in this catalogue
Now at
Capitoline Museums, Rome
Inventory
Not recorded in this catalogue
Identification
Evidence level: ProbableHadrian

Hadrian is the first emperor consistently portrayed bearded, which makes his types unusually easy to recognise and unusually easy to over-assign.

Not recorded here

  • Findspot
  • Excavation date and excavator
  • Inventory number
  • Material and dimensions

Full object record

Read across

How to read the evidence labels

Evidence level: Documented
Supported by a named primary text or by excavated material evidence.
Evidence level: Probable
Supported by strong inference that most specialists accept.
Evidence level: Disputed
Substantial specialist disagreement exists; competing readings are stated.
Evidence level: Literary
Belongs to poetic or mythological construction rather than to history.
Evidence level: Mythological
Belongs to shared religious or mythic tradition rather than to any single text.
Evidence level: Unknown
The available evidence is insufficient to decide.

These labels describe the status of the evidence, not our confidence in a conclusion. A claim marked Literary is not a claim we doubt; it is a claim about what kind of thing a poem is.