cahn | Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 40

Also, have this pictorial illustration. This sculpture depicting the original Tetrarchy (Dioclectian & Maximian, Galerius & (Constantius) Chlorus) today is in Venice, as medieval crusaders looted it when sacking Constantinople, but it's as near contemporary a depiction of Mildred's OTP as you can get outside of coins:

Edited 2022-12-27 16:03 (UTC)

This statue group was my first introduction to Diocletian! Way back in undergrad when I was taking art history. I of course remembered this statue and would have liked to see it when I was in Venice, but by then I had forgotten where it was located, and it wasn't until shortly after I left Venice that I relearned that it was Venice and realized I must have walked right past it without noticing it! But it was too late to go back (on my budget). I am cursed.

(Selena, you will "like" this: the single most incompetent professor (I think he was a postdoc) I had in college was the one for this intro art history class. He called this statue a depiction of four popes. POPES. His entire course was like this.)

it's as near contemporary a depiction of Mildred's OTP as you can get outside of coins:

And panegyrics! :D

ETA: Unless you meant "visual depiction", in which case yes. :) But the near lovers' tryst is really something.

Edited 2022-12-27 16:51 (UTC)

Oh, no doubt! BTW, the last time I saw that statue in Venice, I had no idea whom it depicted, either, but "popes" definitely would never have been my guess. The swords all four are depicted carrying kind of gives it away.:)

I do think the statue group aesthetically is closer to early medieval sculptures than it is to, say, late Republican/early Empire Roman ones (

cahn, think of the famous and endlessly copied statue of Augustus for a contrast and compare depiction of how the first Roman Emperor wanted to be depicted), and a good reminder that any movie or tv show set in the late Roman Empire which has everyone still looking Augustan is not trying. But like I said - of all the possible guesses, "popes" is.... *headdesk*

BTW, the last time I saw that statue in Venice, I had no idea whom it depicted, either

I would have recognized it if I had actually stopped and looked at it! Even not knowing that it was in Venice. It was on the exam, and it was one of my favorites from that class! But I must have either not walked too close to it, or just walked right past it without properly seeing it.

But like I said - of all the possible guesses, "popes" is.... *headdesk*

He shouldn't have been guessing! He was supposedly teaching the class, using material he had selected for us to learn! WTF.

(In addition to repeatedly teaching us outstandingly wrong things--thank god for the textbook--he also decided one day that he needed to go, "Do you know what a volcano is?" probably in reference to Pompeii/Herculaneum or Thera/Akrotiri, and waste a few minutes of our lives giving us college students a basic rundown on what a volcano was. *facepalm*)

I do think the statue group aesthetically is closer to early medieval sculptures than it is to, say, late Republican/early Empire Roman ones

Yeah, the interesting thing is that the way I learned it is:

Near Eastern art: You have a powerful monarch who wants to use art as propaganda to reinforce that, so you get very stiff, stocky figures meant to convey intimidating rulers and perpetual reigns. Emperors are depicted bigger than surrounding figures. You get depictions of rulers that look like Rameses.

Classical Greek art: You have the rise of the polis, and sculpture that's borrowed from Egypt and other Near Eastern cultures quickly turns into something that's dynamic and glorifies the individual body and realism, to go with the idea of individual participation in government. People are depicted young even when they're old. You get depictions that look like this in the early, orientalizing period (look how similar that is to Rameses), and this later on (look how completely different that is). This shows the transition of a single generation. Notice that the hair is getting shorter and less stiff--less like a headdress--the interest in anatomical details of the body is deepening, the arms are getting more relaxed, the feet are already moved apart to convey motion, and soon these statutes will be doing all sorts of athletic things to indicate that strong young/middle-aged men are running the show.

Roman republic days: Power tends to concentrate in the hands of patriarchs, so wealthy men have themselves depicted as old and serious looking, even when they're young, to indicate that they're weighed down by responsibilities of government, which they can be trusted with. These depictions are also much less likely to depict the entire body--just the face.

Earlier Roman empire art: Still clinging to propaganda of "the emperor is primus inter pares", "Greek culture + Roman senate = the good old days," etc., so you still have art in the classical Greek style. Emperors and empresses (that's Augustus and Livia) are depicted young even when they're old. And since most of their subjects will never see them in person, in this pre-photographic age, their self-depiction is the only depiction most people see. So they can totally shave off a few decades.

Later Roman empire art: Diocletian, Constantine, etc. start reverting to stiff, stocky figures--with facial hair! probably to indicate maturity--like that porphyry group in Venice, that remind you more of Egyptian art than anything else. This is all part of the emperors' desperate attempt to get some political stability back. Although the classical Greco-Roman style doesn't totally go away either, since, for example, the now lost statue Constantine had commissioned to celebrate the founding of Constantinople is reconstructed to have looked like this.

Now, not that they specifically looked to Egyptian art (although they may have been influenced by it), but that the new Roman rulers independently went, "How can we convey that you should obey us and not think about changing or participating in government?" and came up with similar ideas.

Okay, this is really oversimplified, but it's meant to pull out one single thread, not comprehensively cover art history.

Edited 2022-12-27 21:18 (UTC)

Diocletian, Constantine, etc. start reverting to stiff, stocky figures--with facial hair! probably to indicate maturity-

Hadrian: Excuse you. I had made the beard fashionable for Emperors more than a century before any of these whippersnapers were born. As part of my "Greek style rocks!" campaign. Every Emperor having themselves depicted beardy afterwards was clearly trying to evoke me.

Nero: Say what? I was the original beardy Emperor, going from the classic Augustan look which I had to sport while my Mum was still alive to the neckbeard look emulated by Peter Ustinov and all those other minor actors playing me. I also was the first Emperor to run a "Greek style rocks!" campaign. I adored everything Greek!

Hadrian: My dear fellow, it would be unkind to compare our respective popularities, but if we must:
Granted, by the time I died, not just the Jews hated my guts, the Senate did, too, but in the provinces, my reputation was stellar, and ever since Gibbon, I make the "Five Good Emperors" hit list on a regular basis. This isn't because I also happen to be a gay icon, but because of a lot of hard work. I was the original travelling workoholic micromanager, and this included aranging for a smooth succession where I played four dimensional chess and already had earmarked young Marcus Aurelius for future greatness. Unlike your mother, I however knew giving power to a teenager was bound to have terrible results, and so I adopted the eminently capable Antoninus under the condition he would adopt Marcus. Antoninus not only ensured the Senate, despite hating my guts, would deify me but reigned for two peaceful decades in what is universally regard as Rome's golden age, and handed over the Empire to Marcus Aurelius in peak condition. Meanwhile, you didn't work, didn't care about succession at all, ended up killing yourself while on the run, were of course not made a god and were followed up by three fellows in a row raging bloody civil war againt each other. I therefore rest my case about any subsequent Emperor sporting a beard in their official depicting trying to evoke me.

Edited 2022-12-28 08:42 (UTC)

Yep, this is why I said "one single thread," because I was hesitating to post this, because there are tons of other threads, like all of the beards that exist for *other* reasons. Greek philosophers and those who followed in their tradition were so big on beards that forcing them to shave was a means of humiliation, and you get philosophers saying they would commit suicide rather than lose their beard! (I forget if anyone actually did--Selena may remember what the source for this is, I'm going from memory.)

By the way, one thing I also meant to add is that in the later empire period, you also start to get the emperors depicted bigger than surrounding figures, as realism becomes less important than "obey us."

(I haven't even talked about Hellenistic trends, but because of the rise of monarchs ruling pieces of Alexander's empire, you get some of the same tendencies, as well as other interesting innovations.)

Oh, haha, here I go again forgetting to spell things out and writing in shorthand, in this because because I had to memorize them for an exam:

cahn, you can't see clearly in that picture of the tetrarchs, but of the two pairs of tetrarchs, one in each pair has a beard and one doesn't, and otherwise they look exactly the same (presumably to signal unity of purpose). This has led some scholars to conclude that the beard signals the senior emperor, the Augustus, and thus that each Augustus is depicted with his respective Caesar. (And thus that Diocletian and Maximian are not hugging each other, alas for my OTP. :P)

But since we don't have the artist's notes on what exactly was intended, we're extrapolating, and...you know the drill here, other scholars have other ideas about what's being depicted here (maybe the Augusti are hugging each other and the Caesars are hugging each other!), and it may not even be the Tetrarchs.

There's also a bust of Diocletian here in Massachusetts! Only it's a bust of "Diocletian (?)" because no one is sure if it was really meant to depict him. And yes, this is why I like the 18th century better.

Side note, I find Roman emperor and empress busts really fascinating and had to stop myself from launching into a full-out description of the evolution of fashions over the history of the empire, but I'll give you a couple of fun tidbits:

1. Women's wigs could be quite entertaining, see also the dome-shaped beehive, the peaked beehive and the helmet styles (all of which involve wigs).

2. There was a brief period, during the reign of Caracalla, where people tend to be depicted frowning, both Caracalla himself and other people. I once turned a corner in a museum (Vienna, I think), was confronted with a frowning bust, and based on that and some stylistic details that told me it probably wasn't Roman Republic, I went, "Reign of Caracalla!" Checked the card on the wall, and laughed hysterically when I was right. Because one time, when I was showing some coworkers around the Getty Villa and explaining Roman busts to them, we joked that everyone was so stressed during Caracalla's reign that their faces froze like that.

3. Marcus Aurelius would like honorary mention for his Greek philosopher style beard.

Basically, if you don't know the evolution of fashions of Roman busts, you walk into a museum and you see like 40 busts that all look the same and have names you don't recognize, and it can get tedious quickly. Once you memorize the cues, you can start going, "Looks stressed, might be Caracalla or one of his subjects!" "Has a fleshy neck, might be the Munich type of Nero!" "Eyes rolled up, might be a Christian in the later period looking toward heaven!" "The peaked beehive was only briefly in fashion*, so I know exactly when this must be from!" And then you can start having a whole lot of fun in museums, highly recommended. :)

* For women who could afford it, obvs. Meaning you had to be able to buy false hair (usually meaning someone else's hair, not your own--blonde German hair was fashionable for a while), have a maid/slave to dress your hair, and have lots of leisure time for the hairdressing. It was a status symbol.

Edited 2022-12-28 16:56 (UTC)

:D

This isn't because I also happen to be a gay icon

I mean. That too :D
(One of these days I shall track down more of Thomas Hampson's Hadrian (with the fashionable beard, natch!)...)

Vow, that does look like worth tracking down. Mind you, googling reviews of the opera tells me Rufus Wainwright and collaborators, after centuries, or rather millennia of debate on how and hwy Antinous died came up with yet another version, and also one that simultanously somewhat lets Hadrian of the hook for his anti-Jewish policies (since he signs that decree only against the promise to see dead Antinous again), but hey, rule of drama, and it looks and sounds gorgeous.

Reminder that Manteuffel actually told Seckendorff Jr. the nephew that Fritz was "like Hadrian", presumably as a hint, though this didn't stop him from being overly optimistic about Fritz/EC a few years later. Then again, Hadrian was married, and Sabina actually went with him to Egypt. It was a completely political marriage, and in all likelihood unconsumated, but she also got more respect than poor EC did, and in 1740, after Fritz and EC had spend some years together in Rheinsberg where according to Fritz himself he had been happy, it was probably possible to believe this arrangement would continue to work for him.

Also: last year I watched the Ridley Scott movie All the Money in the World and the tv miniseries Trust, both of which deal with the (in)famous Getty kidnapping where JP Getty the first and original refused to pay ransom for his grandson until he was sent said grandson's severed ear, and even then kept haggling about the price. Now, both fictionalizations differ partly greatly from each other, but both include Getty - obsessed with collecting art as he was, especially antiquity art - saying with utter conviction that he's the reincarnation of Hadrian, so presumably he actually believed that. Now, in one case, he says it while strolling through the famous (and gigantic) Villa Hadrian built in Tivoli, and says "I remember making love to my mistresses here", at which point, of course, I had to wonder:

a) are we the audience supposed to get from this Getty doesn't actually know much about Hadrian, including the one thing everyone knows about Hadrian?

or

b) Do the scriptwriters not know that about Hadrian and just think Roman Emperor = orgies with mistresses?

Thomas Hampson is my fave and even when I don't agree with his interpretation, he throws himself 100% into it and I'm sure it is interesting to watch :D

Now, in one case, he says it while strolling through the famous (and gigantic) Villa Hadrian built in Tivoli, and says "I remember making love to my mistresses here", at which point, of course, I had to wonder:

Hee! I mean, my money is on (b) but maybe (a)??

I mean, in both cases there's no doubt the writers did their homework as far as the Getty story is concerned. But Roman history isn't a part of it (Getty's obsession with collecting and museum building aside), and maybe I am overestimating how much or little people associate with Hadrian.

maybe I am overestimating how much or little people associate with Hadrian.

This is where I confess that I didn't know anything about Hadrian's sexuality off the top of my head until it came up in salon in the Antinous discussion. I mean, I must have run into it in my reading, but while I knew things about Hadrian's policies off the top of my head, I would not have batted an eye at "mistresses" if I had watched this movie.

OTOH, I also don't think I'm Hadrian's reincarnation, and this is outside my period, so I can be forgiven that. :P But I thus think it's quite likely your average moviegoer wouldn't know this. Unless maybe it comes up in a lot of pop culture that I'm not aware of, which I suppose is possible.

ETA: My wife woke up, and I have consulted with her, and the verdict is that you are overestimating what people associate with Hadrian. She is well educated and has an above-average interest in history and in historical gays, and when I asked her, she was in almost the same place as I was before salon as far as what she knew about Hadrian today, i.e.:

- No idea Hadrian was gay. (Same.)

- Had heard of Antinous, but didn't know to connect him with Hadrian. (Same.)

- Associated Hadrian primarily with Hadrian's Wall. (Same.)

- Thinks the average person associates Hadrian primarily with Hadrian's Wall. (Same.)

- Thinks the average person associates Greeks with homosexuality, but not Romans. (Same.)

- Knew that Hadrian had monuments and statues all over Turkey. (I didn't know this one, but I did know assorted other facts about his reign.)

We agree that this comic, which I have to share all the time at work, is probably relevant. ;)

Edited 2023-01-07 00:45 (UTC)

Me and Rufus Wainwright, as I googled about the opera

cahn has linked us to, and according to his notes on the opera, he apparantly thinks every gay person of his generation has read Marguerite Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian. :)

....Okay, point taken, and in that case, I'm going with the guess that the scriptwriters had no idea, either, and thus didn't want to signal lack of knowledge of Getty's part.

Mind you, that still makes me wonder whether JP Getty in his fervent belief that he's the reincarnation of Hadrian would have cracked a book, so to speak, and learned about Antinous. (Because even if he'd gotten a homophobic and/or Victorian biography, I would still say it is literally impossible to write about Hadrian and leave Antinous out.) Not to mention the lack of mistresses. I mean, Hadrian had his share of enemies and detractors, some well earned - read: anyone talking about his attempted cultural genocide of the Jews - , some not, and ascribing a dissolute sex life to an Emperor you want to trash is a tried and true tactic through the millennia, but as far as I know even the deeply hostile Hadrian depictions whose theories on Antinous' death is that it's all Hadrian's fault for either clinging to him beyond the time an erastes/eromenes relationship was viable, thus driving A. into suicide, or for intending to ditch him for the next boy or what not do not ascribe mistresses to him. (For a comparison: Emperors like Nero or Commodus who are meant to be the worst - and in the case of Commodus at least have some claim to being the Worst Ever - are described as shagging everything that moves, basically.) (See also Henry IV the Salian being described as celebrating Black masses over his second wife's naked body and having palace orgies for a Christian example.) I mean, as far as I know none of the other Emperors had his boyfriend declared a God and founded a successful new cult to worship him after his death, so I can only conclude Hadrian's gay reputation at least in ancient times must have been so solid that even if you wanted to bash him, you couldn't do so in the "and also, he had sex with everyone!!!" way.

(Sidenote: Yes, Caligula had his favourite sister Drusilla declared a goddess after her death, and whether or not he had sex with her, people certainly assumed he did, but the Drusilla worship never caught on the way the Antinous worship did, and quickly died with Caligula.)

While we're talking about assumed pop culture knowledge or lack of same, I still think that when Manteuffel tells Seckendorff the Nephew that Junior is like Hadrian in 1735 or thereabouts, he's not alluding to Fritz' interest in architecture, current Rheinsberg building not withstanding. He could>/i> have meant Fritzian interest in philosophy, I guess, and/or already spotted the Fritzian potential to be a workoholic micromanaging control freak (which certainly Hadrian, Fritz and JP Getty were), but I don't think the later was deductable in the mid 1730s when Fritz is just about finally get the time for his hobbies, and as a signal for "likes philosophy", Marcus Aurelius would have been a more common comparison. (I could be wrong, but I think Trajan and Marcus Aurelius are the meant-as-flattering comparisons Algarotti chooses in some of the writings quoted in the essay collection about Algarotti, to compliment Fritz both as a warrior - Trajan - and a philosopher - Marcus Aurelius.) So at least among the educated nobility of the 18th century, Hadrian's inclinations must have been known.

Hadrian had monuments and statues all over Turkey. (I didn't know this one, but I did know assorted other facts about his reign.)

Hadrian: I had monuments and statues - especially of Antinous - in every corner of the Roman Empire, not only Turkey! :)

So at least among the educated nobility of the 18th century, Hadrian's inclinations must have been known.

Oh, for sure! The educated nobility of the 18th century was all *over* the ancient Greeks and Romans, they knew their stuff! They had a shared canon that is no longer so shared. And I assume they would have connected Hadrian and Antinous off the tops of their heads, unlike some of us moderns. ;)

Hadrian: I had monuments and statues - especially of Antinous - in every corner of the Roman Empire, not only Turkey! :)

Indeed! But the Near East is what my wife's history focus has been for the last several years, so that's where she keeps hearing about him. ;)

As a data point, I knew about Hadrian and Antinous' relationship, but can't remember where I learned it. I would say that I have an above-average knowledge about the Roman empire, but it's hardly my primary area of interest.

(Speaking of knowledge of historical gays, I was amazed at how many people around me (including queer people), had no idea who Sappho was! Maybe my baseline idea of "how much most people know about history" needs to be recalibrated...)

I would say that anyone in salon is non-representative for the population at large when it comes to interest in history. ;)

I work in tech, a place famous for people with no interest or background in the humanities, and my baseline idea of "how much people know about history" is calibrated by having had to explain who the Medici were to someone who'd been to Florence and yet never heard of them (apparently the Italy trip was mostly for drinking), to explain that yes, Catholicism and Protestantism are kind of a big deal in Ireland, and to tell my boss recently that no, this 18th century history that I'm studying these days is not in fact the Renaissance.

At that point, I was stumped. "What exactly happened in the 18th century that he *has* heard of, that I can use to orient him?" I ended up saying, "American Revolution--but my friends and I aren't studying that, we're doing European history, and uh, gosh...Catherine the Great? Have you heard of her? Voltaire?"

I did not get the sense that he knew any of these names. Then he went,

"Yeah, I don't know anything about history, but my friend who's joining the company soon said the Romans invented slavery. That's not true, right? I don't know much, but I think I know that."

I do not foresee any of these people going, "But Hadrian didn't have mistresses!" in a movie theater any time soon. ;)

Catholicism and Protestantism are kind of a big deal in Ireland
Hee. That's just current events, and not limited to history.

I would instinctively have used the French revolution as a reference point for "something people will definitely have heard of that happened in the 18th century". But I suppose the American revolution is better in the US. : D

I do not foresee any of these people going, "But Hadrian didn't have mistresses!" in a movie theater any time soon. ;)
Heh, probably not!

That's just current events, and not limited to history.

Yep. And that's the reason I said "humanities" and not "history". :) (There are other examples of a complete lack of humanities knowledge. Like when I was chatting about there being Ender's Game books from different characters' points of view, and one engineer went, "Point of view, point of view...is that like first-person, second-person?")

Ooh, French revolution, yes, that might help. I'll mention Marie Antoinette if it happens again, thank you! I think people might know her name even if "French revolution" means nothing to them (we only covered it in one class the entire time I was in school), and all they think when they hear her name is "Let them eat cake."

Aw, tech! Ha, he's probably heard of Lafayette ;)

To be fair, as we've discussed before, a lot of this is the terrible American approach to history in school. The only history I had learned in school before salon was really US history (up to 1920 or so, lol); everything else I might know even a little bit about, like Henry VIII or the French Revolution, was stuff I'd picked up from outside reading but definitely not from the school curriculum. My best friend went to a better school system and she has a much better grounding in world history in general.

My kids go to a school that is progressive in a way that is great in some ways (socioemotionally, which is the most important for E and why we're there) but even more awful for history. I don't think E knows any history except that they did the Renaissance this year, and they have done "Colonial America" and "Westward Expansion" portions of American history in past years, which she remembers almost nothing about.

ETA: I just remembered that I was playing a game with E's classmate's family a couple of weeks ago, and I tried to use the word "Elizabethan" as a clue in the game, because I knew they'd studied Shakespeare during their Renaissance unit. Neither E nor her classmate had ever heard the word, which makes me very suspicious about what history they've done and what they'll remember.

Edited 2023-01-08 22:54 (UTC)

Ha, he's probably heard of Lafayette ;)

I was thinking of this when I wrote that comment! And I decided there was a 50% chance. But also we hadn't talked about Lafayette in salon at the time I was talking to him, so Lafayette wasn't on my mind.

To be fair, as we've discussed before, a lot of this is the terrible American approach to history in school.

True facts, but it was a movie aimed at Americans, right? I might also add that my wife is Brazilian, and they don't teach them about Hadrian's sexuality there either. ;) Also, one of her reactions was, "Well, how do we know he didn't *also* have mistresses? They're not mutually exclusive!" Me: "You have to be as well-read as Selena to know what the evidence for that is." ;)

Neither E nor her classmate had ever heard the word

She's...12? There is no way I had heard that word at that age, in or out of school. That was high school at best.

Now, I DID know who Sappho was, and much earlier than 2018 at that! I actually first learned about her as a kid, from reading Marion Zimmer Bradley of dubious memory -- in one of her short stories, the main character, Lythande, sings a lyric that MZB says in the notes to the story is by Sappho, and that it is a clue to Lythande's sexuality. I've seen Sappho a lot of places since then, though, and sapphic is a word...

This is where I confess that I didn't know anything about Hadrian's sexuality off the top of my head until it came up in salon in the Antinous discussion.

HAHAHAHAHA this made me laugh because what I forgot to say when I responded to

selenak was that I of course had no idea about Hadrian's sexuality until someone (probably

iberiandoctor?) pointed me to that Hadrian opera trailer! So, I knew about it when salon started, lol! But only... a year before.

Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 40

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Iconography

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Historical gays

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