I’ve been googling online, and I have been unable to locate a good likeness of Constantius II, who succeeded his father Constantine, murdered all his cousins, then his brothers and left only a nephew, Julian the Apostate, to succeed him. His reign is described vividly by Ammianus Marcellinus, and the church remembered him as an Arian.
Long ago I placed online the Chronography of 354, a magnificent collection of documents illustrated by a famous artist and presented to a nobleman in that year. The original is lost, but copies have reached us. One of the illustrations is of “our emperors”, Constantius and his nephew, the luckless Gallus.
Since then the Barberini manuscript (Vatican barberini latini 2154B) of the Chronography has come online. Here’s the portrait of Constantius from it, online here:
It is a splendid portrait, isn’t it? What a face!
But I was surprised to discover that the illustrations were monochrome. The printed version was monochrome but I had always assumed that was just to make it possible to print.
Another manuscript of the Chronography is also online, in Vienna, here. But this does not include the portraits of the emperors, although it does include other illustrations.
I wanted to see if other representations matched the one above. The first item that I found was a bust of a young prince, almost 3 feet tall, and identified as either Constantius II or possibly his brother Constans. It’s at the Capitoline Museum in Rome, inv. MC2882:
The Last Statues database catalogues this as LSA-561, and gives a reference to a catalogue, sadly offline.[1] I must say the portrait is not obviously similar to that of the Chronography.
Another portrait at Wikipedia is this:
I don’t know anything else about this, but I can see that the nose seems to be restored, and much else; so I fear this is not a likeness. There is also a widely miscaptioned picture of Theodosius II under the name of Constantius.
The next item I found on Tumblr:
The head is ancient but the darker bust material is modern. But again is this Constantius?
Also on Tumblr, was this silver bowl from the Bosporan kingdom, i.e. the Crimea. I think that it is from Kerch, and is probably held in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia.[2]
The long face is very like that of the Chronography.
Here’s another item, the Missorium of Kerch, preserved in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg in Russia. Wikipedia has a monochrome image here.
This also depicts a long-faced Constantius. So I think we may treat the depiction in the Chronography as fairly accurate. Not bad for a renaissance copy of a Carolingian copy of an ancient book!
UPDATE: A commenter points out that the two dishes look suspiciously similar, allowing for photography differences. There are 3 dishes; but are all these photos of the same item?!
- [1]Fittschen, K. and P. Zanker, Katalog der Porträts in den Capitolischen Museen und den anderen kommunalen Sammlungen der Stadt Rom, Band I, Mainz 1985, 156-7, no. 125, pl. 156 ↩
- [2]This I infer from a snippet view of a book on Google Books: Bernard Samuel Myers, Encyclopedia of world art, – Volume 9 – Page xcvi: “Two dishes found at Kerch (Leningrad, The Hermitage) refer to an anniversary of Constantius in 343. The style of these dishes … The third, and most splendid, piece of this type is the Missorium of Theodosius I (II, PL. 487), which celebrates …”↩
Constantine II died in a conflict (civil war) with Constans. Constans was murdered by the usurper Magnentius. Constantius didn’t have anything to do with their deaths.
On the other hand the charge that Constantius was deeply involved in the purge of 337 is harder to shake.