William O. Stephens
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Appearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
And so we don't have a kind of pensive pose statue of Marcus.
What we have is the equestrian statue and other busts, right?
One when he's a child that I have in my earlier book on Marcus Aurelius, The Guide for the Perplexed, which is really fascinating to look at closely and analyze.
But the big one, of course, is the equestrian statue.
And in Marcus's time, he wasn't thought of primarily as a philosopher at all.
Right.
He was a warrior.
He was a general.
He was leading campaigns.
for years and years and years.
And he was in the saddle.
And that's the equestrian.
So that's what we see in the equestrian statue.
And that's what most Romans saw when they saw Marcus, right?
They'd see him on the coins.
That's the Marcus they knew.
They'd see him in the busts.
They'd see the busts, right?
Right.
That would be made every few years as he aged.