Inv. Scu 456

The portrait, bigger than life-size, features a middle-aged man with disheveled hair and beard. The eyes have iris and pupil incised; the forehead is high and wrinkled, the cheeks are rather full. The head has been adapted to a modern bust cut down at the chest.

The extensive use of the running drill in the working of hair and beard dates the portrait between the Antonine and the Severan period.

The portrait was found in the Giardino dei Mendicanti behind the Basilica of Constantine and at first kept in the Vatican. It was donated to the Capitoline Museum by Pius VII in 1816. Once in the Palazzo Nuovo, the portrait was initially displayed in the Sala degli Imperatori because of an old and arbitrary identification with the emperor Didius Julianus (AD 193).