It is interesting to study how different a ruler, president, emperor, etc. acts from the time they are trying to win the public over to the time they actually hold a position of power.  Take Caracalla for instance, a Roman emperor who ruled from 211-217 A.D during the Severan dynasty.  It is best to show the difference in Caracalla’s actions from the time before he ruled the Roman Empire to the time he was reigning emperor, by looking at representations of Caracalla in art of the time.
    While visiting the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, I came across a representation of Caracalla done in the early 3rd century before he became emperor of Rome.  The marble statue caught my eye because it was very tall; around 6’5’’, and it favored the Apollo Belvedere.  Its name is Emperor Caracalla in the Guise of Helios and it is a remarkable piece of work.  The content of the statue is of course Caracalla, but it is the artist’s representation of him that makes the statue unique.  In this piece, Caracalla is portrayed as the Greek god Helios.  As it turns out, Alexander the Great had adopted Helios as his favorite god.  All the emperors of the Severan dynasty tried very hard to emulate Alexander the Great.
     As the story goes, the Greek god Helios drew the sun across the sky in his chariot daily.  Since Helios was so closely related to Alexander the Great and Alexander was so beloved by the people of Rome, emperors of the Severan dynasty tried hard to relate themselves with Alexander.  At the time the statue was constructed, Caracalla was the son of then emperor, Severus.  Since Caracalla was in a direct line to the descent of the throne, the statue was constructed to win the public’s respect and admiration, the same respect and admiration that they felt for Alexander the Great.
     In the statue, Caracalla’s head has been placed on Helios’ body.  Caracalla has Alexander’s distinctive hairstyle, which is very curly locks that hang down to lay on his neck.  Other than Alexander’s hairstyle and Caracalla’s head, the rest of the statue is representative of Helios.  Caracalla’s body is extremely muscular and he is posed in the nude.  He is positioned in a very classicized stance, with his left leg straight and his right leg slightly bent in a casual manner.  His right arm is outstretched in the direction that his eyes are looking while is left arm is resting by his side.  In its present form, the statue is missing the right arm as well as its left hand.
     As far as adornment, Caracalla is wearing a thick cloth that is draped around his neck and his left forearm.  On his head, Caracalla wears a crown that was an attribute of Helios.  Helios, being the sun god, wore a crown that had twelve rays.  Unfortunately, the crown rays no longer exist on the statue in its present form.  Also, Caracalla originally carried a torch in his left arm but only the tip of the torch still exists on the present day statue.  Behind Caracalla’s left leg, is the head of a horse that is suppose to represent Helios’ chariot that he rode across the sky.        
     Emperor Caracalla in the Guise of Helios is a freestanding sculpture that is light gray in color.  The value of the statue, which is the relative degree of lightness or darkness in the range from  white to black and is created by the amount of light reflected from an object’s surface, is very light.  Its texture is very smooth except for the cloth that is draped around his neck.  The rough folds in the cloth contrast the smoothness of Caracalla’s body.  The statue itself is a great example of both the naturalistic and idealized styles that were common to Classical Greek sculpture.  
     A later representation of Caracalla from around 214 AD, when he was actually the emperor of Rome, showed that his idea of imperial portraiture had changed a great deal.  A picture of the head sculpture titled Caracalla provided by Marylin Stokstad in Volume I of her book, Art History, exemplifies this change.  The book notes that during his reign, Caracalla was consistently represented with a “malignant, scowling expression,” quite a change from the god-like representation in Emperor Caracalla in the Guise of Helios (276).  Actually, Stokstad notes that his scowling expression was to relay the message to the public that an emperor was not a god.  The curls of Alexander disappear in this head sculpture as well as the kind and caring face from Emperor Caracalla in the Guise of Helios.  
     Stokstad conveys Caracalla’s message that an emperor was “not an effete intellectual, not a soft patrician, but a hard-as-nails, battle-toughened military man, a lethal opponent ready to defend himself and his empire,” (276).  It is most likely that Caracalla was unable to charm his subjects like Alexander the Great, so he totally gave up trying to uphold a god like image.  Even though this head sculpture is only a little over 1 foot, while the other stands over 6 feet tall, the expression on Caracalla’s face easily makes up for the size difference.  
     Another chilling difference between Emperor Caracalla in the Guise of Helios and Caracalla, is the difference in light and dark values.  In Emperor Caracalla in the Guise of Helios the statue has a light value because it is light gray in color and while Caracalla is dark in value because not much light is reflected from the statue’s surface.   Dark values reflect the light dominanting his brow and eyes giving him a look of “calculating ruthlessness,” (276).  This was the way that Caracalla wanted to be represented, as a no nonsense ruler.
     Obviously the styles of the two works are very different from one another.  As mentioned before, both naturalistic and idealized styles were very common in Classical Greek sculpture.  These styles are represented in Emperor Caracalla in the Guise of Helios.  On the other hand, Caracalla incorporates realistic style, the attempt to depict objects as they are in actual, and visible reality.  Surely, this is the way that Caracalla appeared to the Roman public and the artist that completed Caracalla.  
     The reason as to why Caracalla’s subjects most likely viewed him in the manner that they did is because of the fact that he killed his brother Geta to become the undisputed emperor of Rome.  Geta supposedly had a much more pleasing personality that did Caracalla and the two did not get along.  Each brother had his own set of followers, but generally the citizens of Rome preferred Geta to Caracalla.  The two brothers decided to split up the palace as well as the empire.  
When the brother’s mother, Julia Domna, heard that the two were planning to split up the empire, she would not allow it.  Rumors from the past have it that Caracalla and his mother together devised a plan to have Geta killed.  When Geta showed up at his mother’s house to talk about reconciliation with Caracalla, Caracalla had three centurions enter and stab Geta to death.
     Ironically, in the last stage of Caracalla’s life he could have been portrayed as a coward.  Perhaps a sculpture or painting out there represents this final stage of Caracalla’s life.  In the last few years of his reign, his mother had to take over control of the Senate for him because he believed the ghost of his brother was haunting his own palace.  He seemed to be dealing with a guilty conscience of killing his brother.  He himself died the same way as his brother in 217, being stabbed the death on a Syrian road.
     Imperial portraiture can really do a lot to portray a ruler in the way that he or she wishes.  With Caracalla, we went from a god-like Alexander the Great portraiture before his rule, to a ruthless ruler during his reign.  This type of art helps us as viewers to decipher a story behind a piece of artwork.  If we were the subjects of Rome back in 205 AD, we most likely would have seen the Emperor Caracalla in the Guise of Helios and directly related Caracalla to Alexander the Great.  Later in 214 AD, we would have seen Caracalla and been frightened of the cold, calculating face that the sculpture represents.      
 

1. Spartianus, Aelius translated by David Magie, PhD.  “The Life of Antoninus Caracalla.”
Online.  Loeb Classical Library.  Internet. 10 July 2001.  Available http://members.aol.com/heliogabby/bio/caracall.htm

2.  Stokstad, Marilyn.  Art History Volume One.  New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995.

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