Gaius Julius Caesar

What did Julius Caesar look like? The evidence for his real face is stronger than for most ancient figures. Suetonius, writing with access to imperial archives, describes a tall man with a fair complexion, keen dark eyes, and shapely limbs. He was self-conscious about his baldness, combing his thinning hair forward from the crown. The Senate's grant of a laurel wreath was, by Suetonius' account, one of the honours he most gladly accepted, partly because it covered his head.

The Tusculum portrait bust, widely regarded as the best candidate for a lifetime likeness, shows an older man with a gaunt, lined face, an elongated skull, hollow cheeks, and a prominent high-bridged nose. The veristic style spares nothing. The profile on his 44 BCE denarius, the first Roman coin to show a living person, matches: the same lean jaw, thin neck, receding hairline.

Caesar's hair colour is not recorded in any surviving text and can't be recovered from marble or metal. Dark hair greying with age is inferred from his Italian origin and the fact that he died at 55. Suetonius describes his build as well-proportioned, though by late life he was lean, suffering from the seizure episodes Suetonius calls the "falling sickness."