Staff Pick: Bust of Hercules

In the next in our series of picks of favourite items from our displays senior visitor service assistant Nichola Blackledge has picked a Staffordshire Bust of Hercules from around 1800 …

“My favourite object is the earthenware Bust of Hercules in the Cabinet of Curiosities. I like him for the simple reason that he reminds me very much of Brian Blessed, and that makes me smile.”

Nichola Blackledge, Visitor Service Assistant

Lets get the technical details over and done with – this earthenware bust was manufactured by Enoch Wood of Burslem around 1800. Enoch Wood was a former Apprentice of Josiah Wedgwood and founded Enoch Wood and Company in 1784. The company initially specialised in earthenware figures, but later abandoned figures and turned to producing tableware for the American market.

All of which is very interesting but Nicola didn’t choose this bust because of Enoch Wood, she chose it because it reminds her of Brian Blessed… and let’s face it, it’s all about the classical beard.

No, not that classical Beard

Facial hair might be “in” right now – whether it’s designer stubble, a goatee or a full-on beard like Brian Blessed – but beards haven’t always been so popular in history.

Look at this bearded bust of Hercules, for example. It was made over 200 years ago, but even if we were to sculpt a figure of Hercules today the chances are we’d probably still automatically give him a beard. In the most recent cinematic portrayal of the hero Hercules in 2014, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson even had to wear a fake beard – allegedly made from hair taken from the testicles of a yak …

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The reason we think of Hercules as being bearded is that although Hercules is a Roman hero, he is based on an even earlier Ancient Greek hero called Heracles, and the Ancient Greeks almost always depicted their male gods and heroes with beards. The Ancient Greeks associated the beard with virility, manhood and wisdom. In contrast the Roman Empire generally saw beards as a sign of immaturity, untidiness and poverty.

This was not always the case and beards were commonplace in the early days of the Roman Republic. In fact Roman civilisation was a late convert to the idea of shaving – the Roman writer Pliny (23/4 AD-79 AD) suggests that barbers were only introduced to Roman society via Sicily in around 300 BC. The military general Scipio Africanus (236-183 BC) was probably one of the first Roman trendsetters to shave off his beard, but many followed suit and soon afterwards being clean-shaven became a sign of being a Roman adult.

Scipio Africanus, clean-shaven trendsetter

Later, during the time of the early Roman Empire, a young man’s first shave at the age of around 20 was considered to be a rite of passage during which they were gifted the plain white “toga of manhood” or “toga virilis”, as a symbol of their new adulthood. The removed beard hair was then collected and consecrated to a Roman god – for example the young emperor Nero dedicated his shaved beard hair to the god Jupiter and kept it in a box made of gold and decorated with pearls.

At the height of the Roman Empire the beard became a symbol of being “not-quite-civilised”, it was acceptable for Romans from the countryside to sport a few days of growth but to Romans from the city it was beyond the pale. There were, however, certain circumstances under which it was considered acceptable for prominent Roman citizens to grow beards. This was primarily during periods of crisis or of mourning. For example the first Roman emperor Augustus (63 BC – 14 AD) made a virtue of remaining clean-shaven but let his beard grow back in 9 AD following news of the loss of three Roman legions in an ambush at the battle of Teutoberg Forest. Interestingly Brian Blessed played Augustus in the 1976 adaptation of “I, Claudius” and more than 40 years later it’s unnerving to see an actor who is so associated with beards appear without face furniture.

An alarmingly clean shaven Brian Blessed as the Emperor Augustus

With the exception of the Emperor Nero – who (depending on who you believe) either grew a beard to appear cultured like the Ancient Greeks or as a desperate ploy to cover his “weak chin” – Roman Emperors remained clean shaven for around 140 years until the Emperor Hadrian in 117 AD. Hadrian led a beard revival amongst the Romans and chose to grow a full-on Ancient Greek-style beard – allegedly to hide blemishes on his face. Perhaps unsurprisingly this coincided with a revival of interest in other aspects of Ancient Greek Culture in Rome.

Gold Aureus of the Emperor Nero who definitely wasn’t trying to hide anything

With the emperor Hadrian the Roman beard was back in fashion and this time it remained so until the time of Constantine the Great, over 150 years later.

So. the next time you see a statue or other artwork depicting a classical ruler or hero check out their chin … and work out what the artist (or emperor) is trying to say.