Allow me to show you a splendid (roughly) 1800 year old casting of the head of Hadrian (reigned AD 117-138) that, like most Roman relics, would have (most likely) been vandalised by enemies of ancient Rome. This is one of the few major bronze portraits of the emperor to have survived from antiquity. Found by London Bridge (Thames), this remarkable piece may well have been created to commemorate #Hadrian's visit to Britain in AD 122. I took these images in the British Museum. Upon which I stood in awe and wonder. What with being stood in front of a real-life effigy of a man with such infamy. Before Christianity and internalised politics rule Europe, we had clans and republics like that of Rome. He would have adhered to polytheistic Hellenism, the dominant religion of the Roman Empire during his reign. Christianity, deriving from the east, was a relatively new concept and would later be credited as having its own Roman empire.

📸 @VinnieSullivan