Bust of Marcus Aurelius

Around AD 170 Marcus Aurelius left Rome for the Danube frontier, and he spent most of his remaining years there, at war with the Marcomanni, the Quadi and their neighbours. In camp he kept notes for himself, in Greek, which we now call the Meditations. One section ends with the remark that it was written among the Quadi, on the river Granua, today the Hron in Slovakia. Another begins with the words at Carnuntum, a Roman fortress on the Danube east of present-day Vienna.

The museum dates this bust to around 170, the years of those campaigns, and it shows him as a commander. He wears a cuirass, with a cloak over it. The face follows the third of his official portrait types, models that sculptors across the empire copied.

The bust is 91 centimetres high, and it is one of the newest arrivals in this room. The Glyptothek bought it in 2002, almost two centuries after Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria began the collection.