Marcus Aurelius is one of the best-known figures of the Roman Empire, thanks to his writings on Stoic philosophy and his place in history as “the last good emperor.”
His face is famous, too, even though he lived long before photography. The many surviving statues of Marcus Aurelius provide a vivid portrayal of his curly hair and beard, uniquely shaped face and kind, sad eyes.
But what would Marcus Aurelius look like in real life today, if he had been born during modern times? Thanks to the wonders of artificial intelligence, we’re now able to see stunning images of what this famous Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher might look like if he were brought back to life in the 21st century.
We used more than a hundred different pictures of Marcus Aurelius statues and busts taken from multiple angles to train a state-of-the-art generative artificial intelligence program on exactly what the emperor’s bone structure, facial features, hair and expressions would look like in real life today. These images are the best-of-the-best from a series of amazing photos the program created showing Marcus in different modern-day settings.
We hope you loved seeing these images as much as we loved using AI to produce them! If you want to check out some more cool stuff that we’ve done with AI and Marcus Aurelius, please check out our Ask Marcus Aurelius feature.