Metastatic Carcinoma with Associated Lymphoadenopathy and Acquired Horner’s Syndrome Portrayed in a Third Century CE Roman Bust

Over fve centuries Roman portraiture developed through stylistic cycles. Physical elements of both politicians and wealthy individuals were alternatively represented as extremely veristic (realisitic) or classising (idealising) [1, 2]. In the third century CE, the portraits of wealthy freedmen (liberti) rather than the patrician élite were characterised by an unusual realism [1, 2], and great care was applied to reproduce the physiognomy of the sitters, defects and pathologies included [3]. In several cases, the Roman funerary art included the busts of the deceased [3] and some of them are so detailed to show suggestive evidence of neurological conditions [4].