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Also: Roman sculpture literally glorified the ugliness of the Patrician Elders.

>Verism was a highly realistic artistic style of Roman art. It was principally used in portraits of politicians, whose facial imperfections were exaggerated to highlight their maturity, experience, and gravitas. The word comes from Latin verus (true).

>Verism emerged as an artistic style in the late Roman Republic (147–30 BC) and was often used for Republican portraits or on heads of “pseudo-athlete” sculptures. Verism placed great emphasis on the effects of age and imperfections--wrinkles, furrows, and even warts were depicted clearly and exaggerated to indicate of a well-used, active mind and virtues like dignity, gravity, and authority, which were markers of status. Age during the Late Republic was very highly valued and was synonymous with power, since one of the only ways to hold power in Roman society was to be part of the Senate

>Verism first appeared during the Late Republic. The subjects of veristic portraiture were almost exclusively men, and these men were usually of advanced age, for generally it was elders who held power in the Republic. However, women are also seen in veristic portraiture, though to a lesser extent, and they too were almost always depicted as elderly. A key example of this is a marble head found at Palombara, Spain. Carved between 40 BC and 30 BC, during the decade of the civil war that followed Julius Caesar's assassination, the woman's face shows her advanced age. The artist carved the woman with sunken cheeks and pouches under her eyes to illustrate her age, much like male veristic portraiture of the time

>Verism, while the height of fashion during the Late Republican era, quickly fell into obscurity when Augustus and the rest of the Julio-Claudian dynasty (44 BC-68 AD) came to power. During this imperial reign, Greek Classical sculpture that featured "eternal youth" was favored over verism