The historian Cassius Dio, who upheld Marcus Aurelius as the paradigm of imperial rule, was not so blinkered as to recognize the limitations of his imperial idol. Marcus was, by all accounts ...

The most famous ruler featured in the hoard is arguably the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (reigned from A.D. 161 to 180), while his wife, Faustina II, is portrayed on a coin of her own.

Now, one of these venerable legacies of Roman rule, a headless bronze believed by some to depict the famed statesman Marcus Aurelius and by others to be an unnamed philosopher, is returning to Turkey.