The bronze bust (height 17.2 cm) in fig. 1-4 is owned by Count Arran Hamilton, Stockholm, and is said to have been excavated in Uppsala, where it was acquired by the present owner's father Count Gustav Malcolm Hamilton in the 1860's. The bust may perhaps have come to Sweden with some Swedish traveller to Italy during the 18th century, found its way to Uppsala, where it may later have become buried during a fire. It is a work of high artistic quality belonging in style to the Julian-Glaudian court portraits. The head has a certain likeness to the portraits of Claudius, but the resem-blance to portraits of Ptolemæus, Claudius' cousin and the last king of Mauritania, is even more appa-rent. A comparison with the portrait of Ptolemæus in the Louvre (fig. 5-6) shows that the Swedish bust depicts the same person. Plolcmæus is shown as a 12 to 15 years old boy and has worn a diadem, which is indicated by the band-shaped indenture of the hair. He is therefore in all probability portrayed as Rex which explains a seeming contradiction in his biography; for he is represented as Rex on coins issued by Carthago Nova in Spain (Muller: Numis-matique de l'ancienne Afrique III, page 137) during the lifetime of Augustus, i.e. dated 14 A.D. at the latest, but described by Tacitus as iuventa incuriosus when he participated as king in the quelling of Tacfarinas' rebellion in 23 A.D. Both these statements have seemed singularly contradictory, but the Swe-dish bust brings them into harmony: when the coin was struck Ptolemæus was only a boy, but co-regent with his father, Juba. And as the coin was issued during Augustus' last years, Ptolemæus would be a young man of a few-and-twenty years in 23 A.D. and, as far as his age is concerned, would therefore fit in well with Tacitus' description.
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