Each of these objects has been placed as a reminder of the hero's accomplishments, as well as allowing the Emperor to associate and refer to himself as the Roman Hercules.

In this case, Taurus refers the founding of Rome under Romulus, which took place traditionally on feast of the Parilia, the 21st of April; Capricorn represents Augustus, who regarded the sign as his; and finally Scorpio is the emperor himself, as the third "founder" of the city.

[8] Further decoration can be found surrounding the globe, from the kneeling Amazons to either side (one of whom has been lost), to the cornucopia entangled with a pelta.

[5] Archaeologist and museum director Mortimer Wheeler suggested that although the bust would have been made for Commodus or someone close to him at the court, and the mythological topic decided by the patron, the artist was deliberately subverting the flattering subject and casting the flamboyant emperor in an ironic light: the contrast between the trappings of Hercules, the real hero (lion hide and club, etc.

), and the "effeminate" and self-obsessed emperor shown in stone here is too grotesque to be taken only as an idolizing portrait, and the hidden intention becomes ironic.