How Do We Look: The Body, the Divine, and the Question of Civilization

by Mary Beard

But, as with all such apparent ‘propaganda’, there are different sides to this. For a start, the bombastic bare-chested display of these figures is the kind of thing that we now tend to ridicule when we see it used by modern autocrats. The more power flaunts itself in your face, the more it risks undermining its claims to be taken seriously.