HELLENISTIC PERIOD, CIRCA 3RD-2ND CENTURY B.C.

Superbly sculpted in high relief, this fragment completely preserves the head of Herakles, including his neck and a small portion of his shoulder. The hero is depicted in profile, gazing downward. He has thick, curly hair composed of flame-like locks and a full beard with locks on the chin tightly coiled. His creased forehead and furrowed brow are above his deep-set eye. A marble relief from the same time period found in the port of Catania, now in the Museo Civico at Castello Ursino, depicts Herakles wrestling the giant Antaios, showing the hero’s head in a similar style, also gazing downward (see V. Li Vigni, et al., Thalassa, Meraviglie sommerse dal Meditrraneo). A Roman relief, circa mid 1st century A.D., from the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias, offers another solution for the pose of our fragment. This one depicts Herakles preparing to wrestle the giant, in which the hero stands to the left, his head similarly depicted, with Antaios standing to the right (see C. Ratté and R.R.R. Smith, “Archeological Research at Aphrodisias in Caria, 1999-2001,” American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 108, no. 102, 2004, p. 172, fig. 26). The authors suggest that a painting with a similar composition described by the late 2nd-early 3rd century A.D. Roman author Philostratus (2.21 in Imagines) may indicate a Hellenistic source for the composition employed at Aphrodisias, thus contemporary with the relief presented here.