Marble head of a Greek general

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Copy of a Greek bronze statue of the middle of the 4th century B.C. This powerful portrayal of a man of action belongs to a type popular in Roman times. One suggestion for his identity is the strategos (general) Phokion, pupil of Plato and one of the foremost Athenian statesmen of the fourth century B.C., but there is little evidence to support that theory. We do not know if the original statue was a contemporary portrait, like the famous fifth-century portrait of the Athenian statesman and general Perikles, or a posthumous work. It could even be a representation of a hero from the mythic past. He wears a Corinthian helmet pushed up and resting on the back of his head. The helmet is elaborately decorated in relief with griffins on the bowl and rams’ heads on the cheek pieces and is similar to a type worn by the goddess Athena. His eyes would have been inlaid in another material. The head has been worked for insertion into a statue.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than thirty thousand works ranging in date from the Neolithic period (ca. 4500 B.C.) to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312. It includes the art of many cultures and is among the most comprehensive in North America. The geographic regions represented are Greece and Italy, but not as delimited by modern political frontiers: Greek colonies were established around the Mediterranean basin and on the shores of the Black Sea, and Cyprus became increasingly Hellenized. For Roman art, the geographical limits coincide with the expansion of the Roman Empire. The department also exhibits the art of prehistoric Greece (Helladic, Cycladic, and Minoan) and pre-Roman art of Italic peoples, notably the Etruscans.

Metropolitan Museum of Art