Marble head from a statue of Harmodios

Kritios and Nesiotes

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Copy of a Greek bronze statue from the Tyrannicide group, erected in 477/476 B.C. and attributed to Kritios and Nesiotes Soon after the advent of a democratic government in 510 B.C., Harmodios and Aristogeiton, the Athenian aristocrats who assassinated one of the sons of the tyrant Peisistratos, were commemorated with a pair of statues in the Agora at Athens. The Persians removed the statues during their sack of Athens in 480 B.C., and two new ones were erected in 477/476 B.C. For one hundred years these heroized figures were the only statues of Athenian citizens allowed in the agora and, throughout antiquity, they remained among the most famous statues in Greece. The young Harmodios was represented raising his sword over his head, ready to deliver a slashing downward stroke. The remnants of two struts that supported the right forearm are visible on the front and side of this Roman copy.

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