Marble head of Herakles

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Small-scale copy of a Greek statue of the early 3rd century B.C. The Greek hero, Herakles, is shown as a beardless young man with sideburns. He has cauliflower ears-disfigured by boxing--and a victory wreath around his head. The head bears a strong resemblance to a group of Roman works, known as the Lenback type, that probably reflect more or less closely a Greek bronze statue of the early Hellenistic period.

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