Commentary Prepared by Dr. Julia Lenaghan, Ashmolean Museum

C 047
Portrait Herm of Perikles. London

Marble
Herm
59 cm, from top of helmet to the bottom of the beard 41.2 cm

From Tivoli. Found in 1781 in the so-called Villa of Cassius with a series of other herms which included another herm of Perikles, now in the Vatican.
United Kingdom, London, British Museum, 549
Roman Copy of an Original dated ca. 440-420 BC

Preservation:
The herm bust is completely preserved. The nose and parts of the helmet have been restored. An area on the upper back right side of the helmet is significantly abraded. On the lateral sides of the herm are two vertically spaced rectangular cuttings.

Description:
The herm portrays a bearded male who wears a Corinthian helmet and turns to the left. The Corinthian helmet is pushed off the face. The eye holes are consequently located just in front of the crown of the head. No hair, however, appears through them. The dome of the helmet swells out above and behind the head. The bottom edge of the front of the helmet crosses the forehead and its central point is located directly above the nose. The hair appears out from under the bottom rim of the helmet around the back of the head behind the ears and in front of the ears at the temples. In addition, a mass of hair in front of the temples rises and covers an area of the helmet. The hair is made of short curly locks that pile on top of each other and, thus, create volume. The individual locks are distinct and each consists of at least two strands delineated by engraved lines. The beard, of medium length, is made of similarly rendered hair. The locks, however, are flattened to the face and lack the volume of the locks of the head. The moustache, in contrast, is made of straight hair. The face is long and narrow. The cheek bones, not the eyes, are the widest point of the face. This causes an indentation in the brow at the temples. The brow itself is flat and, shadowed by the brim of the helmet, appears as a short horizontal band. The eyebrows have a fine projection and a small arch. The upper eye lids continue well beyond the intersection within the lower lid. The top lines of the upper lids are deeply engraved arches and the lower lines project. The lower lids are more horizontal in form and are formed by one line. The lower definition of the lower lids blends into the cheek. The mouth is broad. The upper lip is mainly concealed by the moustache. Yet the groove between the lips dips at the center and this gives the upper lip a central overhang. The lower lip is noticeably full. Below the center of its lower line there is a slight indentation. The chin is solid and broad but does not project. It appears long as well but this may in part be due to the beard. Below the head a portion of the chest is portrayed. It extends to about the nipples and is bare. At the level of the nipples is an inscription in Greek which reads ???????? .

Discussion:
The London herm repeats a type which is known in a total of four replicas (a herm in the Vatican, a head in the Barraco, a head in Berlin, and this head). A fragment in the Princeton Art Museum, which was listed by Richter as a replica, is currently thought to copy a similar but different work. Both the London and the Vatican ( ??????????????????????????? ) herms are identified as Perikles. There are three important literary sources about portraits of Perikles. Plutarch (Perikles 3.2) writes that Perikles’ head was so long that artists always showed him in a helmet. Pliny the Elder (NH 34.74) writes that Kresilas made an Olympian statue of Perikles which the noble man yet nobler. Pausanias (1.25.1 and 1.28.2) sees a statue of Perikles on the Akropolis in Athens. In addition, a fragmentary inscription, preserving the letters, ?????????…????????????? was found on the Akropolis. A number of assumptions have developed from these facts. On the basis of the Akropolis inscription the Kresilas’ portrait of Perikles described by Pliny appears to be the same as that seen by Pausanias on the Athenian Akropolis. Next it is inferred that this was the most famous portrait of Perikles and that the extant marble copies of a portrait of Perikles must be based on his most famous portrait. The date for the statue assumed to be by Kresilas comes under consideration. Furtwängler proposed a statue voted after the Samos expedition in 439 BC; others suggested a statue begun by Pheidias and finished by Kresilas when Pheidias left Athens in 433/2 BC; and finally Ekstein, who has gained general approbation, suggested that given the political climate in the late 430s a statue of Perikles was unlikely at that point and moreover, the nudity of the statue suggests that it was a posthumous honor. That the statue was nude is suggested by the bare chest depicted in the London herm. Thus, Eckstein dates the statue to about 429 BC immediately following Perikles’ death. Against this hypothesis is Raubitschek’s latest reading of the inscription from the Akropolis which causes concern because Perikles’ name is in the genitive. Raubitschek most recently restores the inscription to read “Xanthippos, son of Perikles (thus, putting Perikles’ name in the genitive) erected this. Kresilas made it.” This would date the honor within the life time of Perikles since both his sons died before him in the plague at the end of the 430s. The general appearance of the full statue has also been subject to speculation and a statuette from Arcadia has been published as a reproduction of the fundamental type. It is now accepted that Perikles was probably nude but for a chlamys draped over one shoulder and that he held a spear. A small hole in the top surface of the much discussed inscribed block from the Akropolis appears on the outer side and seems appropriate for a spear. It must be admitted that most of this discussion is speculation. The likelihood that the statue discussed by Pliny is the same as that which Pausanias saw is high. Pushing aside Plutarch’s mention of artists who made statues of Perikles, one might even concede the Pliny-Pausanias statue is probably the statue whose head type is preserved in the four known marble replicas. Returning to the four marble replicas, we should note that Furtwängler recognized the London copy as the best replica. To be sure the London herm, dated by Pandermalis to the Trajanic period, does give the position of the head and some of the chest. Yet it does not show the hair through the eye holes as some of the others do and Pandermalis considers it the most lifeless. The portrait is always described as an ideal portrait, one that does not give the particular physiognomical traits of an individual but that shows the ideal of a leader. This has been often related to Pliny’s note that the noble man is made nobler and his use of the epithet Olympian for the portrait. The portrait type is always given as reference point for the work of Kresilas. Similarities between it and other sculpture are used to identify other sculpture as works by Kresilas. In particular the “Diomedes” type (see cat. C 45 and C 46) has been assigned to Kresilas (both Robertson and Vierneisel- Schlörb) because of its similarities in hair, beard, and eyes. The eyes, however, are a deceptive trait since they are to some extent the product of the copyists. Although there is a similarity between the Perikles and the Diomedes types, it is difficult to assess whether this is due to the hand of the same original artist or merely the style of the same original period. Moreover, since the “Perikles” is not even certainly by Kresilas, it creates more useless assumptions to assign other works to Kresilas on the basis of it.

Bibliography:
G.M.A. Richter, Portraits of the Greeks I (London 1965) pp.102-104 especially p.103 no.3 figs.429-431 complete list of all depictions of and ancient literature regarding depictions of Perikles
D. Pandermalis, Untersuchungen zu den klassischen Strategenköpfen (Freiburg 1969) pp.26-30 especially p.26 brief and complete summary of all elements of the type
M. Robertson, A History of Greek Art (Cambridge 1975) pp.335-337 considers type to be by Kresilas and uses it to assess other works potentially by Kresilas
G. Donatas, "Bemerkungen über einige attische Strategenbildnisse der klassischen Zeit" Festschrift für Frank Brommer (Mainz 1977) p.80 discusses the type in context of other portraits of strategoi
B. Vierneisel-Schlörb, Katalog der Skulpturen Band II: Klassische Skulpturen des 5 und 4 Jahrhunderts v. Chr. (Munich 1979) pp.84-86, especially p.85 footnote 28 discusses type and possible reconstruction of the total statue in conjunction with the "Diomedes" type
W. Fuchs, Die Skulptur der Griechen (Munich 1993) pp.561-562 no.675 states positively that statue by Kresilas after death of Perikles in 429 BC and seen on Akropolis by Pausanias