Commentary Prepared by Dr. Julia Lenaghan, Ashmolean Museum

C 151
Alexander, Azara Herm. Louvre

Early imperial inscribed herm bearing a portrait head of Alexander the Great from a Roman villa near Tivoli. The portrait follows a type (‘Azara’) made in the fourth century BC and often associated with the sculptor Lysippus.

Marble
Herm
H 68.1 cm, head 25 cm

From Tivoli. Found in the ruins of a large Roman villa, called the Villa of the Pisoni, around the church of Sta. Maria della Strada (also known as ‘li Pisoni’) near Tivoli. Already in the late 1400s ancient herms had been found at the church, and in 1779 José Nicolás de Azara, the Spanish Ambassador to the Holy See, excavated the area, finding this herm as well as many other sculptures. He gave the Alexander herm as gift to Napoleon in 1796; the other material went to Spain and was eventually inherited by the Spanish monarchs.
France, Paris, Louvre, Ma 436
Roman (early imperial) version of an original model dating ca. 330-320 BC

Preservation:
The head has broken from the herm. Only the front portion of the herm is preserved with the two upper lines of the inscription and part of the third (bottom) line. The nose, most of the lips, and the herm (except for the upper part of the front) are restored in marble. The right eyebrow and a portion of the left eyebrow are restored in plaster.

Description:
The herm shows a long-haired man who turns to his right. It preserves a fragmentary three-line Greek inscription, ALEXANDROS FILIPPOU MAKE[DWN]. The last line is only partially preserved in both length and width. The hair is divided into two sections. The upper part of the hair clings to the shape of the skull and is schematically rendered in very thick and very few locks. A second section of hair runs like a wreath around the face, ears, and nape. This section has greater volume than the upper section and is worked with greater care. These locks are long, straggling, and with a slight curl. They seem to originate at the juncture of the two sections of hair. Although these locks fall far down the cheek in front of the ears and well down the back of the neck, they do not cover the ears. They rise pronouncedly off the center of the brow; the locks over the inner corner of the left eye spring upwards and then fall away from each other to their respective sides. Above both outer corners of the eyes a single wavy lock falls on to the brow. This second and wreath-like section of hair is rendered in thick overlapping locks. Each lock has slight modulations and ridges indicating at least one strand. The face has a full oval shape. The brow is tall and slants gradually outwards from top to bottom; that is, the lower portion of the brow swells. The eyebrows are low arches, and the orbitals are heavy and bulge. The jaw line is square and is actually broader than (or at least as broad as) even the wide-set cheekbones. The cheeks are smooth with puckers at the corners of the mouth and nose. The chin is projecting and round.

Discussion:
The Azara herm, named after the Spaniard who found it and gave it to Napoleon, is the only clearly identified marble representation of Alexander the Great. It depicts a slightly turned, serious-looking, mature man with physiognomically distinct features and long hair. Across the herm is a three-line inscription in Greek that leaves no doubt as to the identity of the portrait. It reads, Alexander, the son of Philip, of Macedon. The portrait head follows a type, now called the ‘Azara’ type, that is known in two or three extant copies. These copies are a sharply-turned head from Genzano in the National Museum in Rome, a badly damaged herm in the Louvre, and a possibly modern head in London (cat.no. C 152). The physiognomy (heavy features in a broad oval face) and hairstyle (long straggly locks) of the ‘Azara’ type correspond well with the rendition of Alexander on the Alexander Mosaic from Pompeii. In comparison to the other two marble portrait types that are generally agreed to derive from fourth century BC statues of Alexander the Great-- the ‘Acropolis-Erbach-Berlin’ type (cat. no. C 154-155) and the ‘Dresden’ type (cat. no. C 153)--, the ‘Azara’ type shows a more mature man, with a squarer face, and with a more pronounced ‘fountain-like’ cowlick or anastole of hair springing up over the center of his brow. The image, which combines youthful beardlessness, long locks with a god-like central anastole, and strong features, has heroic, beyond mortal, connotations; the distinctive appearance of the face, however, assures the viewer that the honorand is a mortal. It is natural to expect that the Roman audience would have wanted to purchase copies of outstanding contemporary portraits of Alexander. Yet on the sparse evidence preserved it is difficult to link any particular extant image type of Alexander with any security to any fourth century monument or sculptor. Nonetheless, the ‘Azara’ type is often attributed to Lysippus and is in particular considered to represent the head from a nude statue of Alexander with a spear by Lysippus. Much of the reason for this attribution lies in the literary record. According to the written record, 1) Alexander allowed only Lysippus to sculpt his image in bronze, 2) Lysippus showed Alexander with head turned upwards towards the sky, and 3) there may have been a Lysippan statue of Alexander showed him holding a spear. A bronze statuette in the Louvre (‘Alexander Fouquet’) shows a nude man, clean-shaven and with long locks, with his left arm raised as if resting on a spear. Some scholars, therefore, have interpreted the statuette as a small-scale rendition of this bronze statue of Alexander with a spear. They even compare the statuette to the Apoxyomenos (cat. no. C 133) by Lysippos. The head of the statuette also vaguely corresponds to that of the ‘Azara’ type which features an appropriate turn of the head. Yet, as appealing as this scenario may seem, it is with many flaws. Primarily, as Smith has pointed out, there is only one reference to a Lysippan statue of Alexander with a spear and it is part of an imagined discussion between the painter Apelles and Lysippus; Lysippus is irritated that Apelles gave Alexander a thunderbolt whereas Lysippus gave him only a spear. The literary record in fact never mentions a specific statue by Lysippus. Moreover, all three marble types show an up-turned glance. J. Lenaghan

Bibliography:
C. Pietrangeli, Scavi e scoperte di antichità sotto il pontificato di Pio VI (Rome 1958) 137-138 pl. 22.1 description of excavation and find location
G.M.A. Richter, Portraits of the Greeks III (London 1965) 255, no. 1a, figs. 1733-1736 brief entry without good discussion
R. R. R. Smith, Hellenistic Royal Portraits (Oxford 1988) 60-62, 155, no. 1A good succinct presentation of head and type, particularly good on the deconstructing the Alexander with a spear by Lysippos
B. S. Ridgway, Hellenistic Sculpture I: The Styles of ca. 331-200 BC (Bristol 1990) 123 brief summary statement about the Azara herm
L. Todisco, Scultura greca del IV secolo (Milan 1993) no. 258 photo entry with bibliography. Assessment-copy of late fourth century bronze possibly by Lysippus
A. Stewart, Faces of Power: Alexander’s Image and Hellenistic Politics (Berkeley 1993) 42, 165, 170, 423, figs. 45-49 believes type goes back to Lysippus, anastole reference to Zeus, provides list of copies
C. Rolley, La sculpture grecque II. La période classique (Paris 1999) 352-353, fig. 365 staunchly upholds old hypothesis that the type represents the head of spear-bearing Alexander made by Lysippus