Hercules

Hercules.

Roman, Flavian period, A.D. 68-98.

This statue and the over-life-sized statue of Hercules across the courtyard in all probability were made as a pair to decorate one of the great spaces in a large public bath. Although they are much restored, their stance and attributes are essentially correct and are variants on the long-established statue types that probably originated in images of the Greek hero Herakles dating too the fourth century B.C. They were part of the large collection of ancient sculpture made in Rome at the beginning of the seventeenth century by a wealthy Genoese banker, the Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani.