Epicurean Symbolism in Herculaneum Art - Something To Track Down

I haven't read the article, but I'd be leery of reading too much into it. If Cicero's Tusculum Villa had survived in place of his writings, we might think him an Epicurean indeed!

Today I was in an out-of-town bookstore with my family and ran across this book, which is the catalog from the exhibit at the Getty in Malibu a few years ago:

Buried by Vesuvius: The Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum - Google Books

It may be of interest in itself, but what I noticed while quickly browsing through it was a few images in particular. Pardon my poor photo quality; the store was one of those great rabbit-warrens of books and lighting wasn't a prime concern in the design....

(L-R, top to bottom: Epicurus, Epicurus, Hermarchus and Demosthenes)

Here's an image of the pig. In case it's not legible, the dimension given is the height, which is 40cm (15.75") including the base.

And the prosciutto. The height is 11.3cm to which the ring adds 2.5cm; the width is 7.8cm.

Yes. Sorry for the poor image quality!

If you zoom in on the images in my original post, you can see tiny numbers beneath the sculptures. Descriptions of these are in the text to the left of the two Epicurus images.

Thanks for these, Godfrey !!

I'll have to see if we have the book in the library and scan them there.

That Hermarchus seems to coincide with this one with its base:

Post

RE: The Early Epicureans v1.0 [video]

epicureanfriends.com/wcf/attachment/3702/

The base of this statue reads Ἕρμαρχoς Hermarchos and is the image on the book cover to the left.

Don

May 3, 2023 at 9:36 PM

And the prosciutto is great!!

I had never seen that before, but I could easily accept the Epicurean & epicurean implications of that, both pigs and food.

Quote from Cassius

Referring back again to the clip in post 5 above --

I found another reference I came across long ago. Not sure I can find the URL for this, but take a look. This looks to me to be the one we are discussing, and it's identified here as a Epicurus (which seems to me what I would think too). I will see if I can find a URL or another reference.

That one has the characteristic forked beard that Epicurus has.

To me, Epicurus has a slightly thinner face with slightly more pronounced cheekbones than the figure in #5 and #12; I would not say that that is Epicurus. Looks much more stern than Epicurus as well. But if the image is labeled "Epicurus," that could explain how it ended up on the Guyau book cover.

On the book cover his right shoulder is much higher so they are would appear to be different sculptures. However after examining #12 above and then looking at the book cover, the book cover looks more like Epicurus

But it's early here, and I'm looking on my phone, so there's much squinting involved.

Quote from Cassius

Here is the book cover we are talking about (which appears to me to be Hermarchus based largely on the eyes)

Agreed. Definitely doesn't remind me of Epicurus.

Now that it's not so early, the book cover doesn't look like Epicurus. As for #12, the shape of the head seems wrong and he's way too stern to accord with the images of Epicurus that I'm used to seeing.

A large part of the problem could be that different artists had different interpretations. Or different levels of skill. How many statues of contemporary athletes have you seen that look nothing like the athlete?

BTW there's a YouTube video of James Corden showing David Beckham a goofy version of his statue before the unveiling, which is a great send up of the modern athlete statue.