Verified Pictures of Metrodorus

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    I admit even after years of study I still get confused when comparing the busts of Metrodorus and Hermarchus.

    For example I thought this is Metrodorus:

    But I am not 100% sure of that, and I don't have good side by side and authoritatively labeled PHOTOS of the existing busts from Herculaneum.

    Can anyone help with that?

    In this compilation of the ETCHINGS, the faces look pretty distinguishable:

    But when I compare these to that photo (above) it's not at all easy for me to say which is which. Is the photo the same as the bust on the left or the right of that photo? And what's the right name labeling?

    From Wikipedia, but that to me doesn't really look like EITHER of the etchings.

    This is one of the surviving "double-herm" statues showing Metrodorus. A 1st century Roman copy, I think.

    This inscription (the left one) says Ἕρμαρχoς -- (Hermarxos, Hermarchus.)

    This appears to be the bust that the left sketch was taken of. Some websites record this as Metrodorus, but again the inscription makes it clear. This is Hermarchus.

    I'll see what I can find about the righthand sketch.

    The other possibility is that a bust was found without its plinth, and it was affixed to a different one.

    There is a renaissance statue of Poggio Bracciolini that was found in a collection of statues portraying the Last Supper. The scholarship on this sort of thing wasn't particularly scrupulous for a long time.

    Thank you Joshua! I would really like to nail this down once and for all. I guess I am half blind but the sketches don't seem to matxh the originals in their cases nearly as well as that od Epicurus does. No possible confusion there...

    Joshua - Kalosyni has drafted a possible header for the 20th gathering.

    Do you think we know for sure that this double-head has Metrodorus on the reverse rather than Hermarchus? I think you've talked about that one before - would you know of a reliable museum page site?

    Excellent site - thanks!

    I see also:

    Bottari's illustration of the Epicurus-Metrodorus double herm found in 1742 under S. Maria Maggiore in Rome.

    And I see there are many downloadable 3d printable scans of this sculpture.

    I wish I understood how this was displayed. Anyone have thoughts on that? In the middle of a room so you could walk around all sides? Is the hope simply for transporting it somehow, or was this a mounting to something underneath?

    We discuss the same problem in that thread.

    Quote

    In ancient art, double herms were a common statue type. While in Greece they were displayed in public rooms, in the Roman empire they were shown in private spaces.

    -Wikipedia

    Quote

    Double herms were a creation of the imperial period and this example is one of four double herms found in the corners of the peristyle garden of the villa at Fondo Bottaro, one each corner.

    That seems to me the best explanation. The floor-plan of these ancient villas was so thoroughly different to the way we do things now where everything gets shoved against wall. Their walls had frescoes, not televisions. Furniture and objects would be arranged in the center of the room. The perimeter of the room was for walking--a place where slaves would be on hand and free to move about, but of the way.

    The "corners" of a peristyle courtyard would still be away from the walls some considerable distance, as a colonnade and covered walkway would surround the garden.

    Everyone sitting down side by side and facing one wall is an artefact of the fireplace, and then the television. A Roman villa would use braziers, not a hearth.

    So do we think that the heads were affixed to full bodies either seated or standing?

    Having the heads mounted on a column-like structure in th middle of a room is one thing but two full figures either sitting or standing would seem possibly a different matter

    Quote from Cassius

    So do we think that the heads were affixed to full bodies either seated or standing?

    Having the heads mounted on a column-like structure in th middle of a room is one thing but two full figures either sitting or standing would seem possibly a different matter

    No, it's also my understanding that the plinth/block was intended as the mode of display.

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