Verified Pictures of Metrodorus

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.

Right hand sketch.

Another sketch...still looking.

I got image from this site:

Archimedes - Double herm with portrait heads of Epicurus and Metrodorus

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RE: Getting Started - Initial Thoughts on 3D Printing

epicureanfriends.com/wcf/attachment/1861/

(This passage does not describe the double-herm in question, but a separate herm bust now lost. Only the shaft with the inscription survives.)

Joshua

April 28, 2021 at 10:52 PM

We discuss the same problem in that thread.

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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

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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.

Quote from Cassius

What about the hole in the sides?

To the best of my knowledge, those were where arms could be attached.

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.