Living Poets

Image: Munich, Glyptothek, room 10: Saal des Alexander, inv. 273.

Object description: Marble head and neck of blind poet Homer. Roman emulation of mid-fifth-century Greek portrait.

Object Archaeology: ‘Gift of P. Arndt, who acquired it in Rome in 1892’ (Richter 1965: 47).

Dimensions: height 37cm.

Inscriptions: None.

Restorations: None.

Examples in major collections (after Richter 1965 with updates):

• Rome, Musei Vaticani, Sala delle Muse, inv. 315
• Rome, Musei Vaticani, Maggazini, inv. 7112
• Rome, Museo Torlonia, inv. 163
• Rome, Museo Barracco, inv. 123
• Munich, Glyptothek, inv. 273
• Moscow, State Historical Museum (half-size).

Bibliography

• Boehringer, R. B. and Boehringer, E. 1939. Homer Bildnisse und Nachweise. Breslau. 19-41.
• Esdaile, K. A. 1912. ‘An Essay towards the Classification of Homeric Coin Types.’ The Journal of Hellenic Studies 32: 298-325.
• Richter, G. M. A. 1965. The Portraits of the Greeks, vol. 1. London. 47-48.
• Richter, G. M. A. and Smith, R. R. R. 1984. The Portraits of the Greeks. 140-41.
• Schefold, K. and Bayard, A.-C. 1997. Die Bildnisse der Antiken Dichter, Redner und Denker. Basel. 92-93.
• Zanker, P. 1995. The Mask of Socrates : The Image of the Intellectual in Antiquity (Shapiro, A., trans.). Berkeley. 14-22.