Head of a Hellenistic Ruler

With a ruler's or perhaps a philosopher's rolled fillet in the hair, this full-faced older man might be identified as one of the Attalids or one of the kings of Bithynia. Another head, with a bit of draped bust fashioned for insertion, has been dated around 250 BC and may be an Attalid. It appears to be earlier than the Harvard example, but perhaps the two meet some time around the outset of the second century BC; the two are much alike (Bastet, Brunsting, 1982, p. 205, nol. 378, pl. 112). The small head in the Department of Classical Studies, Duke University (1966.1), has been published as possibly Ptolemy III Euergetes (246 to 221 BC), and is said to come from Egypt. This is not the same man as the Harvard head, but it has similar visual style (Ackland Arts Center, 1973, no. 7 [M. F. Scott]).

Circular arguments are common and dangerous in the identification of Hellenistic rulers, but G. M. A. Richter has suggested as a possible Ptolemy III Euergetes a statue from the Arundel collection (thus from Asia Minor or the Greek islands) in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; this almost complete, himation-clad statue could have represented the same ruler as the small head at Harvard, which must have once belonged to a small statue (Richter, 1965, III, p. 263, figs. 1815-1817).

Cornelius Vermeule and Amy Brauer