Themistocles

Ostia, Museo Archeologico Ostiense, inv. 85: Peter Green (1924-2024), Xerxes at Salamis (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970), p. 24 (note omitted): The Ostia herm ... portrays a most striking personality, and one which exactly matches the impression conveyed by our other sources. An influential group of scholars and art-historians now maintains, rightly as I would hold, that this bust derives from an original portrait made towards the end of Themistocles' life, about 460 BC. Till recently it was taken as axiomatic that no true 'likenesses', in the modern sense, existed for almost another century. This view is now undergoing considerable revision and modification, for which the Themistocles bust itself is in no small part responsible. That big round head, simple planes recalling the early cubic conception, poised squarely above a thick, muscular, boxer's neck; the firm yet sensuous mouth, showing a faint ironic smile beneath those drooping moustaches; wiry crisp hair lying close…