Jones, Henry Stuart [Editor]; Palazzo dei Conservatori <Rom> [Editor]: A catalogue of the ancient sculptures preserved in the municipal collections of Rome: the sculptures of the Palazzo dei Conservatori (Text) (Oxford, 1926)

158 SALA DEGLI ORTI MECENAZIANI 7
7. STATUE OF HERACLES FROM ONE OF THE LABOURS
(pL 58).
H. 1-74 m. Pentelic marble. Restored: nose, toes, and a few patches else-
where, in plaster. The body is put together from a great many fragments.
Heracles is shown striding forward to the r. with the 1. leg advanced.
With extended 1. arm over which the lion's skin possibly hung, he either
wards off a blow or seizes his foe while he prepares to strike with his
r. hand (now broken), the action of which is, however, disputed. It has
been suggested that the labour represented was that of the horses of
Diomede or of the Amazon Hippolyte (Cultrera,/or. HA, p. 250) and more
lately of the Bull of Marathon (A. Maviglia, /or. rz'/.). C. L. Visconti, who
endeavoured to combine the statue with that of the horse (no. 6), the
scanty fragments of which were found in the same medieval wall as the
Heracles, thought that the labour in question was that of the Horses of
Diomede, the idea being that the hero was holding the horse with the 1.
hand and preparing to strike it with the club held in the r. But the horse
cannot from its action, its style, or the quality of the marble, belong to the
Heracles, and Visconti's idea has been dismissed by all recent authorities.
According to Cultrera (A?r. rz'A), the bent elbow excludes the idea that the
r. hand held the club ; he argues further that the action of the r. arm is
involuntary and is determined by the movement of the whole body.
Cultrera's suggestion is that Heracles was seizing Hippolyte, Queen of
the Amazons, by the hair in his endeavour to drag her from her horse.
Lately A. Maviglia (A?<r. HA), in a fresh discussion of the statue, controverts
Cultrera's objection to the club and suggests that the labour represented
is that of the Bull of Marathon : the hero has seized the bull by the horn
with his 1. hand while preparing to strike the beast with his club.
The Lysippic character of the statue, recognized by Visconti, has
been disputed by Furtwangler, disregarded by Helbig, and violently im-
pugned by Cultrera (/or. HA, p. 255); but lately it has been again vindicated
by A. Maviglia, who followed Visconti in attributing the original of the
group to the Series of the Labours in bronze made by Lysippus for Alyzia
in Acarnania and later transferred to Rome (Strab. x. 2. 21 = Overbeck,
%r//r73, 14 7 *7).
The statue has marked analogies to the Heracles and the stag from
Herculaneum at Palermo, which both Cultrera and A. Maviglia attribute
to the Alyzian cycle of Labours. The head, however, with cross wrinkles
on the forehead, small deep-sunk eyes and short well-trimmed locks
which differ so markedly from the agitated hair of Pergamene sculpture,
is best compared with that at Boston (Caskey, (MAz/o^w oAGVrH 3776?
7?<7772<272 p. 14$, no. 74). The long legs, spare body, and well-
harmonized muscular system are likewise Lysippic.
Found in fragments in a medieval wall a short distance from the
Vicolo S. Matteo in Merulana, wdiich has now disappeared, and near
the boundary between the Villa Palombara and the Villa Caserta on the
Esquiline.
C. L. Visconti, A22//. Ur77z. viii (1880), pp. 153-61, pis. IX, X; Reinach, ii.
540. 2 ; H. Bulle, jtAfwg AAyvrrA (1899), pi. 87 ; G. Cultrera, A/Aw. Zz7?<rH (1910),
p. 344; Brunn-Bruckmann, 352; A. Maviglia, Z'%A2'HHa7HjAr%H'ZAz7)pp(i9i4),
pp. 73 ff., fg. 17 ; HelbigS, 948.
Alin. 11743; And. 1675; B. 16660; M. 22499.