iconographic types with Polydeukion.4 In all,
thirty-eight portraits, at least four of them modern,5 have been claimed as likenesses of the Athenian youth. This unusually large number marks
Polydeukion as the most frequently represented
youth of the second century A.D. who was not
in some way connected with the Roman imperial house.6 This alone arouses our curiosity
about the boy. Who was Polydeukion (or Polydeukes), and what did he do to merit lavish
monumental commemoration along with heroic
immortality? As for the portraits themselves, how
do we know that they represent him? When and
where were they made, and what is their significance for the history of Roman art as well as
for the art of later times?
Over the past century a considerable body of
scholarship has accumulated in which most of
these questions have been addressed, some in
greater depth than others. Many of the more
recent observations, however, are isolated and
scattered in various publications. Not since the
fundamental studies by Karl Neugebauer in 1934
and 1938, which tentatively identify as Polydeukion the one modern and eight ancient replicas
then known,' has there been an attempt to syn4. See Datsuli-Stavrides, Athens Annals of Archaeology, volume 10, pp. 130-139, for four examples in Athens, National
Archaological Museum nos. 850, 2144, 4913, 5247 (figs. 5-6,
7, 9, and 11-12 respectively); also C. C. Vermeule as cited
in notes 31 and 32 below for four other examples.
5. Bronze bust of the sixteenth century (collection of the
late Benjamin Rowland; formerly Shobden Court); Italian
marble portrait on the London art market in 1955 (both
mentioned by C. C. Vermeule in American Journal of Archaeology, volume 58, 1954, p. 255); marble portrait of the eighteenth century in Kassel (M. Bieber, Antike Skulpturen und
Bronzen des kiniglichen Museum Fridericianum in Cassel, Marburg, 1915, pp. 33-34, number 56, figure 5); and a dark stone
replica in the Hessischen Landesmuseum magazine, Kassel,
mentioned by H. Jucker, Bildnisse im Bl2itterkelch, volume 1,
Lausanne, 1961, p. 93, note 3.
6. H. Weber ("Eine spatgriechische Jiinglingstatue," in
E. Kiinze et al., V Bericht iiber der Ausgrabungen in Olympia,
Berlin, 1956, p. 145) noted this when only nine replicas were
known. See also D. L. Thompson, "The Portraits of Polydeukion," Archaeological Institute of America: Abstracts of the
79th General Meeting, December 28-30, 1977.
7. K. Neugebauer, "Herodes Atticus, ein antiker Kunstmaizen," Die Antike, 10, 1934, pp. 99-100; Neugebauer, in Griechische und rimische Portrdits, eds. P. Arndt and G. Lippold,
thesize the information available from inscriptions, literary sources, and the numerous
additional sculptures that have entered the repertory.8 Although this is not the place for a
monographic reassessment of the portraits of
Polydeukion, nonetheless, in attempting to evaluate the art-historical significance of the portrait
in Michigan, it will be useful to review the main
problems and to take into consideration recent
discoveries and attributions that modify the conclusions of earlier scholarship.
The account of the life of Herodes Atticus,
written by Flavius Philostratus about half a century after the famous Athenian sophist had died
(ca. 177/178), is the most informative of the ancient documents that mention Polydeukion and
his portraits.9 Philostratus relates that Herodes
was bitterly disappointed in his son, Atticus,
who, besides being "foolish, bad at his letters
and of a dull memory," was "a drunkard and
given to senseless amours."l1 In an effort to encourage Atticus to learn the Greek alphabet,
Philostratus tells us that Herodes took twentyfour boys into his house to be educated. If Atticus could learn all of their names, each of which
began with a different letter, his father's goal
would be attained. Of these boys Polydeukion,
Achilles, and Memnon won the admiration and
affection of their mentor, Herodes, because they
were "highly honorable youths, noble-minded
and fond of study, a credit to their upbringing
Lieferung 120, Munich, 1938, text to numbers 1198-1199.
Neugebauer's attribution of this portrait type was first presented in a paper delivered in 1931 as noted in Archaeologischer Anzeiger, volume 46, 1931, p. 360.
8. More recent attempts to collect examples of portraits of
Polydeukion include the checklist by G.M.A. Richter, The
Portraits of the Greeks, volume 3, London, 1965, p. 287, figure
2046 and Datsuli-Stavrides, Athens Annals of Archaeology, volume 10, 1977, pp. 126-148, which further updates the list of
examples known with previously unpublished works. Neither of these publications, however, is comprehensive.
9. Lives of the Sophists. Book 2, Chapter 1. On the date of
Philostratus, see G. W. Bowersock, Greek Sophists in the Roman
Empire, Oxford, 1969, pp. 1-16.
10. The passages cited hereafter are from the translation by
W. C. Wright, Philostratus and Eunapius, The Lives of the Sophists, The Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, Mass. and
London, 1961, pp. 165-167 (passages 558-559).
