L'erma di Temistocle da Ostia. Una nuova interpretazione

The paper provides a re-examination of the marble head from Ostia inscribed with the name of Themistokles. Style and iconography, analysis of context and literary sources shed a new light on this controversial portrait: it is, in contrast to the communis opinio, more likely to be an athlete of the Severe Style (maybe the Hermolycus seen by Paus. 1, 23, 10). The outcome is related to the origin of Greek portrait sculpture.