A Statue of the Youthful Asklepios

The marble statue of a youthful male figure holding in his left hand a snake-encircled staff, which is reproduced in the accompanying plate, was found by Smith and Porcher at Cyrene, and is now in the collection of the British Museum. By its original discoverers this figure was named Aristaeus: an attribution which has been adopted, though with some hesitation, in the Museum Guide to the Graeco-Roman Sculptures. As, however, this attribution seems more than doubtful, it may be well to lay before the readers of the Hellenic Journal some additional remarks upon the subject, and to direct special attention to a statue which is not among those photographed in the History of Discoveries at Cyrene, and which has not, hitherto, been figured elsewhere.The statue now to be described is four feet five and a half inches in height, and represents a young and beardless male figure standing facing. His right hand rests upon his hip, and under his left arm is a staff round which is coiled a serpent. The lower half of the body is wrapt in a himation, the end of which falls over the left shoulder, leaving the chest and the right arm uncovered. The hair is wavy and carefully composed, but does not fall lower than the neck: around the head is a plain band, above which has been some kind of crown or upright headdress: the top of the head has been worked flat. On the feet are sandals, and at the side of the left foot is a conical object which has been called a rude representation of the omphalos, but which is, in all probability, a mere support.