Marble Head of a Hellenistic Ruler in the Metropolitan Museum, July 2007

Marble head of a Hellenistic ruler.
Roman, Imperial period, 1st or 2nd century AD
Copy or adaptation of a Greek portrait of the early 3rd century BC.

Accession # 03.12.8b

The flat fillet worn by this young man is an insignium of kingship. He has been identified as one of the Macedonian Greek kings who ruled the new kingdoms formed in the lands that Alexander the Great had conquered in the late 4th century BC. The head was once part of the collection of antiquities formed in Rome during the early 17th century by the Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.