Published Catalogue Text: Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums , written 1990
42 Attic
Votive to a Hellenistic Ruler on Horseback: Demetrios Poliorketes
There is an irregular break at the right. The left edge seems slightly irregular also. The horse's head is abraded, and the forelegs are missing, as is the lower part of the right hind leg and the rider's right arm. Overall pitting, indicating extensive water damage. Area behind the rider is worn through.
He wears a tunic belted at the waist, an undergarment to the thighs above the knees, and a cloak pinned at the right shoulder, flying out behind. The fillet in his hair was perhaps once painted (?) and might suggest a ruler (?). There is a fillet molding below. The horse prances to the right, rearing back slightly on the hind legs and with tail flowing out and down toward the groundline of the molding below.
Comparison with the equestrian figures on the so-called Alexander sarcophagus, as well as details of the head of the Harvard relief, strengthen the suggestion that this is a commemorative representation of a Hellenistic ruler, one of the successors to Alexander the Great. Coins indicate he is Demetrios Poliorketes of Macedonia, Greece, and western Asia Minor (306 to 286/2 BC). The head can also be brought into comparison with the full-sized, free-standing head of a draped portrayal, seemingly of Demetrios I Poliorketes, in the Smith College Museum of Art, an ideal portrait perhaps copied from the equestrian statue discussed below (Hadzi, 1964, pp. 38-39, no.15) Many coins confirm the identification, showing that, as the young Macedonian king grew older, his nose became sharper and his jaw heavier. Some votive marbles traditionally do not have the details of physiognomy found on coins. The nose of the rider in the Forbes relief has lost its tip, as is so often the case with figures in Attic funerary and votive marbles, but the strong one to three o'clock angle of the nose remains in the sculpture, just as it appears on the coins. Compare, inter alia, the silver tetradrachm struck at the Pella mint from about 289 to the autumn of 288 BC, where the diadem is visible as well as the bull's horns, which are not present in the reliefs but can be seen in the Forbes marble.
"Demetrios the Besieger" had a bronze equestrian statue in Athens, dated 303-302 BC, and despite the differences (the bronze statue may have shown Demetrios wearing his helmet), the monument set up in the Athenian Agora was, like the prototypes of the Alexander sarcophagus and (translated into three dimensions) the Alexander mosaic, undoubtedly an influence on this votive relief (Houser, 1982, pp. 229-238). The bronze statue in Athens has been restored wearing a crested helmet with a Pegasus support under the crest on top. Since no other early equestrian representation of this type show the ruler, Alexander the Great or a successor, wearing such a helmet, it is tempting to think the helmet was part of a trophy on the plinth or was set on the plinth, perhaps under the horse's hoof.
Cornelius Vermeule and Amy Brauer
