In a relaxed pose, the youthful, beardless god Herakles leans against his club, the skin of the Nemean lion draped over his head and knotted across his chest. Though the scale of the sculpture is small, we feel the strength of this legendary hero as if it were ready to be released upon the world at any moment. In the fantastic world of Classical mythology, Herakles (or Hercules by his Latin moniker) was the greatest and most revered hero in all of Greece. The scion of Zeus, the supreme deity, and Almene, a mortal woman, Herakles struggled to find his place between the disparate worlds of god and man. From the seed of his divine father, Herakles acquired awesome strength and vigor. He lust for adventure and experience, and yet was bound by the most innate, human emotions. With brawn and club, Herakles conquered man, beast and monster; he suffered victory and defeat, euphoria and madness only to perish at the hands of a woman scorned in love. Yet in death, Greece’s greatest hero found redemption and apotheosis; he was a god made anew, raised to the peaks of Mt. Olympus, fulfilling his birthright in the august halls of Zeus.

Antiquities
Ancient Greek