Herm of a Beardless Male Deity

Roman art

The Borghese herm, of unknown provenance, represents a sculpture type that dates back to the Archaic period in Greece. Initially, it was used to portray the god Hermes (hence the name) and was placed along roads and at crossroads. In the Hellenistic period, it started to be used instead to decorate peristyles and private gardens. The figure has an archaising hairstyle, with three rows of curls on the forehead that frame his ephebic, beardless face. Two long, loose spirals fall over his chest. He has full lips and large eyes. He could be a young Dionysus-Bacchus, an Apollo or a Hermes, with archaising features typical of neo-Attic sculpture generically attributable to the first century CE.

Object details

Commentary

Of unknown provenance and not included in the guide to the Villa Borghese published by Antonio Nibby in 1832, this sculpture was mentioned for the first time in the Borghese Inventario Fidecommissario along with three other ‘terms of different type’ on display in Room II of the Casino.

The Borghese herm represents a sculpture type that dates back to the Archaic period in Greece, where was originally used to portray exclusively the god Hermes (hence the name) and was placed along roads and at crossroads. Besides the god, protector of travellers, the recurrent subjects included Dionysus and various other mythological and Dionysian characters, including Hercules and the Maenads, caught between the world of the gods and that of humans.

In the present sculpture, the hair is arranged in three rows of compact curls that become progressively larger as they move away from the forehead. These curls frame the face of an ephebic, beardless man with full lips and large eyes. Two long, loose spirals fall over his chest, while a thin band separates the back part with compact locks spilling over his shoulders. The hairstyle and the classicising features of the face evoke models akin to the bronzes by Alkamenes, such as the Hermes Propylaios (second half of the fifth century), which, however, has a flowing beard with locks defined with fine incisions. This hairstyle is especially common in pairs of herms that oppose an archaising, mature version of divinity with a young, beardless one, often interpreted as Dionysus (Spinola 1996, p. 386 no. 27) or Hermes (see Tomasello 1968).

The Borghese herm, lacking specific attributes like grape leaves, could portray a young Dionysus-Bacchus, an Apollo or a young Hermes with archaising features typical of neo-Attic sculpture generically attributable to the first century CE. The original function of the herm as a boundary marker was already lost by the Hellenistic period, and in the Roman world it had become basically decorative, found in peristyles and gardens, its religious meaning as divine protection also gradually waning.

Jessica Clementi