Inv. Scu 988

The statue represents a hero while getting on a chariot and it belonged to a group with chariot and horse.

The reconstruction shows the young hero while getting on a chariot and holding the reins with his hands. His nudity suggests that he is not an actual charioteer, but a Greek hero that drives his chariot by himself. He grips his prey, a female character, on his side with his right arm.

The sculpture has been reassembled. The right arm, made separately, was inserted through a quadrangular pivot, of which the fixing hole is still visible.

A sort of semi-cylindrical squat column was placed under the glutei of the restored statue as support. Today the statue is mounted on a support that aims at reconstructing the group of the charioteer with the horse and chariot.

Traces of an ancient support are instead visible in the rear part of the right thigh.

The way the hair is treated, the angularity of the brow arches, the articulated and analytic structure of the muscles likely indicate that the statue may refer to bronze models.

The statue may be a copy of a Severan style Greek original, or the work of an artist freely inspired by the many models of Severan style works. In fact, the head resembles the head of Apollo called Omphalos of 470-460 BC.

The lack of any trace of a drill, except for the central hole of the small curls of the pubic hair, the plastic and detailed rendering of the hair, the surfaces of the face and body, suggest the statue was made in the Claudian period.

It is a Claudian (41-54 d.C.) marble copy of a mid-5th century BC bronze original.

The statue was found on the Esquiline Hill near Sant’Eusebio, in the area occupied in the Imperial period by the Gardens of Maecenas.