Aeschylus: The Face of the Athenian Everyman

Identifying the portraits of the other two tragedians in Lycurgus' dedication is unfortunately more problematical, the evidence more fragmentary. A head that has convincingly been associated with the lost

Fig. 28
Portrait herm of the playwright Aeschylus. Augustan
copy of a statue ca. 330 B.C. Naples, Museo Nazionale.

statue of Aeschylus portrays a man somewhat younger than Sophocles (fig. 28).^[17] The subtly indicated lines in the brow are a feature that he shares, as we shall see, with many images of contemporary Athenian citizens. He too is a conventional type, as is evident from a comparison with the head of an Athenian named Alexos, from a wealthy family tomb monument of the same period (fig. 29).^[18] As with Sophocles, there is no hint of intellectual activity in the expression, nor anything of Aeschylus' own character, for example, his severity (Aristophanes

Fig. 29
Head of Alexos from an Attic grave stele
ca. 330 B.C. Athens, National Museum.

Frogs 804, 830ff., 859). Rather than as poet, he too seems to have been depicted simply as a good Athenian citizen.^[19] As for the body type, which is thus far not preserved, we can suppose, based on his age (in his middle years), on the billowing mantle on the herm copy in Naples, and on the typology of such figures on the gravestones, that he must have been standing erect.