HERMES JANIFORM OF ZEUS AMMON AND A SATYRA Roman... Lot 32

HERMES JANIFORM OF ZEUS AMMON AND A SATYRA Roman art, 1st - 2nd century A.D. Marble H. 26,6 cm Provenance Former Swiss private collection, 1965 Collection G. Real, Ancona, Switzerland Originally representing the Greek god Hermes, hermits had the function of sanctifying and marking boundaries; they were considered by the Greeks as protectors of cities and houses. These sculptures were composed of the bust of a god or other mythological creature - or of two busts placed back to back in the case of Janiform hermits - and of a pillar fixed to the ground or mounted in a square base. The credit for this innovative sculptural type going to the Athenians (Pausanias 1.24.3), there were many hermaikhan pillars in Athens, at the crossroads, in the Agora, the sanctuaries, at the entrance of the Acropolis and at the doors of private houses. In the Roman period, the hermes fulfilled a decorative function and invaded the gardens of the villas. Here, the heads of Zeus Ammon and a satyr were carved in a single block of marble, and are attached to each other from the top of the head to the bottom of the neck and shoulders. Zeus wears a thick beard made up of rows of deeply incised curls; his pointed ears and the large curved goat horns are attributes of Zeus Ammon. With his forehead deeply furrowed, his eyes deeply sunken, and his full, half-open lips, the figure projects the strong image of an all-powerful god. The figure on the opposite side of the hermes is a satyr, identifiable thanks to the remains of the horns that sprout from the top of his head. His messy facial hair and wrinkled forehead contribute to give him a wild look that fits well with his status as a companion of the god of wine, Dionysus. Already widespread in the Hellenistic period, Janiform hermits with a Dionysian subject are particularly frequent in the early imperial period and, in the first century AD, hermits representing Zeus Ammon are often associated with Dionysus and themes referring to him. Ammon, the Hellenized name for Amun, was the great Egyptian god of Thebes and the main deity of the Egyptian pantheon; therefore, the Greeks logically associated him with Zeus. It is the visit of Alexander the Great to the temple of the oracle of Zeus Ammon, in the oasis of Siwa, which made the god popular in the Greek world and gave birth to the myth of Alexander as being the son of Zeus Ammon. the issue of coins representing Alexander wearing the horns of Zeus The issue of coins depicting Alexander wearing the horns of Zeus Ammon gave the Egyptian god a permanent place in Greek myths, religion and art, and, as demonstrated by the specimen under examination, helped to inspire the classicizing images produced in the Roman period. Numerous head combinations are attested for Janiform hermes and many deities were represented in this form. Hermes similar to this one have been found in Pompeii in the House of Marcus Lucretius (fig. 1), the House of the Golden Lovers (fig. 2) and the House of the Vettii, where they were mounted on thin columns and displayed in the gardens. These very specific works of art were even more in vogue in Herculaneum, where hermes surmounted by double heads lined the paths and were placed in the middle of the vegetation, or near the fountains or the swimming pools. The reflection of these sculptures in the waters of the gardens increased the visual pleasure of the visitors and created a spatial effect similar to the illusion of space perceptible on the Roman paintings that decorated the walls of the villas. In the natural environment of the gardens with boxwood, laurel, ivy, rosemary and conifers, as ancient literary sources tell us, these hermes added an element of beauty from the hand of man and contributed to the sense of aesthetics for which the richly decorated gardens of the Hellenistic and later Roman periods were famous. See also for similar Janiform Hermes: Rediscovering Pompeii, Rome, 1992, pp. 259-263, nos. 181-182, in Italian and English, and German translation, Pompeji wiederentdeckt, Rome, 1993, pp. 260-261, nos. 181-182. BURKERT W., Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual, Berkeley 1979, pp. 39-41. WREDE H., Die antike Herme, Mainz, 1985, pp. 29-30 (Zeus), pp. 52-54 (double Hermes). For the Hermes with Zeus Ammon and Dionysus, see : BRIZZOLARA A., Le sculture del Museo Civico Archeologico di Bologna: le collezione Marsili, Bologna, 1986, p. 97, fig. 90-91 ; Museo Nazionale Romano: Le sculture 1, Rome, 1979, p. 31, no. 30.