Thucydides was a fifth century BCE Greek historian best known for his history of the Peloponnesian wars. The head is identified by its resemblance to a double herm with Herodotus, on which he is named.
This portrait is the finest of six surviving versions of the same lost bronze prototype, and was brought to Britain during the Grand Tour period, in 1754. The prototype is unlikely to date from the lifetime of Thucydides as he was sent into exile in his later years, and his popularity was revived only after his death
Holkham Hall, Norfolk, 26
Donated to the Fitzwilliam Museum by the Earl of Leicester 25 May 1878. Transferred to the Museum in 1884
Lippold: Griechische Plastik, 226 (n.16)
Hekler: Greek and Roman Portraits, pl. 17
Bernoulli: Griechische Ikonographie (1901), 181, pl. XX right
Walston: Catalogue of Casts in the Museum of Classical Archaeology (1889), 114, no.596
Reporter: 19 June 1885, 895, no.536
Richter: The Portraits of the Greeks, 214, & pl.177
Bought in Rome by Matthew Brettingham for Thomas Coke and shipped to England in 1754
