There have been numerous identities given to this noble-looking young man, mostly on little or no evidence. It may represent an idealised personification of a middle eastern man, with heroic overtones of Alexander the Great, or possibly the emperor Gallienus, who reintroduced a fashion for longer hair.
The dating does not tally though; most scholars agree however on a date in the reign of Antoninus Pius, around the middle of the second century, a hundred years before Gallienus ruled
Athens, National Museum 419
Papaspiridi: Guide du Musée Nationale d’Athènes (1927), 114, no.419
Hekler: Greek and Roman Portraits, 261
Staïs: Marbres et Bronzes du Musée Nationale d’Athènes, 108
Found in the higher western part of the Theatre of Dionysos in Athens in 1876
