Demetrius I Poliorcetes
307 a.C. - 300 a.C.. Bronze.Room 072
The monumental dimensions of the bronze head, compatible with a statue approximately 3.5 m high, as well as its individualized features suggests a portrait rather than a mythological image. Schröder (1993) explained in detail that the bronze is an original Greek work datable between 310 and 290 BC. In stylistic terms it is notably similar to the marble head of Lysimachos (?) in Ephesos (Smith 1988, no. 19, pl. 13). In recent years various authors have suggested that the head depicts Demetrios Poliorketes (Brown 1995, 107, no. 114; Queyrel 2003, 125, no. 172; Moreno 1995, 223, no. 19), even though the figure is not wearing a sovereign’s diadem. Two portraits of Demetrios, the herm in the Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum, which is generally accepted as depicting him (Lehmann 1980, 110-2; Frel and Pasquier 1987, 82; Smith 1988, no. 4), and a monumental marble portrait from Tarsos (Johansen 1992, 70, no. 26) have the same facial features as the Prado bronze, with the features of the Herculaneum herm attenuated and normalized to conform to Roman portraiture: an oblong face with a heavy, prominent chin, the mouth slightly open with a broad lower lip that projects over the lower one, and finally a long, straight nose, which is slightly damaged in the Madrid head. Particularly characteristic is the bulging line of curls above the forehead. The curls on all three heads repeat the same motifs and their dramatic style recalls the head of Alexander on coins issued by Lysimachos (see Brown 1995, 64 with fig. 3a). Comparable in this sense is a monumental is a monumental bronze from Boubôn in Lycia (Queyrel 2003, 114-27, pls. 17-18), which has a front row of very wavy free-standing curls, albeit in a different position. This portrait, identified as Attalos I, is also devoid of a diadem. Given that the Getty Athlete (Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum, no. 77.AB.30), identified as Demetrios Poliorketes by Frel (1987, 89-96), does not have a diadem but rather the wreath of a victorious athlete, it might be asked whether the earliest portraits of rulers always had diadems, as subsequently became the norm. It may be that because of the wavy hair that so recalls Alexander the Great, the Madrid and Boubôn portraits did not need any other royal attribute. The two above-mentioned portraits of Demetrios Poliorketes with the horns of Dionysos Tauros depict him as the manifestation of that god. The identification of the Madrid head with Hephaistion (Moreno 1993, 102-4; Moreno 1995b, 222-3, no. 19) was rightly rejected by Stewart (1993, 453-5, no. 4). It is possible that the Madrid bronze depicts Demetrios Poliorketes (ca. 336-283 BC) in 307 BC, when, at the age of thirty, he and his father were proclaimed kings by the Athenians. Plutarch (Demetrios, 10.3) notes that this was the first use of this revered title, reserved for Alexander and his descendants. Just one year later Demetrios and his father Antigonos I received the diadem as kings of Asia (Schröder, S. F.: Power and Pathos. Bronze sculpture of the Hellenistic World, 2015, pp. 196-197).
