The Apollo Lyceus (, ''Apollōn Lukeios'') type, also known as Lycean Apollo, originating with Praxiteles and known from many full-size statue and figurine copies as well as from 1st century BCE

Athenian Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

coinage, is a statue type of

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

showing the god resting on a support (a tree trunk or

tripod A tripod is a portable three-legged frame or stand, used as a platform for supporting the weight and maintaining the stability of some other object. The three-legged (triangular stance) design provides good stability against gravitational loads ...

), his right forearm touching the top of his head and his hair fixed in braids on the top of a head in a haircut typical of childhood. It is called "Lycean" not after

Lycia Lycia (; Lycian: 𐊗𐊕𐊐𐊎𐊆𐊖 ''Trm̃mis''; , ; ) was a historical region in Anatolia from 15–14th centuries BC (as Lukka) to 546 BC. It bordered the Mediterranean Sea in what is today the provinces of Antalya and Muğ ...

itself, but after its identification with a lost work described, though not attributed to a sculptor, by

Lucian Lucian of Samosata (Λουκιανὸς ὁ Σαμοσατεύς, 125 – after 180) was a Hellenized Syrian satirist, rhetorician and pamphleteer who is best known for his characteristic tongue-in-cheek style, with which he frequently ridi ...

as being on show in the

Lyceum The lyceum is a category of educational institution defined within the education system of many countries, mainly in Europe. The definition varies among countries; usually it is a type of secondary school. Basic science and some introduction to ...

, one of the gymnasia of

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

. According to Lucian, the god leaning on a support with his bow in his left hand and his right resting on his head is shown "as if resting after long effort." Its main exemplar is the '' Apollino'' in

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

or ''Apollo Medici'', in the

Uffizi The Uffizi Gallery ( ; , ) is a prominent art museum adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums and the most visited, it is also one of th ...

, Florence. The attribution, based on the type's "elongated proportions, elegant pose and somewhat effeminate anatomy", as Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway characterised it, is traditionally supported on the grounds of the type's similarity to Praxiteles's ''

Hermes Hermes (; ) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology considered the herald of the gods. He is also widely considered the protector of human heralds, travelers, thieves, merchants, and orators. He is able to move quic ...

'' from Olympia – one replica of the ''Lycian Apollo'' even passed as a copy of the ''Hermes'' for a time. The comparison essentially rests on the ''Apollino'', whose head has proportions similar to those of the Aphrodite of Cnidus and whose pronounced ''

sfumato Sfumato ( , ; , i.e. 'blurred') is a painting technique for softening the transition between colours, mimicking an area beyond what the human eye is focusing on, or the out-of-focus plane. It is one of the canonical painting modes of the Renaissan ...

'' confirms the long-held idea that it is Praxitelean in style, in spite of the many differences among the extant examples. Nevertheless, most exemplars of this type exhibit a pronounced musculature which does not resemble masculine types normally attributed to Praxiteles – it has further been proposed that it is a work of his contemporary

Euphranor AGMA Apollon Patroos Euphranor. Euphranor of Corinth () (middle of the 4th century BC) was a Greek artist who excelled both as a sculptor and as a painter. Pliny the Elder provides a list of his works including a cavalry battle, a Theseus, and t ...

, or of a 2nd-century BCE work The ''Apollino'', for its part, would thus be an eclectic creation from the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

era, mixing several styles from the "

second classicism The second (symbol: s) is a unit of time derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes, and finally to 60 seconds each (24 × 60 × 60 = 86400). The current and formal definition in the International System of Un ...

" (i.e. from the 4th century BC). The famous pose with the arm resting on the head was so thoroughly identified with Apollo that it was used for the Hadrianic sculpture of

Antinous Antinous, also called Antinoös, (; ; – ) was a Greek youth from Bithynia, a favourite and lover of the Roman emperor Hadrian. Following his premature death before his 20th birthday, Antinous was deified on Hadrian's orders, being worshippe ...

as Apollo at

Leptis Magna Leptis or Lepcis Magna, also known by #Names, other names in classical antiquity, antiquity, was a prominent city of the Carthaginian Empire and Roman Libya at the mouth of the Wadi Lebda in the Mediterranean. Established as a Punic people, Puni ...

. With the

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

and

depictions of a youthful

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ...

typologically not always distinguishable from Apollo, the pose seems to have been inherited by Dionysus, as in the 2nd century CE Ludovisi Dionysus, a Roman sculpture. The pose is also used in the Amazon statue types, and its long-establishedRidgway 1974 . conventional expression of lassitude identified Sleeping Ariadne as well.

References

External links

{{Praxiteles Sculptures of Apollo Sculptures by Praxiteles Epithets of Apollo Nude sculptures of men