Male head (Atis or Paris). Rome, 1st century A.D.

Male head (Atis or Paris). Rome, 1st century A.D.
Marble.
Measurements: 27 x 20 x 22 cm.

Marble head of excellent workmanship, representing a young god or mythological hero. Although it shares the beauty and the curly hair of Dionysus, the unmistakable presence of the Phrygian cap points with much more force to the fact that the sculpture represents Attis, the Phrygian god, or Paris, the Trojan hero.

The character is a young man of great beauty, with soft and symmetrical features. He has a rounded face, smooth cheeks and fleshy, slightly parted lips. The eyes are large and almond-shaped, with well-defined eyelids, conveying a serene, almost melancholic expression. Peeking out from under the cap, voluminous and elaborate curls are visible. The artist has used the trephine to create deep chiaroscuro and give a sense of movement and vitality to the hair, a technique characteristic of Roman sculpture of this period.

Attis was a god of vegetation of Phrygian origin and the young consort of the goddess Cybele. His mystical cult was extremely popular in Rome. Almost invariably, he is depicted as a handsome young man, with curly hair and headdressed with the Phrygian cap, so the splendid piece we show probably identifies him.
Another possibility is Paris, the prince of Troy. Since Troy was located in the region of Phrygia (in present-day Turkey), Greek and Roman artists used the Phrygian cap to identify him and to point out his "oriental" or "barbarian" (not Greek) origin. The idealized beauty of the sculpture fits perfectly with the character who abducted Helen and judged the goddesses.