HELIOS HEAD

2nd Century AD
Roman Empire
Marble

This is the head of a young divinity. He is beardless with a full head of hair, represented in the prime of his life. Helios was a god coopted by the Greeks from Egyptian ideas, mainly related to a variation of a sun-god, but also denoted as the god of sight. Helios can be found all the way back in the writings of Homer, and he influenced the stories of many Greek heroes like Odysseus and Hercules. From there, the Romans got a hold of him where he quickly spread throughout their culture as a cult figure. In some iterations, he was called Helios-Serapis to further integrate him into the pantheon of the state, as by that time, the god Serapis was a well-loved figure. 

The Romans loved figures from Greek myth and presented Greek divinities in their art often as a product of this adoration. This could be because Greek myth was the main source of, for lack of a better term, popular culture in the ancient world. Its popularity and world building were like that of superhero franchises like Marvel and DC today. Helios was important to the Romans because he was credited with the invention of the four-horse chariot, which was heavily featured in circus games at the Circus Maximus in the city of Rome itself. Helios even had a shrine inside the Circus Maximus. Roman emperors would use the image of Helios to relate themselves to divine forces, and by the rise of Christianity, he was one of the most important cult figures in Rome.