The Bust-Crown, the Panhellenion, and Eleusis: A New Portrait from the Athenian Agora

by Lee Ann Riccardi

Hesperia, Volume 76, Issue 2
Page(s): 365-390
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25068025
Year: 2007
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ABSTRACT:

A marble portrait found in 2002 near the City Eleusinion, just outside the Athenian Agora, depicts the head of a man wearing a crown adorned with eight small busts. The busts appear to be imperial portraits representing male members of the Antonine and Severan dynasties, the latest of which is probably Caracalla, during whose reign the portrait was presumably carved. The face and beard, but not the crown or hair, show signs of having been later reworked. The portrait may represent a delegate to the Panhellenion, an institution closely associated with Eleusis. Possibly an archon or an agonothetes of the Panhellenia, he may have been honored for his service with a statue in Athens.