The facial features and iconography suggest that the subject represented in this statue is Heracles. The turning of the head to one side and the facial expression suggest that the inspiration for this sculpture, a Roman copy of a Greek original, is to be found in the bronze colossus made for the city of Tarentum by the Sicionian Lysippus, in the final decades of the 4th century BC; the sculptor had portrayed the hero seated with his head resting wearily on his arm.