Sokrates and Seneca, back to back

This double herm unites the portraits of two outstanding thinkers from the Greek and Roman periods. They were apparently chosen for this dual portrait because of their similarly violent deaths: on one side is the Greek philosopher Sokrates, who in 399 BC was sentenced by an Athenian court to drink a poisonous brew of hemlock; on the other side is Seneca, a Roman statesman, philosopher, and dramatist who took his own life in AD 65 at the command of his onetime pupil Nero. Both heads of the herm – which originally would have belonged to the sculptural decoration of a Roman villa – are only cursorily worked. Yet the piece is important because it preserves the only portrait of Seneca accompanied by an inscription that allows it to be securely identified. Seneca is shown here with clear signs of age, an angular head, a high bald forehead, arched eyebrows, short hair on the sides of the head, wrinkles around the mouth, a double chin, and a small mouth. Following Greek custom, he wears only a mantle over his left shoulder. His name is inscribed on the lower left corner of the bust. [...]
Sokrates is easily recognisable. It takes after a statue attributed to Lysippos of Sikyon (active ca. 370–310 BC) which attenuated the satyr-like face of a slightly older portrait type.