Colossal Herakles (Farnese type)

In Agora (Marketplace), Sikyon, Greece Pausanias 2.9.8: Here (in Agora of Sikyon) there is a bronze Heracles, made by Lysippus the Sicyonian. J.J. Pollitt, Art of Greece (1965) pp. 148-149: Libanios, Ekphraseis 15 (4th-century A.D. Greek rhetorician) It was not possible for Herakles, when he ceased from his labors, to stand without praise nor to avoid being an object of wonder as he took respite from his achievements, but rather, by being represented in sculpture, he was preserved so that people could see him both laboring and after a labor. It was with a form of this sort that the artist set him up in a conspicuous place. For Herakles rested there, not undergoing danger as he was when Nemea saw him, but rather as Argos received him after he destroyed the lion. Thus he stood there bearing tokens of his exploits, but at the same time having passed the high-point of his trials. To begin with his head bends toward the earth and he seems to me to be looking to see if he can kill another opponent. Then his neck is bent downward along with his head. And his whole body is bare of covering, for Herakles was not one to care about modesty when his attention was directed toward excellence. Of his arms, the right one is taut and is bent behind his back, while the left is relaxed and stretches toward the earth. He is supported under the arm-pit by his club which rests on the earth, experiencing the same leisure [as he]. And so the club supports him while he rests, just as it saved him when he fought. The artist has done well, it seems to me, in arranging the disposition of the club. For while laboring he [Herakles] uses his right hand, while in pausing for a moment of peace he uses his left. And he has also given him an idle hand. The lion skin is draped upon the club, and this covers both the lion and that by which it was destroyed. Of Herakles' two legs the right one is beginning to make a movement, while the left is placed beneath and fitted firmly on the base, and this arrangement makes it possible for the onlookers to learn just what sort of man Herakles is, even though he has ceased from his labors.