Head of Polyphemos

The ninth book of the Odyssey recounts the most famous of Odysseus's adventures, his visit to the island of Polyphemos, a one-eyed man-eating giant. This Cyclops was a shepherd who trapped Odysseus and his men inside his cave and then began to devour them one by one. Odysseus outwitted the monster, intoxicated him with wine, and blinded him with a wooden stake. Polyphemos then opened the cave entrance, and Odysseus and his remaining comrades managed to escape.Scholars have suggested that this head was part of a large-scale sculptural ensemble depicting the blind-ing of Polyphemos, similar to a group found in an im-perial dining grotto at Sperlonga, south of Rome. But the vertical position of the head and the contemplative, rather than drunken, expression on the Cyclops's face suggest instead that Polyphemos may be considering his unrequited love for the sea nymph Galatea, as related by the Hellenistic poet Theocritus in his Idylls.The active treatment of the hair, beard, and face finds close parallels in the carving of sculptors working in Pergamon during the second century B.C., yet it is difficult to tell whether this head is a Hellenistic or a Roman adaptation of the Pergamene style. The positioning of the lone eye on the bridge of the nose is an innovation that probably dates from the Classical period in Greek art; earlier artistic interpretations of Cyclopes on vases and terracottas set the eye in the middle of the forehead. This iconographic change makes Polyphemos, as much as he is a monster, appear very human.