Farnese Hercules with "Glykon" Inscription, Greece 300 BCE

(January 5, 2024, updated December 18, 2024)  The statue shows a tired Hercules. The reason for this pose is explained in the first line of its text written in Druid Akkadian. Significantly, the last line is in Greek making this a rare example of a text using two separate languages:

1. Lack of energy and involvement will activate the revelations (of fate).
2. (but) Expectations of intimidation will result in Yahu's nourishments. 
3. EPOIEI (Greek for "Do That!")

This figure is identified as Hercules because he was leaning on a club having a lion head hanging from the handle. The lion's pelt is also drapped from the handle. Hercules was a fighter and defender of life-powers against the powers of fate.

The statue acquired its "Farnese" name after the rich Italian family who were looting various Roman ruins in Italy and Greece.  The statue had been broken into 3 main parts during one of the lootings of Rome as the western empire collapsed. The head, torso, and legs had to be reassembled. The right hand is still missing.

The sculptor of the original Weary Hercules was a Greek named Lysippos or one of his school. They were responsible for the change in art style from the Athenian classical style to this more realistic style seen in the Hellenistic age.  Lysippos was born at Sicyon on the northern coast of the Peloponnese around 390 BC This area was always allied with Sparta against Athens so his work tended to be counter-Athenian. He was a worker of bronze in his youth. He taught himself the art of sculpture, later becoming head of a school located at Argos and Sicyon. Commentators noted the coherent balance of his larger than life figures which were leaner than the ideal represented by Polykleitos of the Athenian school. His large statues also had proportionately smaller heads giving them the impression of greater height when looked at. He was famous for his attention to the details of eyelids and toenails.

His pupil, Chares of Lindos, constructed the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World but one which no longer exists.

Other Ancient Copies Include:

1. Hercules, 2nd century CE, Roman copy, Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

2. A "Weary Herakles" is a heavily broken Roman marble statue that was excavated in 1980 in Perge, Turkey. The looted upper torso was sold to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1981. The upper torso was returned to Turkey in 2011 and is now displayed with the rest of the piece at the Antalya Museum.

3. Colossal statue of Hercules, uncovered at the baths in Hippo Regius (Annaba), Algeria.

4. Resting Herakles, Hermitage, Saint Petersburg.

5. Badly damaged late Hellenistic Parian marble headless statue, recovered from the Antikythera Shipwreck in 1901 Athens, National Archaeological Museum.

6. Headless statue at Izmit Archaeology and Ethnography Museum.

7. Broken headless torso found in the bathhouse Roman & Byzantine village in the Jezreel valley.

8. Broken headless torso from the Amphiareion of Oropos, Athens, National Archaeological Museum.

9. Broken headless torso of 2nd or 3rd century CE, in Museum of Saint-Raymond in Toulouse.

10. Statuette of 2nd century CE, in Detroit Institute of Arts.

11. Bronze statuette with silver-inlaid eyes of 40–70 CE, Getty Villa.

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farnese_Hercules