Based on an epigram of Martial (14.172) that describes an anonymous bronze
statue of a youth killing a lizard, it is here proposed that the sculpture known as
the Apollo Sauroctonos is in fact not Apollo and not attributable to the fourthcentury
sculptor Praxiteles. Ever since Winckelmann (1760), the marble statue in
the Borghese Collection of a youth leaning on a tree on which a lizard is poised has
been inextricably associated with Pliny’s (NH 34.69–70) description of a bronze
original by Praxiteles of Apollo about to stab a lizard. However, the eroticized
pose, the eccentric hairdo, and the genre subject matter are fitting neither for the
god nor for the fourth-century date. Arguably this statue type that was so popular
in Roman times began as an Early Hellenistic personification (not unlike the
youthful Hypnos, Pothos, or Agon), was adapted to a genre theme (not unlike the
Boy Strangling the Goose), and owed its considerable popularity to the Roman
taste for “sexy boys” and villa decoration. Like many ancient authors, Pliny may
have mistaken the attribution (as he did the Tyrannicides) or made it up, and Praxiteles’
reputation for divine statuary made the designation as Apollo acceptable.
If we had only the epigram of Martial, we would have no problem assigning this
statue type to the realm of Hellenistic genre figures.