A Roman marble portrait bust of an ageing, bearded philosopher, excavated at Ostia Antica and held today in the Museo Ostiense, traditionally identified as the Neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus. The museum's own catalogue records several related portraits of the same unnamed man from the same findspot, and is careful to caption the identification "perhaps Plotinus" rather than certain: no inscription names the sitter, and the attribution rests on stylistic and iconographic comparison with other ancient philosopher portraits rather than a signed or labelled likeness. Whatever the sitter's name, the bust is a rare survival of the kind of individualized late-antique intellectual portraiture that circulated in Neoplatonist circles, and it is cited across scholarship on Plotinus under this traditional identification.
Facts
Origins
Date of CreationMid to late 3rd century AD 1 Subject Matter
Depicted SubjectAn unnamed bearded philosopher, traditionally but not certainly identified as Plotinus; the museum's own caption reads "perhaps Plotinus". 1 Custody
Current LocationMuseo Ostiense, Ostia Antica, Italy 1 Current CustodianParco Archeologico di Ostia Antica 1 Rights and Reproduction
Reproduction and CopyrightThis atlas describes and cites the bust rather than reproducing a photograph of it. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Plotinus directly: "as the Neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus."
Belongs to Tradition
Sources
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