Ask the Scholar

This over-life-size statue depicts a woman in modest dress with her hair covered by a veil. She stands with her weight on her left leg, her right leg slightly bent. Her arms are wrapped tightly in her garment. The right hand, now missing, extends outward, and the left comes up toward her face. Her chiton (tunic), himation (cloak), and veil envelope her body revealing only her hands, neck, and face. The drapery is rendered in a style reminiscent of Hellenistic period (323-31 BCE), but the statue is certainly a Roman type, the so-called Pudicitia. The type was developed as early at the 3rd-2nd centuries BCE and is named for the goddess Pudicitia, the personification of the virtue modesty. The head is likely intended to represent a specific local benefactor, even though the idealized facial features fail to depict any sort of individualization. Instead the statue represents the modest character of the woman. The size of this statue indicates that it was created to be a public monument, and a clamp cutting on the left side of the base suggests that the statue was one of a group, joined to a neighboring statue at its left.