Athena of Velletri

The oval face and the sharpness of the eyebrow ridge, nose and eyes mirror those of the bust of the helmeted Pericles at British Museum.

[1] That bust is identified with the statue of Pericles that Pliny the Elder (Natural History, XXXIV, 25)[2] attributes to Kresilas and that Pausanias (I, 28, 2) records as sited on the acropolis in the 2nd century.

This replaces an old identification of the type's original with the cult statue by Alcamenes in the Temple of Hephaestus on the Athenian agora.

Upon rediscovery, it was purchased by Vincenzo Pacetti, who added the peak of the helmet, the straight forearm, the hands, the feet, the snakes, and a section of the cloak, and polished the overall surface.

He then sold it to the French Directory, which transported it to Rome, where it was soon seized by Neapolitan armies when they briefly held the city from November to December 1798 during the opening stages of the War of the Second Coalition.