English: The two figures can be identified as Metrodorus (330–277 BC) and Epicurus (341–270 BC) thanks to a double portrait in the Capitoline Museum in Rome (Inv. 52) inscribed with the names of the two leading philosophers of the Epicurean school. The Louvre group derives from seated figures created in the first half of the 3rd century BC, probably in bronze.

Hermaic pillars or herms (boundary stones mounted with a bust of Hermes, the god of crossroads) were extremely common in the Roman world. Followers of Epicureanism honoured the memory of the school’s founder and of his favourite disciple at Icades, festivals held on the twentieth day of each month, as mentioned by Diogenes Laertius in the 3rd century AD.

The herm on which the two heads, previously separate, have been mounted is partly modern. The nose, part of the moustache and a few locks of Epicurus’s hair have been restored.

Former Duc de Penthièvre collection from the Château de Châteuneuf-sur-Loire (Loiret, France); confiscated during the Revolution Entered the Louvre in 1800

Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities