Carved in white, Thasssos marble, this fragmentary section of a lower male torso, with a callipygian (‘well-shaped’) posterior.  It likely belonged to a figure of Hercules, whose famed strength was often depicted in ancient times through emphasising his musculature. The term callipygian derives from the Greek kallipygos, famously applied to the “Aphrodite Kallipygos,” yet Roman sculptors also explored this sensual aesthetic in depictions of youthful male bodies, particularly within mythological and heroic contexts. These works emphasised the perfection of musculature, the rhythmic curve of the lower back, and the rounded, taut form of the buttocks—an area regarded in antiquity as emblematic of vigour, fertility, and physical grace.

Roman taste, shaped by the collecting of Greek originals and by the rise of the gymnasium culture under Hellenistic influence, celebrated the male nude as a moral and aesthetic ideal. Sculptures of youthful gods, athletes, and satyrs often adopt contrapposto poses that draw the viewer’s gaze to the gluteal region, highlighting both anatomical knowledge and erotic charge. Such figures—whether a Hermes, a Dionysus, or a Romanised copy of a Polykleitan athlete—exemplify the Roman appetite for sensual yet controlled beauty.

In domestic and villa settings, callipygian male statues could signify refinement and cultured hedonism, echoing the elite’s admiration for Greek artistry. Their placement in bath complexes, gardens, or triclinia suggests a social acceptance of homoerotic appreciation within an intellectualised aesthetic framework. Far from mere eroticism, these sculptures reveal Rome’s complex engagement with the body as a site of ideal form, divine inspiration, and moral virtue rendered through sensual perfection.