A Portrait of Homer

In this video from 2014, Phoebe Segal, now the Mary Bryce Comstock Curator of Greek and Roman Art, discusses a Roman portrait bust of Homer, the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. This sculpture, dating from the first century BCE or first century CE, depicts the ancient Greek poet as an older man wearing a fillet—a type of headband awarded in poetic contests and a symbol of its wearer’s mastery.