The Boxer

One of the highlights of the collection at the Palazzo Massimo Alle Terme, not far from Rome's Termini Railway Station and the Baths (Terme) of Diocletian. The statue known as the Boxer is a life-size bronze piece. It depicts a mature fighter, with injuries from his most recent bout, as well as the scars from a lifetime of boxing. In antiquity, boxers were only permitted to land punches on the head.
He has a broken nose, cauliflower ears, and missing teeth.
He's naked, although Roman boxers were expected to wear a small jockstrap affair to cover the genitals. The gloves on his hands run from the knuckles up the forearm, ending in a metal band. The knuckles themselves are protected by a band of thicker leather. This style of glove was typical of the Imperial period, but was also of a type known to the Greeks. As with a lot of Roman statuary, it is believed to be a copy of a Hellenistic original, created using the lost wax process. It is actually composed of eight separate sections. Details such as the blood flowing from his facial wounds, created by adding a different alloy, and the detail such as the chest hair were added later. He would have had eyes that were also added in later, made of different coloured stone.

Believed to date to the First Century BC, the Boxer was found in the 19th Century (1885) on the southern slopes of the Quirinal Hill. It is thought that it was housed in the private residence of a senior senatorial figure, rather than in the ownership of the Imperial family.

For many years it was to be seen in the Octagonal Hall of the Baths of Diocletian, alongside the bronze known as the Hellenistic Prince, found in the same area within the same month. Now both statues have been relocated to the ground floor of the Palazzo nearby.