As a byword for strength, dignity, and regal majesty, the lion has been a potent political, spiritual, and allegorical symbol for millennia. Depictions of lion-hunts asserted the capacity of the Egyptian Pharaoh and the Assyrian King of Kings for the throne; the lion was the symbol of the power of the Tribe of Judah, and eventually of the Christian Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth; while civilisations including the Persians, the ancient Indians, and the ancient Ethiopians saw the Asiatic lion (Panthera le oleo) as a symbol of royal sovereignty. In the Classical world, the lion was inextricably linked to the myth of Herakles and the Nemean Lion, the first of his famous labours. The story began with Herakles’ birth, under inauspicious circumstances. He was born from an affair between the chief god Zeus, and a mortal woman named Alkmeone. As a result, Herakles’ very existence irked Zeus’ wife, Hera. As Herakles grew, Hera took a jealous interest in his development. When he married Megara, daughter of King Kleon of Thebes, and their happy (in Greek terms) union produced children, Hera was angered. She drove Herakles mad, and, in a fit of rage, he murdered his entire household. When he came to his senses, Herakles was distraught; he sought penance from the Oracle at Delphi, which instructed him to place himself at the disposal of his cousin King Euryatheos. The King set him twelve impossible tasks, the famous Labours, to purify his soul. The first such Labour was to kill the Nemean Lion, a ferocious creature whose golden hide was impervious to bladed weapons. Herakles searched the region of Kleonai for the lion, and eventually coming across a boy, who informed him that, if he defeated the lion, the townspeople would sacrifice the lion to Zeus; if he failed, the boy himself would be sacrificed to Zeus. With the added pressure, Herakles encountered the lion. Not understanding that the lion’s fur was impenetrable, he shot at it with arrows. After repeated failures, Herakles cornered the lion in its cave, and, in the darkness, stunned it with his club, before choking the life from it. He used the lion’s claw to skin it, and wore the skin as his armour for the rest of his life.

Herakles, also known as Hercules, was by far the most popular demigod in the Roman pantheon. Roman Emperors gloried in depicting themselves wearing Herakles’ lion-skin cloak and posing like the great hero. Through doing so, they could claim descent from Zeus (known to the Romans as Jupiter), and therefore assert divine right for their rule. As powerful beasts, they were brought in as exotic entertainment in the amphitheatres of the Empire, especially Rome’s fabled Colosseum, where the gory spectacle of gladiators being pitted against wild beasts were one of the driving factors of an Emperor’s popularity among the plebeians, the lowest of the Roman free classes. And, indeed, the Roman army frequently used lions as symbols, and it was the mascot of at least one legion, Legio XIII Gemina. Meanwhile, the lion retained its currency as a powerful symbol among the conquered peoples of the Empire. Associated with Africa and the eastern provinces of the Empire, the lion was used to symbolically represent Carthage and Mesopotamia on Roman coinage. But it was as the Lion of Judah that the beast was used as a prominent symbol of opposition to Rome.

This extraordinary lion protome was found in Hebron, in what is now the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and thus could have two competing origins. One is as a symbol of Roman might, as expressed through the image of Herakles, whose memory was a valuable propaganda tool for the Emperor and his close associates. Or, alternatively, it could be a dangerous symbol of resistance, attesting to the febrile atmosphere in the Province of Judaea for much of its history, and which erupted into open revolution between AD 132 to AD 136. Regardless of whether this lion represents Roman authority or Judaean independence, or, indeed, neither, it retains its character as an outstanding example of the bronze-caster’s art. Depicting a young lion, mouth open in the action of roaring, the protome – probably originally an attachment for a cauldron or ceremonial vessel – has been cast with absolute precision, and a close eye for the detail of the big cat’s musculature and movement. His jaws hang open, with his tongue hanging from his mouth. His close cropped mane, probably an indication of his youthfulness, is executed in a diamond pattern, which accentuates the mass and bulk of the lion’s muscular features. This particular attribute is associated with Assyrian, Achaemenid, and other Near Eastern exemplars. Similar effort has gone into the figuring of the eyes, nostrils and teeth, which all bear the mark of an artist who has observed lions in person, perhaps in the menagerie of the client kings in Jerusalem, or in the cages waiting to be released in the amphitheatre in the provincial capital. While the face is naturalistic, the rest of the composition, and indeed the proportions, are closely linked to the millennia of representations of lions that have dominated the arts of the Near East. In this respect, we may be seeing some kind of artistic collaboration, which brought together the realism and technical know-how of the Romans with the knack for symbolism and composition of the local artisans.