The Apollo Lyceus at The Louvre, Paris

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The Apollo Lyceus type, known as Lycean Apollo and originating with Praxiteles, can be found in numerous full-size statues and figurine copies as well as on 1st century BCE Athenian coinage. This statue type depicts the god resting on a support, typically a tree trunk or tripod, with his right forearm touching the top of his head and his hair arranged in braids on the top of his head, characteristic of childhood hairstyles. It is called "Lycean" not after Lycia itself but due to its identification with a lost work described by Lucian as being displayed in the Lyceum, one of Athens's gymnasia. According to Lucian, the god leaning on a support with his bow in his left hand and his right resting on his head is shown "as if resting after long effort." The main exemplar of this type is the Apollino in Florence or Apollo Medici, housed in the Uffizi Gallery. The attribution of this statue type to Praxiteles is traditionally supported based on its similarity to his Hermes from Olympia. One replica even passed as a copy of the Hermes for some time due to its "elongated proportions, elegant pose and somewhat effeminate anatomy." The comparison primarily relies on the Apollino's head, which has proportions similar to those of the Aphrodite of Cnidus, and whose pronounced sfumato confirms its long-held Praxitelean style in spite of several differences among extant examples. However, most exemplars of this type exhibit a pronounced musculature not typical of masculine types attributed to Praxiteles. It has been proposed that it may be the work of his contemporary Euphranor or of a 2nd-century BCE work. The Apollino, for its part, would thus be an eclectic creation from the Roman era, combining several styles from "second classicism" (i.e., from the 4th century BC). The famous pose with the arm resting on the head was so thoroughly associated with Apollo that it was used in the Hadrianic sculpture of Antinous as Apollo at Leptis Magna. With Hellenistic and Roman depictions of a youthful Dionysus typologically not always distinguishable from Apollo, this pose seems to have been inherited by Dionysus, as seen in the 2nd century CE Ludovisi Dionysus, a Roman sculpture. This pose is also used in Amazon statue types, and its long-established conventional expression of lassitude has been identified with Sleeping Ariadne.