Engraved Gem with a portrait of Demosthenes inset into a gold ring

A portrait of the Greek orator Demosthenes decorates the carved gem of this large gold ring. Demosthenes, the most famous of Athenian orators, was known for speaking out against the growing power of the kingdom of Macedonia. When Athens fell to the Macedonians in 323 B.C., he fled and committed suicide rather than face execution. Depictions of orators on Roman gems are quite rare, but in the early Roman Empire portraits of Demosthenes in all media became popular. The intaglio portrait on this ring shows the orator as an older, bearded man with a high furrowed forehead and a receding chin. This portrait, as with the other Roman examples, appears to derive from a famous bronze statue of Demothenes by the sculptor Polyeuktes, which was set up in the Athenian Agora in 280 B.C.

The gem engraver Apelles signed his name on the face of the gem.