“Pseudo-Seneca”: the bust was identified for a very long time with the Roman philosopher Seneca. It was acknowledged as spurrious after the discovery of an inscripted portrait bearing Seneca's name (1813). May actually represent Hesiod. Roman copy after a lost Hellenistic original.

Long locks of hair fall over the forehead of this figure, but they do not obscure his intense and questioning gaze. It is the gaze of an ancient philosopher and the bust was indeed modeled after a celebrated antique sculpture once identified as Seneca, the first-century Roman philosopher and statesman. The figure's rugged and even unkempt appearance, suggesting a lack of refinement, seems to have provoked the association with Seneca who was born in Spain and perceived in classical Rome as a provincial foreigner. 

Photograph of original from Wikimedia user Marie-Lan Nguyen (2011)