Apollonius of Athens

Almost everything known about this sculptor is cut into one block of marble. On the front of the base of the Belvedere Torso a Greek inscription reads, Apollonios son of Nestor, Athenian, made it. Ciriaco d'Ancona, a merchant who travelled the Mediterranean copying ancient inscriptions, recorded it in Rome in the 1430s, when the fragment belonged to the Colonna family.

Apollonios was a common name, and adding the father's name told people which one was meant. Another Athenian, Apollonios son of Archias, signed a bronze found at Herculaneum. Nestor's son is placed in the 1st century BC, among the Athenian workshops now called neo-Attic, which made marbles for Roman buyers by reworking famous Greek models. The Vatican thinks the Torso, too, follows an earlier bronze, and whether he invented the figure or copied it is still an open question.