According to Paul Zanker (op. cit., pp. 214-215), the Buffalo statue "presents a poet in a mood of remarkable, if rather strained, self assurance. We recognize him as a poet by the book roll and Greek manner of clothing, a mantle that leaves the entire torso exposed. The models for this figure are not the earlier Greek statues of poets, in their citizen dress and relaxed pose, like Menander and Poseidippus, but rather the exaggerated heroic imagery of Late Hellenistic art that we saw exemplified in reliefs of Menander. The pose is here even more exalted. The poet sits straight as an arrow, with his legs apart, not unlike the type of Jupiter that inspired images of the enthroned emperor. The sculptor of a second statue of a poet in similar pose, Trajanic in date and now in the Terme [Hallett, op. cit., pp. 188ff., pl. 109], added the realistic features of advancing age to the bare torso, thus creating a link to the iconography of the philosopher. Both statues probably stood in grave precincts and represent professional poets. A member of the aristocracy could hardly have had himself so depicted, with none of the attributes of his social status. Furthermore, the statue in Buffalo was hollowed out inside probably to contain the ashes of the deceased. It will most likely have stood in the funerary precinct of the patron, who may also have paid for this statue of his in-house poet."

For a head closely related in style to that of the present statue and dated to the Augustan period see K. Fittschen et al., Katalog der römischen Porträts in den Capitolinischen Museen, vol. 2, 2010, p. 52, no. 39, pl. 42.

Wünsche, op. cit., p. 33, note 78 points to a Roman female portrait head in Munich as a parallel for the present statue’s likely function as a "figural cinerary urn". The Munich head is hollowed out and was found filled with ashes.