A herm is a stone rectangular-sectioned pillar topped with a head, usually marking crossroads and boundaries, and functioning as a wayside shrine for travellers. Herms were originally reserved for gods but were used for portrait busts in later times, as in this janiform (looking both ways) example.

Thucydides was a historian of the wars between Athens and Sparta, in which he championed the Athenian general Perikles. Herodotus travelled and wrote widely and tried to be more impartial. He was sceptical of implausible events and is sometimes called ‘the Father of History’.

Both were writing in the fifth century BCE; this herm is a Roman version of a Greek original