The Apollo Sauroktonos (Apollo Lizard-killer) is a 1.49m high ancient sculpture in the Louvre, as Inventaire MR 78 (n° usuel Ma 441). It is a 1st - 2nd century AD Roman marble copy of an original by Praxiteles. It shows a nude adolescent male about to catch a lizard climbing up a tree. The left arm, the right hand and the lizard's head are modern restorations.
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Formerly in the Borghese collection, it was bought by Napoleon in 1807.
It could indirectly refer to Apollo's fight against the serpent Python or, if the lizard is an attribute of the god, it could show Apollo in his purifying function, as a destroyer of plagues - Greek gods called smintheus (rat-killer of rat) or parnopios (grasshopper-killer) are certainly known.
The bronze original of this sculpture is attributed by Pliny (XXXIV, 69-70) to the Athenian sculptor Praxiteles. This is usually dated to c.350-340 BC. The Cleveland Museum of Art claims to own a bronze original (or part-original) of this work, but its claims have not yet been verified by scholars and archaeologists, and the country of Greece has raised questions about ownership and title.
Small-scale decorative reproductions were made in the Roman era, as indicated by an epigram of Martial (14, 172). The theme of Apollo and the lizard is also found on Roman mosaics.