There is this BELIEF that ALL statues must represent some SPECIFIC INDIVIDUAL

Speranza

ARROTINO.

The belief that all statues must represent some SPECIFIC INDIVIDUAL soon encouraged scholars to look for a more satisfying designation for "L'ARROTINO" (the knife-grinder).

Like MANZIO (il nudo della spina) and CINCINNATO (figure che si allaccia il sandalo), the ARROTINO was recruited into the rank of those ITALIAN heroes, with names recorded in antique Roman texts, who had deserved well of ancient Roma and had been REWARDED with a statue.

In 1594, CAVALERIIS identified the statue as

MANLIVS CAPITOLI PROPVGNATOR

-- the Marcus Manlius whose sleep had been disturbed by the cackling of Rome's sacred geese and who had successfully defended "il Campidoglio" against a night attack by the Gauls.

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But this theory met with no success, as it did not adequately explain the figure's sharpening of the knife.

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BY THE MIDDLE OF THE SEVENTEENTH century it was agreede that the ARROTINO portrayed a serf who, WHILE ENGAGED IN HIS WORK, was overhearing a PLOT against the State.

A BARBER who had apparently REVEALED the conspiracy of CATILINA was especially popular, despite SALLUST's assertion that a WOMAN of good birth had been responsible.

Other candidates included:

-- ANOTHER barber who had spied on a conspiracy against GIULIO CESARE in Alessandria

-- the recently freed MILICHUS (Milico) who showed NERONE the dagger which he had been instructed by his master FLAVIO SCAVINO to sharpen in preparation for the Emperor's murder

and

-- a servant called VINDIVIUS who, while whetting his knife -- 'the proper business of a butler, very likely, in those days as well as now' -- OVERHEARD, and then REVEALED, the plot of Brutus's sons to retroe the TARQUINS to the Roman throne.

A QUITE different theory that gained currency in the early EIGHTEENTH century was that the ARROTINO represented the famous augur ATTIO NAVIO (in whose memory both Plinio and Livio recorded the existence of a STATUE) who opposed the project of Tarquinio Prisco to increase the size of the army -- challenged by the king to divine whther his intentions could be carried out, the augur succeeded in cutting a whetstone with a razor as proof of his powers.

Though "the learned have objections to this latter explanations" (Livy had said that the statue's head was covered) as they did to all the others, the temptation to try to identify the figure continued to prove irresistible to antiquarians and visitors alike.