One of the most important attributes of an educated person in early-eighteenth-century Russia was a knowledge of ancient history and mythology. On Peter's orders Russian people found themselves faced with objects and phenomena full of allegorical meaning that needed to be explained: the statues in the Summer Garden, festive fireworks displays, easel paintings and works of monumental art.

The ancient statue called for the sake of convenience A Hero was the work of a Roman sculptor of the first century A.D. inspired by Greek prototypes of some four centuries earlier. The surviving original fragment consists of the torso, arms down to the elbows and legs to the knees. The statue turned into the image of a hero, a valiant companion in war and peace as a result of restoration in Italian studios in the seventeenth or early eighteenth century. The condition of the marble indicates that it has been touched by flame. A Hero was one of the first Russian acquisitions of ancient sculpture and originally adorned the Summer Garden of Peter the Great.