In the Greek and Roman antiquities hall of the Louvre, in a room of vaulted ceilings and warm museum light, four marble figures stand back-to-back around a central pillar and refuse to let you walk past without stopping. The group is known as the Four Captives — a Roman work, probably inspired by Hellenistic precedents, likely once decorating a monumental structure whose specific identity is lost. What survives is the message, and the message is not subtle.

Denis Foyatier carved this Spartacus in 1830 and put him in the Louvre’s Cour Puget, where he has stood ever since in a room of arched windows and pale stone, looking out over the other sculptures with an expression that is not quite triumph and not quite grief. The arms are crossed over his chest. The body is athletic, coiled without being in motion. A broken chain dangles from his wrist — the moment of liberation captured in marble, though Foyatier was careful not to make the moment simple. The face is the point: this is not a victor. This is a man who has just broken free and is now confronting what that means, which turns out to be a harder problem than the breaking.