men for various reasons.[397] To several of these men more than one
statue was erected.[398] The greater number of these statues were
erected to kings and princes, to those of Sparta,[399] Athens,[400]
Epeiros,[401] Sicily,[402] Macedonia, and Alexander’s Empire.[403]
One was erected in honor of the philosopher Aristotle,[404] one in
honor of the rhetorician Gorgias of Leontini,[405] one in honor of a
hunter,[406] another in honor of a flute-player,[407] and many others
in honor of public and private men. These statues were set up for
various reasons. Archidamas III of Sparta had his statues erected
to his memory because he was the only Spartan king who died abroad
and did not receive a formal burial. Kylon had a statue erected
by the Aitolians because he freed the Eleans from the tyranny of
Aristotimos.[408] Pythes of Abdera was thus honored by his soldiers
because of his military prowess.[409] Philonides of Crete was, as
we learn from the recovered inscription on his statue base, the
courier of Alexander the Great.[410] Pythokritos was honored for his
flute-playing, though he does not appear to have been a victor.[411]
The Palaians of Kephallenia honored Timoptolis of Elis,[412] and the
Aitolians honored the Elean Olaidas[413] for unknown reasons. At least
seven, if not eight, of those thus honored with statues were Eleans.
Some of the men who had honor statues were also victors at Olympia, a
fact which would appear on the inscribed base. Thus Aratos, the son
of Kleinias of Sikyon, the statesman, had a statue erected to him by
the Corinthians. This was doubtless an honor statue, though Pausanias
also says he was a chariot-victor.[414] On the other hand, the statue
erected in honor of the pentathlete Stomios was probably a victor
monument, though Pausanias says that its inscription records that he
was an Elean cavalry general who challenged the enemy to a duel, in
which he was slain.[415] In some cases it is hard to decide whether the
statue is honorary or victor in character. In the course of time honor
statues multiplied, while those of athletes decreased. The recovered
inscriptions on the latter decrease steadily in the fourth and third
centuries B. C., revive again in the second and first, and decrease
in the first Christian century. They cease almost entirely after the
middle of the second century A. D.
CHAPTER II.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF VICTOR STATUES AT OLYMPIA.
PLATES 2-7 AND FIGURES 3-8.
Only a few insignificant remnants of the forest of victor statues
which once stood in the Altis at Olympia were unearthed by the German
excavators. Most of these statues already in antiquity had been carried
off to Italy,[416] while those which escaped the spoliation of the
Roman masters of Greece were destroyed at the hands of the invading
hordes of barbarians in the early Dark Ages. Consequently only here and
there in modern museums can isolated fragments of these originals be
discovered, which have accidentally survived the ravages of time and
man.
In the almost complete absence of originals, therefore, we depend
for our knowledge of them on a variety of sources. In attempting to
reconstruct them we have two main sources of information to aid us,
the literary and the archæological. To the former belong the many
inscriptions found on the statue bases recovered at Olympia, which
contain the name and native city of the victor, the athletic contest
in which his victory was won, and frequently some account of his
former athletic history; epigrams preserved in the Greek anthologies
and elsewhere, some of which agree with those inscribed on the statue
bases; more or less definite statements of scholiasts and the classical
writers in general, especially the detailed account of the monuments
of Olympia contained in the fifth and sixth books of the Ἑλλάδος
περιήγησις of Pausanias, who visited the Altis during the reign of
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus,[417] and also the somewhat systematic
treatment of Greek sculptors and their works in the elder Pliny’s
chapters on the History of Art.[418] To the latter source belong the
remnants of statues in bronze and marble found at Olympia, as well as
the recovered bases, on many of which the extant footmarks enable us
to recover the pose of the statues which formerly stood upon them.
Finally, in reconstructing these athlete statues, an intimate knowledge
of Greek sculpture in all its phases and periods is essential. Here,
as in the general study of Greek sculpture, where the destruction of
originals has been almost complete, we are largely dependent on Roman
copies which were executed by more or less skilled workmen, chiefly
for wealthy Roman patrons of art who wished to use them to decorate
the public buildings, baths, palaces, and villas of Rome and other
Italian cities. A careful study of these copies has evolved a series
of groups, which have been assigned with more or less probability to
this or that artist.[419] Representations of the various poses of the
athlete statues of Olympia and elsewhere are found also on every sort
of sculptured and painted works—reliefs, vases, coins, gems—which are,
therefore, valuable in any attempt to reconstruct the attitude of a
given statue.
Taking into account all these sources of knowledge, it has been
possible to reach tolerable certainty in reconstructing the main types
of these victor monuments, and in identifying schools, masters, and
individual works. This identification of athlete statues, especially
those belonging to the fifth and fourth centuries B. C., among the
countless Roman works which people modern museums, has already been
achieved in many cases by archælogical investigations. The work of
many masters of the archaic period and of the most important bronze
sculptors of the great period of Greek art has been illustrated by
such ascriptions; especially that of Myron, who represented figures
in rhythmic action full of life and vigor; of the elder Polykleitos,
who was a master in representing standing figures at rest fashioned
according to a mathematical system of proportions; of Lysippos, who
introduced a new canon of proportions in opposition to that of his
predecessor Polykleitos, and who inaugurated the naturalistic tendency
in Greek art, which was destined to he carried to such unbecoming
lengths in succeeding centuries. The further identification of such
statues, as our knowledge of the tendencies and traditions of the
schools of Greek sculpture and our sources of information about
athletic art become more and more extended, will be one of the most
important tasks of the archæologist in the future.
Before discussing the appearance of individual types of these
monuments, we shall consider certain general characteristics common to
all of them. Long ago K. O. Mueller[420] summed up the common features
of victor statues in these words: _Kurzgelocktes Haar, tuechtige
Glieder, eine kraeftige Ausbildung der Gestalt und verhaeltnissmaessig
kleine Koepfe characterisiren die ganze Gattung von Figuren; die
zerschlagenen Ohren und die hervorgetriebenen Muskeln insbesondere die
Faustkaempfer und Pankratiasten._ Though in the main this excellent
summary still holds good, we are now in a position to correct it in
part and to add other equally characteristic features to it. We shall
briefly discuss, therefore, in the light of recent investigations,
certain of the characteristics common to this _genre_ of sculpture—the
material and size of these statues, their nudity and fashion of wearing
the hair, their twofold division into iconic and aniconic, their
proportions, and, lastly, the assimilation of their appearance to
well-known types of hero or god.
SIZE OF VICTOR STATUES.
In another section[421] we show that the overwhelming majority of the
statues in the Altis were of bronze, though other materials, stone and
wood, were also used in some cases. As to the size of these statues,
no hard and fast rule seems to have been followed, but we may assume
from the evidence at hand that they were in general life-size.[422]
Lucian would have us believe that the Hellanodikai did not allow
victors to set up statues larger than life.[423] We know, however, that
there were exceptions to such a rule. In all probability the statue
of Polydamas of Skotoussa by Lysippos, which Pausanias says stood on
a high pedestal, was larger than life-size, if we may conjecture from
its elevated position and the probable source of Pausanias’ remark that
he “was the tallest of men, if we except the so-called heroes and the
mortal race which preceded the heroes.”[424] The traces of footprints
on the recovered pedestal of the statue of the Athenian pancratiast
Kallias by the sculptor Mikon show that the statue was larger than
life-size.[425] The footprints on the base of the statue of the Rhodian
boxer Eukles by the Argive Naukydes are about 33 cm. long, and so the
statue was slightly over life-size.[426] We know the actual size of
at least two of these Olympic statues. The scholiast on Pindar, _Ol._
VII, Argum., on the basis of a fragment from Aristotle’s lost work
on the Olympic victors and one from the little-known writer Apollas
Ponticus,[427] says that the statue of the Rhodian boxer Diagoras was
4 cubits and 5 fingers tall,[428] _i. e._, about 6 feet 4.5 inches,
somewhat over life-size.[429] From the same scholiast we learn that the
statue of the son of Diagoras, the pancratiast Damagetos, was 4 cubits
high, or less than that of the father by 5 fingers, and consequently
just under 6 feet.[430] The footprints on the base of the statue of
the boxer Aristion by the elder Polykleitos are 29 cm. long, and so
the statue was just life-size.[431] There are several examples of such
life-size statues,[432] while others are slightly below life-size.[433]
The Polykleitan statue of a boxer in Kassel is under life-size.[434]
The marble head of a statue found at Olympia, which we ascribe to
Philandridas, the Akarnanian pancratiast, by Lysippos, (Frontispiece
and Fig. 69) is also under life-size,[435] as is also that of the
pancratiast Agias found at Delphi (Pl. 27 and Fig. 68). These two are
in harmony with Pliny’s statement that Lysippos made the heads of his
statues relatively small.[436] Perhaps this statement of Pliny was the
basis of the opinion of Mueller recorded above that “comparatively
small heads” characterize the whole _genre_ of victor statues. We
have in the preceding chapter mentioned the marble fragments of the
statues of boy victors, two-fifths to two-thirds life-size, found at
Olympia.[437] The two marble helmeted heads of the archaic period
found there, which we shall later ascribe to hoplite victors (Fig.
30), are exactly life-size.[438] Of the bronze fragments recovered at
Olympia,[439] the head of a boxer of the fourth century B. C. (Fig.
61, A and B) is life-size,[440] while the extraordinarily beautifully
sculptured right arm ascribed to a boy victor by Furtwaengler[441] is a
little under life-size.
NUDITY OF VICTOR STATUES.
Most of the victor statues at Olympia were nude.[442] In the early
period all athletes wore the loin-cloth. Cretan frescoes show it
was the custom in the early Mediterranean world. The athletes of
Homer girded themselves on entering the games of Patroklos,[443] and
the girdle appears in the earliest athletic scenes on vases.[444]
Throughout the historic period, however, the Greeks entered their
contests in complete nudity, and this nudity naturally was carried over
into athletic sculpture. Pliny’s[445] statement, _Graeca res nihil
velare_, is, therefore, correct, despite another of Philostratos to
the effect that at Delphi, at the Isthmus, and everywhere except at
Olympia, the athlete wore the coarse mantle.[446] The beginning of the
change from wearing the loin-cloth to complete nudity was ascribed
to an accident. The Megarian runner Orsippos in the 15th Ol. (= 720
B. C.) dropped his loin-cloth while running, either accidentally or
because it impeded him.[447] The story was commemorated by an epigram,
perhaps by Simonides, which was inscribed on his tomb at Megara.[448]
A copy of this epigram in the Megarian dialect, executed in late
Roman or Byzantine times, when the original had become illegible, was
discovered at Megara in 1769 and shows that its original was the source
of Pausanias’ remarks.[449] Philostratos says that athletes contended
nude at Olympia, either because of the summer heat or a mishap which
befell the woman Pherenike of Rhodes. She accompanied her son, the boy
boxer Peisirhodos, to Olympia disguised as a trainer, and in her joy
at his victory she leaped over the barrier and disclosed her sex.[450]
The practice does not appear to have become universal with all athletes
in all the competitions at Olympia until some time after Orsippos’ day,
since Thukydides says the abandonment of the girdle took place shortly
before his time and that in his day it was still retained by certain
foreigners, notably Asiatics, in boxing and wrestling matches.[451] The
change is not illustrated in sculpture. The earliest victor statues,
_i. e._, those of the “Apollo” type, are all nude. The nudity of
this type shows an essential difference between Greek and foreigner
and also between the later Greek and his rude ancestor. Plato gives
the use of the loin-cloth as an example of convention, by which what
seems peculiar to one generation becomes usual to another.[452] We see
the change, however, in vase-paintings. The loin-cloth is common on
seventh-century vases, but is gradually left off in later ones.
There were exceptions to the rule of nudity. Statues of charioteers
were usually partly or wholly dressed in the long chiton, a custom
explained in various ways.[453] The Delphi bronze _Charioteer_ (Fig.
66) is a good example of a draped one. Another _auriga_ almost nude is
shown on a decadrachm of Akragas in the British Museum, dating from the
end of the fifth century B. C.[454] There are also several examples
of nude charioteers.[455] The Olympic runners and athletes generally
were also bareheaded and barefoot. The only exceptions were the
hoplite-runners, who wore helmets, and possibly charioteers, who wore
sandals.[456] Statues of women victors also were draped. Though Ionian
women could witness games,[457] and Spartan girls took part in athletic
contests with boys,[458] women were rigorously excluded from crossing
the Alpheios during the festival at Olympia.[459] They were allowed,
however, to enter horses for the chariot-race and, if victorious, to
set up monuments.[460] Only one woman was allowed to witness the games,
the priestess of the old earth cult of Demeter Chamyne, who could
sit at the altar in the stadion during the contests.[461] Pausanias
notes but one exception of a woman infringing the rule of admission,
Pherenike, the mother of the Rhodian victor Peisirhodos already
mentioned. She was pardoned because her father, brothers, and son were
victors, but the umpires passed a law that thereafter even trainers
should be nude.[462] While excluded from the games proper, women had
their own festival at Olympia in honor of Hera, which was known as the
_Heraia_. These games occurred every four years[463] and included a
foot-race between virgins, in which the course was one-sixth less than
the stadion. The victress received an olive crown and also a share of
the cow sacrificed to Hera, and was allowed to set up a painted picture
of herself in the Heraion.[464] It has been generally assumed that the
statue of a girl runner in the Galleria dei Candelabri of the Vatican
represents one of these victresses (Plate 2),[465] since Pausanias
says they ran with their hair down and wore a tunic which reached to
just above the knees, leaving the right shoulder bare to the breast.
That the statue represents a girl runner seems certain,[466] but that
it can be referred to one of the Olympic girl victresses is doubtful.
The description of Pausanias fits it in many respects, except that
the chiton of the statue is too short, and he does not mention the
girdle just below the bosom. Furthermore, he does not mention statues
of girl victresses, but only pictures. Nothing can be argued from the
palm-branch on the tree-stump, except that the Roman copyist thought it
the statue of a victress. It does not necessarily refer to a victress
at Olympia, for Pausanias elsewhere says that the palm-branch was given
at many contests.[467] The statue represents a young girl leaning
forward awaiting the signal to start,[468] but it is impossible to say
to what games we should refer it. There were girls’ contests in and out
of Greece—such as at the _Dionysia_ in Sparta[469] and in her colony
Kyrene.[470] Such games were also held in the stadion of Domitian at
Rome.[471] In fact the Palatine estate of the Barberini, from whom the
Vatican acquired the statue, embraced the area of the old stadion of
Domitian on the Palatine. It is probably of Doric workmanship, as it
certainly represents a Dorian victress, though not necessarily by a
Peloponnesian sculptor.[472]
THE ATHLETIC HAIR-FASHION.
[Illustration: PLATE 2
Marble Statue of a Girl Runner. Vatican Museum, Rome.]
The assumption long held that short hair was always characteristic of
the athlete is incorrect.[473] It is controverted equally by literary
evidence and by the monuments. The Homeric Greek took pride in his
long hair,[474] and doubtless the contestants at the games of Patroklos
in the Iliad had long hair. Long hair was worn by some Athenians
throughout Athenian history. From the end of the fifth century B. C.,
long hair was regarded as a mark of effeminacy[475] and was regularly
worn only by the knights.[476] Short hair was worn as a sign of
mourning in Athens from early days down.[477] Only the slaves regularly
wore very short hair in the fifth century B. C.[478] The change to
short hair in Athens was certainly due to the influence of the palæstra
and to athletics in general.[479] We see just the opposite custom in
vogue in Sparta. There, according to the code of Lykourgos,[480] men
were compelled to wear long hair and children short hair. Thus the
heroes of Leonidas entered the battle of Thermopylæ after combing
their long locks.[481] After the Persian wars only children and men
with laconizing or aristocratic sympathies[482] wore their hair long
at Athens. When boys arrived at the age of ἔφηβοι, they had their
hair cut at the feast of the οἰνιστήρια[483] and dedicated it to a
god.[484] Soon after the Persian war period, athletes wore their hair
short. Before that time, the wearing of long hair had already been
discarded for obvious reasons in wrestling.[485] Similarly, in boxing
and the pankration long hair was in the way, and was therefore early
braided into two long plaits which were wound around the head in a
peculiar way and tied into a knot at the top, the so-called Attic
κρωβύλος, the oftenest mentioned manner of dressing the hair in Greek
literature.[486] The oldest notice of this style of wearing the hair
is found in a fragment of Asios.[487] Herakleides Ponticus[488] says
it was used up to the time of the Persian wars. The _locus classicus_
is in Thukydides, who says it was worn in his day by old people
only.[489] Earlier young men wore it,[490] but it went out of fashion
between 470 and 460 B. C. In this connection we should mention that the
professional athlete under the Roman Empire wore his hair uncut and
tied up in an unsightly topknot known as the _cirrus_.[491]
The monumental evidence bears out the literary. Thus, on old Corinthian
clay tablets freemen are represented with long hair, while slaves
have short hair.[492] Hydrias from Caere (Cerveteri) and paintings
from Klazomenai show that the Ionians wore their hair short for the
first time in the sixth century B. C., the custom not becoming general
until the fifth. Older Spartan monuments represent the hair long.[493]
Attic vases show long hair on men until the second half of the sixth
century B. C., when the black-figured vase masters began to represent
them with short hair, a custom becoming general in the first half of
the fifth. In statuary the _Diskobolos_ of Myron (Pls. 21, 26, and
Figs. 34, 35) has short hair, and most statues of athletes before it
have long hair, while most after it have short. Before the time of the
_Diskobolos_, b.-f. and early r.-f. vase-painters often represented
athletes with braided hair in the fashion of the warriors on the Aegina
pediments. When short hair began to be used on athlete statues, these
older braids were often replaced by victor bands.[494] We may roughly
summarize by saying that statues before the date of the _Diskobolos_
which do not have long hair are probably those of athletes and not of
gods, and, in any case, if they have braids bound up in the fashion of
the κρωβύλος, they are almost always statues of athletes.[495] As for
short hair on representations of gods, Furtwaengler has shown that it
appears only after the middle of the fifth century B. C.[496] Prior
to that date the hair of divinities fell over the neck and shoulders
in curls, as in the statue of the _Olympian Zeus_ by Pheidias. By the
time of Perikles, however, short curly hair reached only to the nape
of the neck on statues of Zeus, and this style frequently appears on
figures of the god on Attic vases of that period. Dionysos has short
hair for the first time on the Parthenon frieze.[497] Furtwaengler has
shown that Pheidias did not invent the short bound-up hair for goddess
types, as we see it in the _Lemnian Athena_, but that he borrowed it
from works already in existence.[498] Though the style was unknown in
the archaic period, it appears on helmeted heads of Athena of the early
fifth century B. C. showing Peloponnesian style—on coins, statuettes,
reliefs, etc. It appears in Attic art exclusively on bareheaded types
of Athena of the period just prior to that of the _Lemnia_.
Bulle[499] has gone carefully into the technique of the hair by
different Greek artists. In archaic times this was “_ein, man darf
sagen, unmoegliches Problem_.” The primitive means at the disposal
of the early artist made it impossible to render the hair naturally
and hence it was conventionalized. Two styles arose in archaic times,
which endured with modifications all through Greek art. The one was the
pictorial (_malerisch_), where only the general appearance of the hair
was represented, the merest necessary plastic form being added.[500]
Painting here helped the shortcomings of the sculptor to some extent.
The second style was the plastic (_plastisch_), where individual locks
were attempted. The plastic use of light and shade made the use of
color now less necessary. Such examples as the _Korai_ of the Akropolis
Museum and the Rampin head in the Louvre show the difficulty which
the early artist encountered in representing hair plastically. In
the Rampin head[501] we see examples of three sorts of plastic hair
treatment: the pearl-string (_Perlschnuerre_) on the neck, grained hair
(_Koerner_) in the beard, and snail-volutes (_geperlte Schnecken_) on
the forehead. None of the three seems to belong integrally to the head,
but each appears to have been pasted on. The pearl-string fashion was
first used in the soft _poros_ stone and was only later successfully
transferred to marble. During the severe style of Greek sculpture,
both fashions, pictorial and plastic, were used, as we see them in the
pediment groups from the temple of Zeus at Olympia. In the period of
Pheidias the plastic treatment was used almost exclusively, as we see
in the _Lemnian Athena_. In the next century impressionism came in,
though the plastic treatment still continued, for we see it in the
bronze work of Lysippos and the marble work of Praxiteles. The old
pictorial treatment was revived again in the later Hellenistic age.
ICONIC AND ANICONIC STATUES.
In a well-known passage Pliny says that “the ancients did not make
any statue of individuals unless they deserved immortality by some
distinction, originally by a victory at some sacred games, especially
those of Olympia, where it was the custom to dedicate statues of
all those who had conquered, and portrait statues if they had
conquered three times. These are called iconic.”[502] Many solutions
of this passage have been offered. Older commentators, as Hirt and
Visconti,[503] interpreted Pliny’s word _iconicas_ as life-size
statues. Scherer, however, easily refuted this idea and showed that the
adjective εἰκονικός, though ambiguous in its meaning, had nothing to do
with size, but referred rather to an individual as opposed to a typical
sense in relation to statuary. In his explanation he referred to the
words of Lessing in the _Laokoön_: _es ist das Ideal eines gewissen
Menschen, nicht das Ideal eines Menschen ueberhaupt_.[504] Nowadays
all scholars agree that Pliny’s word refers to portrait statues.[505]
However, Pliny’s dictum about the right of setting up portrait statues
is certainly open to doubt.[506] It can not have been true of monuments
erected before the fourth century B. C., when portrait statues were
rare. Portraiture was a form of realism and was a product of the later
period of Greek art—especially after the time of Lysippos. In the
fourth century B. C. we find one well-attested exception to Pliny’s
rule. The discovered inscription from the base of a monument erected to
the horse-racer Xenombrotos of Cos,[507] reads (fifth line): τοῖ[ος],
ὁποῖο[ν] ὁ[ρ]ᾷς Ξεινόμβροτο[ς]. These words indubitably point to a
portrait statue. However, neither the recovered epigram nor Pausanias
indicates anything about this victor being a τρισολυμπιονίκης, and
consequently he appears not to have merited a portrait statue.[508]
Pliny’s statement can be explained in many ways: it may be apocryphal,
or different usages may have fitted different periods; or the rule may
have held good only for gymnic victors and not for equestrian ones,
which, being strictly votive in character, may not have been restricted
to its operation.[509]
PORTRAIT STATUES.
Pausanias mentions the monuments of several victors at Olympia who
were entitled to portrait statues on the strength of Pliny’s rule,
though we have no indication that they were so honored. Thus he
mentions the statues of Dikon,[510] Sostratos,[511] Philinos,[512]
and Gorgos.[513] The early fifth-century boxer Euthymos[514] also won
three victories, but at a time before we should expect a portrait
statue. The Periegete also mentions several victors who won three or
more times, though he does not say that they had any statues, portrait
or otherwise.[515] Percy Gardner[516] has shown how erroneous is the
prevailing view that the Greeks neglected portraiture in their art and
left it for the Romans to develop. He shows that Greek artists of the
third and second centuries B. C. left a great many portraits of the
highest artistic value and that portraits of Romans before the time
of Augustus, and the best Roman examples during the Empire, were made
by Greek sculptors. The number of Greek portraits in our museums,
especially in Rome, is very great.[517] From archaic times down to the
middle of the fifth century B. C. we should not expect portraiture. In
the earlier period, therefore, it is difficult to distinguish between
statues of gods and those of men. In the great period of Greek art,
from the time of Perikles on to that of Alexander, the general tendency
of Greek sculpture was so ideal that portraits, when they existed,
seem impersonal. The later copyists of portraits also idealized them.
Thus Pliny, in speaking of Kresilas’ portrait of Perikles, says that
this artist _nobiles viros nobiliores fecit_—in other words, that
he idealized them.[518] The portraits of Alexander were especially
idealized. In the first half of the fourth century we first hear of
realistic portraiture. Thus Demetrios, who flourished 380-360 B.
C.,[519] made a “very beautiful” statue of a Corinthian general named
Pelichos, which Lucian[520] says had a fat belly, bald head, hair
floating in the wind, and prominent veins, “like the man himself.”[521]
Except for the hair this description by the satirist seems to have been
correct. At the end of the fourth century B. C. anatomical detail began
to be shown in sculpture. Largely under the influence of Lysippos,
the personality of victors began to be emphasized in figure and face
in a very realistic way. We can distinguish between such portraits of
victors before and after the time of Lysippos.[522] Pliny[523] says
that Lysistratos, the brother of Lysippos, was the first to obtain
portraits by making a plaster mould on the features and so to render
likenesses exactly, as “previous artists had only tried to make them as
beautiful as possible.” In any case, by the time of Lysippos realistic
portraiture began to be emphasized. We see it at Olympia in the later
bronze pancratiast’s head found there (Fig. 61, A and B), and in a
still more revolting style in the _Seated Boxer_ of the Museo delle
Terme (Pl. 16, and Fig. 27).
The reason why the privilege of erecting portrait statues was given
so seldom to Olympic victors was probably not because it was a highly
esteemed honor. The real reason seems to have been that portraiture,
with its tendency to realism, subordinated beauty to that realism and
so conflicted with the Greek artistic ideal. The Thebans had a law
which forbade caricature and commanded artists to make their statues
more beautiful than the models. The Greeks worshiped beauty and hated
ugliness. Many games in Greece were held in honor of personal beauty.
Thus a contest of manly beauty among old men (ἀγὼν εὐανδρίας) was a
part of the Panathenaic games at Athens.[524] A contest of beauty among
women, originating in the time of Kypselos, king of Arkadia, was kept
up until the time of Athenæus.[525] We hear of contests of beauty in
Elis, at which three prizes were given,[526] and of similar ones on the
islands of Tenedos and Lesbos.[527] The Crotonian Philippos, who won at
Olympia in an unknown contest about 520 B. C., was honored after his
death by the people of Egesta with a _heroön_ and sacrifices because of
his beauty.[528] At Tanagra, in Bœotia, the most beautiful ephebe
was chosen to carry a ram on his shoulders around the city wall at
the festival of Hermes Kriophoros.[529] At Aigion in Achaia the most
beautiful boy was anciently chosen to be priest of Zeus.[530] The most
beautiful youths among the Spartans and Cretans dedicated offerings
to Eros before battle.[531] These and similar examples show the Greek
feeling for beauty. The representation of passion and violence was
foreign to the spirit of the best Greek art; it was rather the “quiet
grandeur” (_Stille Groesse_) or “repose,” of which Winckelmann made so
much, that was characteristic of that art. In Homer both men and gods,
when wounded, shriek. Philoktetes, in the drama of Sophokles, wails
throughout a whole act, when suffering from a gangrened foot. With
the poets Zeus casts his thunderbolt in anger, but Pheidias has him
hold it quietly in his hand. So we can see why portrait statues were
rare at Olympia, where the representation of manly beauty and vigor
was the rule. They were ruled out, not because of their increasing
the honor accorded to the victor, but rather because they honored his
egotism.[532]
ANICONIC STATUES.
Accordingly, since only victors who had won three or more contests at
Olympia could set up iconic statues, the great majority of statues
there represented some ideal type of common applicability, in which
there was no attempt to show the individual features of this or that
victor, but rather the typical athlete of muscular build. The older
statues were merely variations of a few types which were held to be
appropriate to the purpose. In process of time these few types in their
treatment of details gradually approached truth to nature; this was
especially characteristic of the Peloponnesian schools, which adopted
the _Doryphoros_ of Polykleitos as their norm of proportions. Statues
of victors were the stock subject of the closely related schools of
Argos and Sikyon.[533] Doubtless, as E. A. Gardner says,[534] there
existed at Olympia itself a school of subordinate artists, who filled
the regular demand for victor statues. However, some of these statues,
especially those of the fifth and fourth centuries B. C., as we see
them in originals and in Roman copies, and read the æsthetic judgments
of them in Greek writers, were real works of art.
ÆSTHETIC JUDGMENTS OF CLASSICAL WRITERS.
The literary evidence for Greek sculpture is, for the most part, very
unsatisfactory. Though classical writers were uncritical and not fond
of analysis, still they have left us some useful opinions about works
of sculpture and painting. The history and criticism of sculpture
began in Greece, in the fourth century B. C., with the Peripatetics.
Aristotle, whose observations on painting and sculpture were slight,
did not despise the “mimetic” arts as did the Socrates of Plato.[535]
In the _Rhetoric_[536] he speaks of the beautiful bodies of youths who
trained as pentathletes, since the varied exercises of the pentathlon
made them so. We have a similar opinion expressed by Xenophon in what
is, perhaps, the most interesting passage in Greek literature on
criticism of art.[537] He has Sokrates go to the sculptor Kleito and
compliment him on his power of representing different physical types
produced by various contests, noting differences between statues of
runners and wrestlers and between those of boxers and pancratiasts.
When asked how he makes statues lifelike, Kleito has no answer, and
the philosopher says it is by the imitation of real men, _i. e._,
nature. He adds: “Must you not then imitate the threatening eyes of
those who are fighting and the triumphant expression of those who
are victorious?” Though some have thought that these words refer to
portrait statues, which were spoken of as a matter of course at the
beginning of the fourth century B. C., it is more reasonable to suspect
that Sokrates was speaking of the older sculptors—for we may recognize
Polykleitos in Kleito[538]—and consequently that he is not referring
to portraiture. In the _Symposium_ of Xenophon[539] Sokrates also
complains that the long-distance runners (δολιχοδρόμοι) have thick
legs and narrow shoulders, while boxers have broad shoulders and small
legs, and he therefore recommends dancing as a better exercise than
athletics. As such differences in physique occur in vase-paintings of
the date, but not in statuary, the philosopher seems to be speaking of
athletics and not of sculpture. From these quotations of Aristotle and
Xenophon, we gather that the all-round development of the pentathlon
made beautiful athletes, and this beauty must have been carried over
into their statues. It is essentially the young man’s contest,[540]
and some of the pentathlete victors at Olympia and elsewhere were
noted for their strength in after life. Thus Ikkos of Tarentum, who
won at Olympia in Ol. 76 (= 476 B. C.), was the best teacher of
gymnastics of his day.[541] Gorgos of Elis was the only athlete to win
the pentathlon four times at Olympia, besides winning in two running
races.[542] Another Elean, Stomios, who won three prizes at Olympia
and Nemea, later became a leader of cavalry and beat his enemy in
single combat.[543] The Argive Eurybates, victor in the pentathlon at
Nemea, was very strong, and later, in a battle with the Aeginetans,
killed three opponents in single combats, but succumbed to the
fourth.[544] The Spartans and Krotonians seem to have been the best
pentathletes.[545] Noted sculptors made statues of these athletes.[546]
Plato, in the _de Leg._,[547] has the Athenian stranger praise Egyptian
art because of its stationary character. This bespeaks but little
artistic insight for the philosopher, though he was surrounded by the
wonderful artistic creations of the end of the great fifth century
B. C. The later classical writers were fond of expressing criticisms
of art. Thus Pasiteles, a Greek sculptor living in Rome in the first
century B. C., wrote five books on celebrated works of art throughout
the world.[548] The opinions on art of the Roman Varro appear in the
pages of Pliny.[549] Of all the ancient critics, Cicero was perhaps the
most superficial. In a passage in the _Brutus_[550] he gives us his
judgment of several sculptors. He finds the works of Kanachos too rigid
to imitate nature truthfully, while those of Kalamis, though softer
than those of Kanachos, are hard; Myron, though not completely faithful
to nature, produced beautiful works and Polykleitos was quite perfect.
The most trustworthy critic of sculpture in antiquity, on the other
hand, was certainly Lucian, as we see from many of his utterances,
especially from his account of an ideal statue, which combined the
highest excellences of several noted sculptures.[551] His criticism
of Hegias, Kritios, and Nesiotes, to the effect that their works were
“concise, sinewy, hard, and exactly strained in their lines,” might
have been made in the presence of the group of the _Tyrannicides_
(Fig. 32).[552] Unfortunately he touches the subject only casually,
though he might have written a fine history of Greek art. We must also
refer to two other imperial writers, the elder Pliny and Pausanias.
Pliny’s abstracts on art, though our chief ancient literary authority
on Greek sculpture and painting, are neither critical nor trustworthy.
A careful analysis of his chapters shows that he was a borrower many
times removed, though he seldom acknowledged it. This is excusable
when we consider the custom of literary borrowing in antiquity and
also the fact that his chapters on art form merely an appendix to
his _Natural History_, being joined on to it by a very artificial
bond, for his abstract on bronze statuary (Bk. XXXIV) is brought in
merely to complete his account of the metals. His knowledge of the
older periods of Greek art is small and his bias in favor of the
two Sikyonian sculptors Lysippos and Xenokrates is very evident. His
worst mistakes are in chronology. He puts Pythagoras after Myron, and
both after Polykleitos, while Hagelaïdas, who is made the teacher of
Myron and Polykleitos, lives on to the beginning of the Peloponnesian
war. His real criticism of sculpture is seen in his dictum of the
_Laokoön_ group, that it is a “work superior to all the pictures and
bronzes of the world.”[553] Our debt to Pausanias, especially for
our knowledge of the victor monuments at Olympia, is immense. This
debt may be gauged by the fact that he mentions in his work many
times more statues than any other writer and that a large portion of
the _Schriftquellen_ of Overbeck is concerned with him. However, he
shows little real understanding for art. His interest in statues is
confined almost entirely to those which are noted for their antiquity
or sanctity, and his account of them is usually the pivot around which
he spins religious or mythological stories. Throughout his work his
chief interest is religious; his interest in art for its own sake is
very small. He devotes many pages to the throne of Zeus at Olympia,
and describes the temple sculptures merely because the statue of Zeus
is within. His detailed account of the athlete statues in the Altis is
made chiefly because of his religious and antiquarian interest. Though
imitating the style of Herodotos, he does it badly, so that his book is
without much charm. In concluding this rough estimate of the ancient
criticism of art, we might mention the fragmentary information to be
gathered from many other writers, Dio Chrysostom, Quintilian,[554]
Plutarch, and others, whose names occur frequently in the footnotes.
All such references to works of art in ancient writers are conveniently
collected in the great compilation of Overbeck so often quoted.[555]
As for æsthetic judgments of the statues of victors at Olympia we
have a few direct hints from different writers. The epigram from
the base of the statue of the boy wrestler Theognetos by Ptolichos
of Aegina reads in part: Κάλλιστον μὲν ἰδεῖν, ἀθλεῖν δ’ οὐ χείρονα
μόρ[φης].[556] Pliny says of the sculptor Mikon, who made the statue
of the Athenian pancratiast Kallias: _Micon athletis spectatur_.[557]
The same writer says of the horses of Kalamis: _equis sine aemulo
expressis_.[558] Kalamis with Onatas of Aegina made a chariot-group
for the Syracusan king Hiero.[559] Pausanias, in mentioning the statue
of the boxer Euthymos by Pythagoras, says that it is καὶ θέας ἐς τὰ
μάλιστα ἄξιος.[560] In mentioning the statue by the same sculptor of
the wrestler Leontiskos, he says: εἴπερ τις καὶ ἄλλος ἀγαθὸς τὰ ἐς
πλαστικήν.[561] Of the Argive sculptor Naukydes he says, when speaking
of the statue of the wrestler Cheimon, that it is among the finest
works of that artist.[562] In another passage, in which he describes
the dedication of Phormis at Olympia, he speaks of an ugly horse,
which, besides being smaller than other sculptured horses in the Altis,
has “its tail cut off, and this makes it still uglier.”[563] However,
here he is not so much interested in its lack of beauty as in the
curious fact which he adds, that despite its ugliness this bronze mare
attracted stallions.
GREEK ORIGINALS OF VICTOR STATUES.
[Illustration: PLATE 3
Bronze Head of an Olympic Victor. Glyptothek, Munich.]
We are not, however, dependent upon such meagre scraps of evidence from
classical writers, nor upon contested Roman copies,[564] for an idea
of the workmanship of some of the Olympic victor statues. We can judge
it in no uncertain way by the few originals found at Olympia and by
others which are to be found in European museums. As an example of the
former we have only to recall the life-size bronze bearded head of a
boxer or pancratiast of the third century B. C., which is now in the
National Museum at Athens[565] (Fig. 61, A and B). Its only decoration,
an olive crown whose leaves have disappeared, proves it to be from the
statue of a victor, and its wild locks, brutal look, flattened nose,
and wide mouth represent a naturalistic study of the utmost strength
and fineness, which could only have been produced after the time of
Lysippos. We shall discuss this remarkable head more fully in Chapter
IV. As examples of original victor monuments in European museums
we shall mention three. The bronze head of a boxer in the Glyptothek
at Munich (Pl. 3) is an original of the first rank.[566] It is from a
statue found near Naples in 1730, which was later destroyed, and it
probably represents the head of a boy of about twelve years, a victor
in boxing, to judge from the victor band in the hair and the fact
that the visible part of the right ear is swollen. Like the head of
the _Diadoumenos_ of Polykleitos (Figs. 28, 29) this beautiful head
exemplifies fully the “ethical grace” or modesty[567] so characteristic
of the best Greek art, and it certainly merits Furtwaengler’s praise
of being the “most precious treasure of the Glyptothek.”[568] Another
head, found in Beneventum and now in the Louvre (Fig. 3)[569] is a
splendid Greek original of the last decade of the fifth century B. C.,
and, as Mrs. Strong says, should arouse in us a sense of what precious
relics may still lie hidden in our museums.[570] The victor fillet
in the hair, consisting of two sprays of what seems to be wild olive
(remnants of which appear in front), shows that the statue must once
have ornamented the Altis. Like the one in Munich, this head shows
Polykleitan inspiration tempered by Attic influence.[571] Lastly, the
bronze head of a youth from the _tablinum_, of the so-called villa of
the Pisos at Herculaneum, now in Naples,[572] is, to judge from its
technique, an excellent original Greek work (Fig. 4). Here again the
hair fillet shows it is from a victor statue, though its provenience
from Olympia can not be established.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.—Bronze Head of an Olympic Victor, from
Beneventum. Louvre, Paris.]
Such beautiful works of art as these last show the influence which the
great athletic festivals, and especially the Olympian, exerted on the
development of Greek sculpture. In the gymnastic training carried on in
the gymnasium and palæstra, which culminated in these festivals, the
Greek sculptor found an unrivaled opportunity to study the naked human
figure in its best muscular development and in every pose. In fact, we
may say with Furtwaengler that without athletics Greek art would be
inconceivable.[573] To quote from another work of the same scholar:
“The gymnastically trained bodies of these slim boys and
youths and vigorous men are evidence of the ennobling
effect of athletics. Presented in complete nudity they
are not faithful portraits from life, but motives or
models from the palæstra transformed and exalted to the
highest ideal of physical beauty and strength. They are
the most splendid human beings that the art of any period
has created.”[574]
CANONS OF PROPORTION.
In attempting to identify a given statue as the copy of a work by this
or that master, certain well-known canons of proportion, which were
taught and practiced by various Greek sculptors and schools, must be
taken into consideration.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.—Bronze Head of an Olympic Victor, from
Herculaneum. Museum of Naples.]
Greek art may, like Greek philosophy and poetry, be summarized under
the names of three qualities which constantly occur in classical
literature—συμμετρία, εὐρυθμία or ῥυθμός, and ἀναλογία.[575] Symmetry
may be defined as “that technical regard for the placing of the parts
to the best advantage,” the symmetrical arrangement of the parts of a
statue or group of figures.[576] Rhythm, following Vitruvius,[577] is
that _tertium quid_ which is indispensable to true art. Analogy (Latin
_proportio_)[578] refers to the measured ratio of part to part in any
given work of art, whether in architecture, painting, or sculpture.
Most scholars nowadays interpret symmetry and analogy as the same
thing. Pliny[579] says that _symmetria_ has no Latin equivalent, and
in several passages[580] keeps the Greek word, as does Vitruvius. Here
Otto Jahn rightly says _proportio_ or _commensus_ would have adequately
translated it.[581] P. Gardner explains the word properly as “the
proportion of one part of the body as measured against another.”[582]
Brunn held that, as symmetry was the relation of part to part in a
statue at rest, rhythm expressed this relationship in one represented
in motion.[583] The simplest illustration of rhythm is seen in walking:
when the right foot is advanced the left arm swings out in rhythm,
and so the balance of the body is kept. Rhythm, therefore, has to do
with balance in motion, and may refer equally to cadence in poetry and
music and to movement in sculpture. An excellent example in sculpture
is afforded by Myron’s _Diskobolos_ (Pls. 21, 22, and Figs. 34, 35),
while the balancing of figures on many Greek reliefs—especially on
Attic funerary stelæ—illustrates symmetry (_cf._ Fig. 75). Pliny
characterizes certain artists by their success in effecting symmetry
and rhythm. Thus Myron surpassed Polykleitos in being more rhythmic
and in paying more attention to symmetry.[584] He says that Lysippos
most diligently preserved symmetry by bringing unthought-of innovations
into the square canon of earlier artists.[585] Parrhasios was the
first to introduce symmetry into painting.[586] Diogenes Laertios says
that the sculptor Pythagoras was the first to aim at rhythm as well
as symmetry.[587] In all such passages it is clear that canons of
proportion are meant.
The doctrine of human proportions is very ancient, originating in
Egyptian art.[588] It appears early in Greek architecture in the
proportions of columns and other members of a temple,[589] and it
was soon transferred to sculpture. As Greek sculpture evolved on
traditional lines,[590] we should assume that it paid attention to the
doctrine of proportions in the human figure, based on numerical ratios,
and that such a doctrine would vary from age to age in the various
schools of sculpture. Such an assumption is borne out by both literary
and archæological evidence. Toward the end of Hellenism many writers
refer to just such a measured basis of proportion in Greek art.[591]
Archæologists have shown by the careful study of multitudes of statues
that such proportions exist in Greek sculpture. Thus A. Kalkmann[592]
has proved that there are sets of ratios in the treatment of the face
used by successive schools of sculpture, which were canonical, whether
formulated or not. G. Fritsch[593] has done for the whole body what
Kalkman has done for the face. In fact, anthropometry in relation to
Greek sculpture has now become an exact science.[594]
The greatest artists—architects, painters, and sculptors—of all times
have taught and practised the doctrine that certain proportions are
beautiful, _e. g._, the proportion of the height of the head or the
length of the foot to the whole body, or the length of parts of
the head or body to other parts. In modern times we have only to
mention such names as those of da Vinci, Duerer, Raphael Mengs, and
Flaxman.[595] In Greek days there were many artists who formulated
such canons of proportions. Greek sculptors followed ratios of
proportions so closely that we have statues of various schools, which
are distinguished by fixed proportions of parts, such as the Old Attic,
Old Argive, Polykleitan, Argive-Sikyonian or Lysippan, etc. Some of
these schools used the foot as the common measure, while others used
the palm, finger, or other member.[596] The earliest works on Greek
art were treatises, now lost, by artists in which they worked out
their theories of the principles underlying the proportions of the
human figure.[597] We shall briefly consider a few of these canons,
together with the usual pose of body which conformed with them. The
earliest Peloponnesian canon, which we can analyze, was that followed
by Hagelaïdas of Argos and his school, a canon which was still used in
the Polykleitan circle. Here the weight of the body rested upon the
left leg, while the right one was slightly bent at the knee, its foot
resting flat on the ground; the right arm hung by the side and the left
was usually in action, and the head was slightly inclined to the left
side; the shoulders were extraordinarily broad in comparison with the
hips, the right one being slightly raised. These qualities produced a
short stocky figure, firmly placed.[598] In the middle of the fifth
century B. C., Polykleitos worked out a theory of proportions in the
form of a commentary on his famous statue known as the _Doryphoros_.
This canon was characterized by squareness and massiveness of build.
The weight of the body generally rested on the right foot, while
the left was drawn back, its foot touching the ground with the ball
only. Sometimes this pose was reversed, the left foot carrying the
body-weight, as in the three bases of statues by the master found
at Olympia (_i. e._, those of the athletes Pythokles, Aristion,
and Kyniskos, to be discussed later), and in the works of some of
his pupils, notably in those of Naukydes, Daidalos, and Kleon.[599]
Euphranor, who flourished, according to Pliny, in Ol. 104 (= 364-361 B.
C.), and wrote works on symmetry and color, was the “first” to master
the theory of symmetry.[600] Pliny, however, found his bodies too
slender and his heads and limbs too large, a criticism of his painting
which must have been equally applicable to his sculpture. His canon
did not make much headway, as the majority of sculptors in his century
were still under the domination of the canon of Polykleitos. It was
left for Lysippos, in the second half of the fourth century B. C.,
finally to break this domination of the great fifth-century sculptor.
Pliny quotes Douris as saying that he was the pupil of no man, and
that because of the advice of the painter Eupompos he was a follower
of nature—which appears to be a cut at the schools which mechanically
followed fixed rules.[601] His statues had smaller heads, and more
slender and less fleshy limbs, than those of his predecessors, in order
that the apparent height of the figure might be increased.[602] While
Polykleitos made his heads one-seventh of the total height of the
statue, Lysippos made his one-eighth—if this change may be seen in the
_Apoxyomenos_ (Pl. 28), which is certainly a work of his school, if not
of the master himself. Pliny further records his saying that while his
predecessors represented men as they were, Lysippos represented them as
they appeared to be. This means that Pliny regarded him as the first
impressionistic artist.[603] Pliny mentions other artists who wrote on
art, and it is probable that theories of proportions formed the main
element of such works.[604]
The best example of symmetry, _i. e._, of the ratio of proportions, in
Greek sculpture is afforded by the _Doryphoros_ of Polykleitos, which
Pliny says was called the _Canon_, and he adds that this sculptor was
the only one who embodied his art in a single work.[605] The identity
of the canon with this statue seems to be attested by the anecdote
told of Lysippos that the _Doryphoros_ was his master,[606] and by
Quintilian’s statement that sculptors took it as a model.[607] The
best-preserved copy of the _Doryphoros_, despite its rather lifeless
character, is the one discovered in Pompeii and now in Naples (Pl.
4).[608] As other late Roman copies do not conform to the identical
proportions of this copy, it is perhaps difficult to say exactly what
the canon of Polykleitos was. Possibly the original, if it had been
preserved, would also strike us as somewhat lifeless; but we must
remember that the statue was made merely to illustrate a theory of
proportions. The dimensions of the Naples statue are known from very
careful measurements and the proportions agree with those given in the
description by Galen to be mentioned. It is almost exactly 2 meters,
or 6 feet 8 inches, high.[609] The length of the foot is 0.33 meter,
or one-sixth of the total height, while the length of the face is 0.20
meter, or one-tenth of the height. E. Guillaume[610] has made a careful
analysis of it in reference to Galen’s[611] statement that Chrysippos
found beauty in the proportion of the parts, “of finger to finger,
and of all the fingers to the palm and wrist, and of these to the
forearm, and of the forearm to the upper arm, and of all the parts to
each other, as they are set forth in the canon of Polykleitos.” He has
found that the palm, _i. e._, the breadth of the hand at the base of
the fingers, is a common measure of the proportions of the body. This
palm is one-third the length of the foot, one-sixth that of the lower
leg, one-sixth that of the thigh, and one-sixth that of the distance
from the navel to the ear, etc. Such a remarkable correspondence in
measurements would seem to show, if we had no other proofs, that the
Naples statue reproduces the canon of Polykleitos more closely than any
other.
[Illustration: PLATE 4
Statue of the _Doryphoros_, after Polykleitos. Museum of Naples.]
A good example of asymmetry is afforded by the so-called _Spinario_
of the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome[612] (Fig. 40). This justly
prized statue shows more asymmetry, perhaps, than any other down to
its date—just before the middle of the fifth century B. C. Though its
composition is such that there is no vantage-point from which it forms
a harmonious whole, still its effect on the beholder is far from
displeasing. Such a creation shows that a Greek artist, even without
paying attention to the symmetrical arrangement of parts, could at
times produce an attractive piece of sculpture.
ASSIMILATION OF OLYMPIC VICTOR STATUES TO TYPES OF GODS AND HEROES.
Since Greek art in the main was idealistic, we should not be surprised
to discover in athletic sculpture a tendency toward assimilating
victor statues to well-known types of gods or heroes, especially to
those of Hermes, Apollo, and Herakles, who presided over contests or
gymnasia and palæstræ. This phenomenon is only a further example of the
extraordinary, almost superhuman, honors which were paid to victors at
the great games. In the absence of sufficient means of identification,
it is often very difficult to distinguish with certainty between
statues of victors and those of the gods and heroes to whom they were
assimilated. This difficulty, as we shall see, is especially observable
in the case of Herakles. Even later antiquity recognized that statues
of athletes were sometimes confused with those of heroes, just as those
of heroes were with those of gods, as we learn from a passage in Dio
Chrysostom’s oration on Rhodian affairs.[613] This difficulty is one
of the most perplexing problems that still face the student of Greek
sculpture.
It was not an uncommon custom in Greece to heroize in this way an
ordinary dead man.[614] One of the most striking instances of this
custom is afforded by the so-called _Hermes of Andros_, a statue found
in a grave-chamber on the island in 1833 and now in Athens[615] (Pl.
5). It has been a matter of dispute among archæologists whether this
statue represents the god Hermes or a mortal in his guise. Although
Staïs[616] looks on it as _un problème peut-être à jamais insoluble_,
there seems little reason for doubting that it represents a defunct
mortal. Its place of finding in a tomb along with the statue of a woman
of the Muse type, which probably represents the man’s consort,[617]
the presence of a snake on the adjacent tree trunk, the absence of
sandals and kerykeion, and the portrait—like features—all point to
the conclusion that a man and not a god is represented. The downcast,
almost melancholy, look seems also to make it a funereal figure. The
powerful proportions of a perfectly developed athlete, displaying no
tendency toward the representation of brute force, show that the man
is idealized into the type of Hermes, the god of the palæstra, rather
than into the light-winged messenger of Olympos. The _Belvedere Hermes_
of the Vatican,[618] and a better one known as the _Farnese Hermes_
of the British Museum,[619] are noteworthy replicas of the type. The
latter carries the kerykeion in the left hand and wears sandals, with
a small chlamys over the left arm and shoulder. These attributes show
that Hermes was intended in this copy. Probably the original of these
various replicas, a work dating from the end of the fourth century
B. C., and ascribed to Praxiteles or his school in consequence of
similarity in pose and build of body and head to the _Hermes_ of
Olympia, was intended to represent Hermes. In the one from Andros,
at least, the copyist intended to heroize a mortal under the type of
the god. Similarly, the statue known as the _Standing Hermes_ in the
Galleria delle Statue of the Vatican,[620] which has the kerykeion and
chlamys, whether its original represented Hermes, hero or mortal, has
been made by the copyist to represent Hermes, the god of athletics, as
the late attribute of wings in the hair proves. Other examples of dead
men represented as Hermes are not uncommon. Thus a Greek grave-stele in
Verona[621] shows the dead portrayed as a winged Hermes, and a similar
figure appears on a stele from Tanagra.[622] The so-called _Commodus_
in Mantua[623] is interpreted by Conze and Duetschke as the figure of
a dead youth in Hermes’ guise. But this custom of representing defunct
mortals as gods was less common in Roman art. The bust of a dead youth
on a Roman grave-stone in Turin,[624] set up in honor of L. Mussius,
is a good example. Here the cock, sheep, and kerykeion, symbols of the
god, show that the youth is represented as Hermes.
[Illustration: PLATE 5
Statue of _Hermes_, from Andros. National Museum, Athens.]
[Illustration: FIG. 5.—Bronze Portrait-statue of a Hellenistic Prince.
Museo delle Terme, Rome.]
Not only dead men, however, were heroized in this manner. It was not an
uncommon practice in later Greece for living men, especially princes,
to have their statues assimilated to types of gods and heroes, a
practice which was very common in imperial Rome.[625] Thus many of the
Hellenistic princes were pleased to have their statues assimilated
to those of the heroic Alexander. One of the best examples of this
process is furnished by the original bronze portrait statue of such a
prince, which was unearthed in Rome in 1884 and is now in the Museo
delle Terme there (Fig. 5).[626] It has been identified as the portrait
of several kings of Macedon and elsewhere,[627] but the similarity
of the head of the statue to heads portrayed on Macedonian coins is
only superficial.[628] All that we can say is that this beautiful
work, representing the prince in the heroic guise of a nude athlete
of about thirty years, belongs to the third century B. C., the epoch
following Lysippos. The sculptor, wishing to combine the ideal with the
real, appears to have copied the motive directly from a bronze statue
by Lysippos, which represented Alexander leaning with his left hand
high on a staff.[629] The pose also recalls that of the third-century
B. C. statue of Poseidon found on Melos and now in Athens.[630]
The free leg, body, and head modeling correspond so nearly with the
_Apoxyomenos_ (Pl. 28) that it was at first called a work of Lysippos,
but its lack of repose[631] shows that it must be a continuation of the
work of that sculptor by some pupil, who wished to outdo his master in
both form and expression.
Before discussing the subject of the assimilation of victor statues
to types of god and hero, we must make it clear that often, for
certain reasons, statues of athletes were later converted into those
of gods, and _vice versa_. Such examples of metamorphosing statues
have nothing to do with the process of assimilation under discussion.
A few examples will make this clear. An archaic bronze statuette from
Naxos,[632] reproducing the type of the _Philesian Apollo_ of Kanachos,
since it has the same position of hands as in the original, as we see
it later reproduced on coins of Miletos and in other copies,[633]
holds an aryballos in the right hand instead of a fawn. As it is
absurd to represent Apollo with the bow in one hand and an oil-flask
in the other, it seems clear that in this statuette the copyist has
converted a well-known Apollo into an athlete by addition of an
athletic attribute. Famous statues were put to many different uses by
later copyists. Thus Furtwaengler has shown that the statue of the boy
boxer Kyniskos by Polykleitos at Olympia,[634] which represented the
athlete crowning himself, was modified to represent various deities,
heroes, etc. Thus a copy from Eleusis of the fourth century B. C.,
because of its provenience and the soft lines of the face, suggests
a divinity, perhaps Triptolemos.[635] A copy of the same type in
the Villa Albani (no. 222) has an antique piece of a boar’s head on
the nearby tree-stump and, consequently, may represent Adonis or
Meleager. A torso in the Museo Torlonia (no. 22) represents Dionysos,
another in the Museo delle Terme has a mantle and caduceus and so
represents Hermes, while on coins of Commodus the same figure, with
the lion’s skin and club, represents Herakles.[636] No ancient statue
was used more extensively as a model for other types than the famous
_Doryphoros_ of Polykleitos. Furtwaengler[637] has collected a long
list of later conversions of this work into statues both marble and
bronze, statuettes, reliefs, etc., representing Pan, Ares, Hermes, and
in one case an ordinary mortal.[638] Other examples of the conversion
of statues will be given in our treatment of assimilation.
ATHLETE STATUES ASSIMILATED TO TYPES OF HERMES.
Hermes was one of the principal ἐναγώνιοι or ἀγώνιοι θεοί, _i. e._,
gods who presided over contests, or who were overseers of gymnasia
and palæstræ, or were teachers of gymnastics (γυμνάσται).[639] Greek
writers often mention these athletic gods. Thus Aischylos[640] often
uses the term, not in the sense of ἀγοραῖοι θεοί, “the great assembled
gods,” (ἀγὼν = ἀγορά),[641] but in the sense of gods who presided
over contests.[642] This is evident from the fact that Zeus, Apollo,
Poseidon, and Hermes are the gods especially mentioned by Aischylos
in this sense, and the first three correspond with the Olympian and
Nemean games (Zeus), the Pythian (Apollo), and the Isthmian (Poseidon),
while Hermes is concerned in them all. Thus the epithet ἀγώνιοι, in
the _Agamemnon_ of Aischylos refers to Zeus,[643] Apollo,[644] and
Hermes.[645] If the word referred to the twelve greater gods, as some
have thought, other deities more important than Hermes would have been
included. Elsewhere the word ἀγώνιος always refers to contests.[646]
Hermes was worshipped at Athens and elsewhere as a god of
contests.[647] The agonistic character of this god is shown by the fact
that statues and altars were erected to him all over Greece.[648] He
was sometimes coupled with Herakles as the protector of contests,[649]
and the images of the two often stood in gymnasia.[650] A fragmentary
votive relief of the second century A. D. is inscribed with a
dedication to both by a certain Horarios, victor in torch-racing.[651]
Athenian ephebes made offerings to Hermes,[652] and to Hermes and
Herakles in common, after their training was over. Thus Dorykleides
of Thera, a victor in boxing and the pankration at unknown games,
dedicated a thank-offering to the two.[653] Hermes was early the god
of youthful life and sports, especially those of the palæstra. He is
said to have founded wrestling[654] and inaugurated the sports of the
palæstra.[655] Pausanias mentions a Gymnasion of Hermes at Athens[656]
and an altar of Hermes ἐναγώνιος together with one of _Opportunity_
(Καιρός) at the entrance to the Stadion at Olympia.[657] He says that
the people of Pheneus in Arkadia held games in his honor called the
_Hermaia_,[658] and he records the defeat of the god by Apollo in
running.[659] With such an athletic record there is little wonder that
the Greek sculptor would often take his ideal of Hermes from the god
of the palæstra and gymnasium, representing him as an athletic youth
harmoniously developed by gymnastic exercises. It was but natural that
a victor at Olympia or elsewhere should wish to have his statue—which
rarely could be a portrait—conform with that athletic type.
[Illustration: PLATE 6
Statue of the _Standing Diskobolos_, after Naukydes (?). Vatican
Museum, Rome.]
An excellent instance of this tendency seems to be afforded by the
so-called _Standing Diskobolos_ in the Sala della Biga of the Vatican
(Pl. 6),[660] known since its discovery by Gavin Hamilton in 1792.
It represents a youth who is apparently taking position for throwing
the diskos, the weight of the body resting on the left leg, the knees
slightly bent, the feet firmly planted, and the diskos held in the left
hand, just prior to its being passed to the right. This position is one
which immediately precedes that of Myron’s great statue. The bronze
original dates from the second half of the fifth century B. C., and
has been variously assigned to Myron by Brunn, to Alkamenes by Kekulé,
followed by Overbeck, Michaelis and Furtwaengler,[661] and to Naukydes,
the brother and pupil of Polykleitos.[662] The head of the Vatican
statue shows no trace of Peloponnesian art, but rather resembles Attic
types of the end of the fifth century B. C. However, as we shall
see, this head does not appear to belong to the statue. Among the works
of Alkamenes Pliny mentions a bronze pentathlete,[663] called the
_Enkrinomenos_, and this work has been identified with the statue under
discussion.[664] Such an assumption is tenable only if the statue fits
Pliny’s epithet. This epithet appears to mean “undergoing a test,” and
should refer not to the statue, for we know nothing of any principle
of selecting statues, but to the athlete represented, the ἔγκρισις
referring to the selection of athletes before the contest.[665] Pliny’s
statue, then, presumably, represented a pentathlete, not in action
as the Vatican statue does, but standing at rest before his judges.
An all-round athlete like a pentathlete would especially fit such an
ordeal, and his statue, albeit lighter and more graceful, would be
an ideal one like the _Doryphoros_ of Polykleitos.[666] We know how
Alkamenes treated Hermes from the bearded herma of that god found
in Pergamon in 1903 and inscribed with his name.[667] Its massive
features, broad forehead, and wide-opened eyes bear no analogy to the
head on the Vatican statue, nor to the one with which Helbig would
replace it. The ascription of the statue to Naukydes is better founded.
As the head of the statue is Attic and not Argive, it is difficult to
connect the work with a Peloponnesian artist. However, the present head
of the statue can not be shown to belong to it, and no other replica
has a head which can be proved to belong to the body. A fragmentary
replica of the statue, of good workmanship, was found in Rome in 1910,
and nearby a head, which must belong to the torso.[668] This head
fits the Vatican statue better than the head now on it, and certainly
comes from the Polykleitan circle—both head and body showing elements
of Polykleitan style. This new head represents the transition from
Polykleitan art to that of the next century, _i. e._, to the head-types
of Skopas, Praxiteles, and other Attic masters. Presumably, then,
in the original of this fragment and its replicas, we have a famous
statue—the one by Naukydes mentioned by Pliny.[669]
A more important question for our discussion is whether the Vatican
statue represents a victor (diskobolos) or Hermes. G. Habich has argued
that the pose of the statue, standing with the right foot advanced,
is not that of a diskobolos taking position. He quotes Kietz[670]
to the effect that no vase-painting or other monument has the exact
position of this statue, and that the natural position for such a
motive is to advance the left foot.[671] Moreover, the fingers of the
right hand, which are supposed especially to uphold the diskobolos
theory, are modern in all the replicas. On a coin of Amastris in
Paphlagonia, dating from the Antonines, and on one of Commodus struck
at Philippopolis in Thrace, a figure of Hermes is pictured, which, in
all essentials, reproduces the Vatican statue.[672] Since the figure
on the coins has a kerykeion or training-rod in the right hand and
a diskos as a minor attribute in the left—merely a symbol of the
god’s patronage of athletics—we should see in the Vatican statue a
representation of Hermes as overseer of the palæstra. Pliny’s words—if
we omit or transpose the first _et_—refer, therefore, to a statue
of _Hermes-Diskobolos_ and to the _Ram-offerer_ which stood on the
Athenian Akropolis, to two, therefore, and not to three different
monuments. We should restore all the replicas of the statue, then,
with the caduceus, to represent Hermes as gymnasiarch. Though this
interpretation of the statue has found opponents,[673] the evidence is
strong that in it and its replicas we have an athlete in the guise of
Hermes. If we think that the caduceus can not be brought into harmony
with the chief motive of the statue, we must conclude with Helbig that
the copyist in one isolated case—the one copied on the coins—changed
an original victor statue into Hermes by adding the herald staff.
This would make it an instance, not of assimilation of type, but of
conversion.
A small bronze statuette standing upon a cylindrical base, which was
found in the sea off Antikythera (Cerigotto), reproduces almost
exactly the attitude of the statue of Naukydes (Fig. 6).[674] Here the
left hand is stretched out horizontally at the elbow, but the right
arm is lost, so that we get no additional evidence as to the attribute
carried. Because of its correspondence with the aforementioned
coins[675] even in detail, Bosanquet, followed by Svoronos, looks upon
this “little masterpiece” as a copy of the Argive master.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.—Bronze Statuette of _Hermes-Diskobolos_, found
in the Sea off Antikythera. National Museum, Athens.]
The statue discovered in the ruins of Hadrian’s villa in 1742 and now
in the Capitoline Museum,[676] which represents an ephebe nude, except
for a chlamys thrown around the middle of his body, standing in an easy
attitude with his left foot resting upon a rock and bending forward
with the right arm extended in a gesture, was formerly looked upon as
a resting pancratiast. Because of its general likeness to Praxitelean
figures—the head is especially like the Olympia _Hermes_—Furtwaengler
interpreted the figure as that of Hermes Logios or Agoraios, the god of
eloquence, and assigned it to an artist near to Praxiteles. However,
it is probably nothing else than an idealized portrait of the age of
Hadrian or the Antonines, and represents an ephebe, probably a victor,
assimilated to the type of Hermes.[677]
[Illustration: FIG. 7.—Bronze Statue of a Youth, found in the Sea off
Antikythera. National Museum, Athens.]
Another example of assimilation may be the much-discussed bronze statue
in the National Museum at Athens, which was accidentally discovered
in 1901, along with the rest of a cargo of sculptures which had been
wrecked off the island of Antikythera as it was on its way to Rome
about the beginning of the first century B. C. (Fig. 7).[678] This
statue, the best preserved of the cargo, is a little over lifesize
and represents a nude youth standing with languid grace, the weight
of his body resting upon the left leg, while the right is slightly
bent and the right arm is extended horizontally, the hand holding
a round object now lost and variously interpreted. In short, the
pose strongly resembles that of the Vatican _Apoxyomenos_ (Pl. 29).
Opinions as to the age and authorship of this statue have been very
diverse, ranging from the fifth century B. C. down to Hellenistic
times and ascribing it to many masters and schools. Kabbadias, who
published it, in conjunction with the other objects, directly after
their discovery,[679] thought it would prove to “rank as high among
statues of bronze as does the _Hermes_ of Praxiteles among those of
marble,” and characterized it as “the most beautiful bronze statue
that we possess.” Waldstein praised it in no less exaggerated terms,
and classed it along with the _Charioteer_ from Delphi (Fig. 66) as
among the first Greek bronzes, if not among the finest specimens of
Greek sculpture.[680] He followed Kabbadias in assigning it to the
fourth century B. C. and in interpreting it as Hermes. He at first
ascribed it to Praxiteles or his school, but later he thought it more
Skopaic.[681] Th. Reinach placed it in the early fourth century B. C.,
but regarded it as the work of a sculptor influenced by Polykleitos,
naming the youthful Praxiteles or Euphranor.[682] He explained the
pose as that of a man amusing a dog or a child with some round object.
A Greek scholar, A. S. Arvanitopoulos, assigned the work to the fifth
century B. C. and to the Attic school, referring it possibly to
Alkamenes.[683] However, as soon as the statue was properly cleansed
and pieced together, its early dating was seen to be untenable, and its
Hellenistic character became evident.[684] E. A. Gardner found little
resemblance in the head to that of the Praxitelean _Hermes_, but more
in the treatment of hair and eyes to that of the _Lansdowne Herakles_
(Pl. 30, Fig. 71,), which he ascribes to Skopas.[685] He saw in its
labored and even anatomical modeling similarity to the _Apoxyomenos_
of the Vatican and concluded that it was, therefore, later than the
fourth century B. C., being an eclectic piece disclosing influences of
several fourth-century sculptors, the work of an imitator especially
of Praxiteles and Skopas. K. T. Frost also assigned the work to the
Hellenistic age, but believed it was the statue of a god and not of
a mortal, and so followed Kabbadias and Waldstein in interpreting it
as a Hermes Logios.[686] Gardner had interpreted it as probably the
statue of an athlete “in a somewhat theatrical pose,” though admitting
it might be a _genre_ figure representing an athlete catching a ball,
even if its pose were against such an interpretation. In any case he
was right in saying that the pose, even if incapable of solution, was
chosen by the sculptor with a desire for display, as the centre of
attraction is outside and not inside the statue, and so is against the
αὐτάρκεια of earlier works. More recently, Bulle has asserted that it
is not an original work at all, but, as evinced by the hard treatment
of the hair, merely a copy. He also interprets it as a _Hermes_,
restoring a kerykeion in the left hand, and he likens its oratorical
pose to that of the _Etruscan Orator_ found near Lago di Trasimeno in
1566 and now in the Museo Archeologico in Florence, or the _Augustus_
from Primaporta in the Vatican.[687] For its date he believes the
statue marks the end of the Polykleitan “_Standmotif_” (the breadth
of the body showing Polykleitan influence, the head, however, being
too small and slender for the Argive master), and the inception of the
Lysippan (the free leg not drawn back, but placed further out), as we
see it in the _Apoxyomenos_. He concludes that its author can not have
been a great master.[688] Doubtless, the statue, which is the pride of
the Athenian museum, is merely a representative example of the kind of
bronze statues made in great numbers in the early Hellenistic age; but
it shows the high degree of excellence attained at that time by very
mediocre artists.[689]
Apart from its period, our chief interest in the statue is to determine
whether a god or a mortal is portrayed. As there are no certain
remnants of the round object held in the right hand, and no other
accessories, many interpretations have been possible. Especially the
gesture of the right arm has been the centre for such interpretations.
Some have looked upon this gesture as “transitory,” _i. e._, the
sweeping gesture of an orator or god of orators, and this has led to
the interpretation of the statue as Hermes Logios.[690] However, the
round object in the fingers is against this assumption. Others have
therefore regarded the gesture as “stationary,” _i. e._, the figure
is holding an object in the hand, which is the main interest of the
statue, and this view has therefore also given rise to many different
explanations. Among mythological interpretations two have received
careful attention. Svoronos has reasoned most ingeniously that the
statue represents Perseus holding the head of Medusa in his hand,
and finds a similar type on coins, gems, and rings. Thus, almost
the identical pose of the statue is seen on an engraved stone in
Florence, which shows Perseus holding the Gorgon’s head, and Svoronos
has restored the bronze similarly.[691] But certainly the right arm
of the statue was not intended to carry so great a weight. Others
have seen in it the statue of Paris by Euphranor, mentioned by Pliny
as offering the apple as prize of beauty to Aphrodite.[692] But the
statue scarcely reflects the description of the _Paris_ by Pliny.
Other scholars have interpreted the statue as that of a mortal. S.
Reinach believes that it may be a youth sacrificing.[693] Kabbadias
and E. A. Gardner admitted it might be the statue of a ball-player
as well as of Hermes. Since this latter interpretation has become
popular, let us consider its possibility at some length in reference to
ball-playing in antiquity. Now we know that ball-playing (σφαιρίζειν,
ἡ σφαιρικὴ τέχνη) was a favorite amusement of the Greeks from the
time of Nausikaa and her brothers in the Odyssey[694] to the end of
Greek history, and that it was practiced at Rome from the end of the
Republic to the end of the Empire.[695] It seems to have been regarded
less as a game than as a gymnastic exercise. Its origin is ascribed
to the Spartans and to others.[696] A special sort of ball-playing was
known as φαινίνδα,[697] and this is described in a treatise by the
physician Galen, of the second century A. D., in which he recommended
ball-playing as one of the best exercises.[698] Because of his ability
in the art of ball-playing, Aristonikos of Karystos, the ball-player
of Alexander the Great, received Athenian citizenship and was honored
with a statue.[699] The philosopher Ktesibios of Chalkis was fond of
the game.[700] A special room, called the σφαιριστήριον, was a part of
the later gymnasium.[701] The game was specially indulged in at Sparta.
Several inscriptions, mostly from the age of the Antonines, commemorate
victories by teams of ball-players there.[702] The name σφαιρεῖς
was given to Spartan youths in the first year of manhood. These
competitions took place in the Δρόμος at Sparta.[703] Though, then,
we should naturally expect statues of ball-players, like the one in
Athens of Aristonikos already mentioned, the calm mien of the Cerigotto
bronze and the direction of the gaze are certainly, as Th. Reinach said
earlier, against interpreting it as the statue of one engaged in so
active a sport. Von Mach, because of its voluptuous appearance, thought
it might represent merely a _bon vivant_. While Lechat interpreted it
as possibly an athlete receiving a crown from Nike,[704] Arvanitopoulos
would have the right hand either hold a lekythion or be quite empty,
and the left a strigil, thus restoring the statue as an apoxyomenos. S.
Reinach would regard it merely as a funerary monument.
In all this discrepancy of opinion it is not difficult to recognize
elements of both god and mortal blended. The resemblance in the
expression and features of the face to those of the Praxitelean
_Hermes_, even though superficial, as well as the pose of the right arm
recall the god; the muscular build of the figure fits either the god
Hermes, in his character of overseer of the sports of the palæstra, or
an athlete. It therefore seems reasonable to see in this Hellenistic
statue of varied artistic tendencies merely the representation of an
athlete, perhaps of a pentathlete, who is holding a crown or possibly
an apple as a prize of victory in the right hand, whose form and
features have been assimilated to those of Hermes.
How the statue of an indisputable Hermes Logios, on the other hand,
appears, may be seen in the _Hermes Ludovisi_ of the Museo delle
Terme, Rome,[705] and in its replica in the Louvre. The original of
this marble copy, dating from the middle of the fifth century B. C.,
has been variously ascribed to Pheidias,[706] Myron,[707] and others.
In this statue the petasos, chlamys, and kerykeion indicate the god,
while the position of the right arm raised toward the head[708] and
the earnest expression of concentration in the face bespeak the god of
oratory. The careful replica of the statue, except the head, in the
Louvre, is the work of Kleomenes of Athens, a sculptor of the first
century B. C. The copyist, however, has given to the original a Roman
portrait-head, whence it has been falsely called _Germanicus_.[709] The
Paris statue, then, is merely another example of the conversion of an
original god-type, for the sculptor wished to represent a Roman under
the guise of Hermes Logios, since the inscribed tortoise shell retained
at the feet is a well-known attribute of the god.
Another excellent example of a true Hermes head is the fine
Polykleitan one in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, which is a
copy of a well-known type represented by the _Boboli Hermes_ in
Florence and other replicas.[710] Though S. Reinach classed this
head as Kresilæan,[711] its true Polykleitan character has been
established,[712] even if it does not merit the praise formerly given
it by Robinson, of being “easily the best extant copy of a work by
Polykleitos.”[713]
[Illustration: FIG. 8.—Statue of the so-called _Jason_
(_Sandal-binder_). Louvre, Paris.]
The so-called _Jason_ of the Louvre and its many replicas[714] (Fig.
8) probably represent athletes in the guise of Hermes. These statues
are copies of an original of the end of the fourth century B. C., when
the favorite motive originated—probably with Lysippos—of representing
a figure, as in this case, with one foot on a rock, bending over and
tying a sandal. Since the replicas in Munich and Paris extend both
arms to the right foot, while those in London and Athens extend the
left arm over the breast, with the hand resting on the right knee,
Klein has argued two different versions of a common type. He compares
the former with figures on the west frieze of the Parthenon, the
latter with the well-known relief of Nike tying her sandal, from the
Nike balustrade now in the Akropolis Museum. The one type he assigns
to Lysippos, the other (with both arms down) to an earlier artist.
However, the proportions of both groups agree with the Lysippan canon
and so we should assume only one artist. The discussion whether the
figure is tying or untying the sandal is as barren as the similar
one raised about the Athena from the Nike balustrade;[715] but the
question as to who is represented by the type is worthy of careful
consideration. The statue in the Louvre at first was believed to
represent Cincinnatus called from the plough, but Winckelmann, without
evidence, gave it its present name of _Jason_. In recent years it has
been interpreted as Hermes tying on his sandals, his head raised to
hearken to the behest of Zeus before going forth from Olympos on his
duties as messenger. This interpretation was based on the description
of a statue of the god by Christodoros,[716] and the fact that the type
conforms with a representation of Hermes on a coin of Markianopolis
in Mœsia.[717] Arndt has argued from the coin and from the motive
of the statue that Hermes and not an athlete is intended; thus the
inclination of the head, he thinks, is not that of an athlete looking
out over the theatre, since the regard is not far off, but merely
upward; the presence of the chlamys and the sandals also fits the god.
He therefore refers the copies to a Hermes-type originated by Lysippos.
But Froehner’s idea that they represent athletes, even if the type were
invented for Hermes, is in line with our idea of the assimilation of
athlete types to that of Hermes. In this connection it may be added
that the head of an athlete in Turin,[718] dating from the late third
or early second century B. C., is very similar to that of the Louvre
figure, and especially to the Fagan head in London. The pose of an
athlete binding on a sandal was doubtless chosen by the sculptor merely
to show the play of the muscles.
Heads of Hermes are often found with victor fillets,[719] and some
of these doubtless are from statues of victors. The beautiful
fourth-century B. C. Parian marble head of a beardless youth in the
British Museum, known as the Aberdeen head,[720] which resembles so
strongly the Praxitelean _Hermes_, although lacking its delicacy,
may be from a victor statue assimilated to the god, for holes show
that it once wore a metal wreath. In Roman days the _Doryphoros_ of
Polykleitos, as we have seen, was adapted to represent Hermes, and
was set up in various palæstræ and gymnasia. The Naples copy of the
_Doryphoros_ stood in the Palaistra of Pompeii,[721] and statues of
ephebes carrying lances (hastae, δόρατα) and called _Achilleae_ by
Pliny,[722] which must have been largely copies of Polykleitos’ great
statue, were set up in gymnasia. A later type of Hermes-head often
appeared on bodies of the _Doryphoros_,[723] while other statues,
showing the body of the _Doryphoros_ draped with the chlamys,[724] and
many torsos following the attitude and form of this statue, have the
chlamys, which shows that they were intended for the god.[725] Hermes
in the _Doryphoros_ pose, in a bronze of the British Museum,[726] is
probably intended for an athlete. Furtwaengler has shown[727] that the
old Argive schema of the boxer Aristion at Olympia by Polykleitos[728]
was used in the master’s circle for statues of Hermes. The best
preserved example of a number of existing statues of this type is one
in Lansdowne House, London,[729] in the pose of the Aristion, holding
an object—probably a kerykeion—in the hand and a chlamys over the left
shoulder.
ATHLETE STATUES ASSIMILATED TO TYPES OF APOLLO.
Apollo figures in mythology as an athlete. In the Iliad, at the opening
of the boxing match between Epeios and Euryalos,[730] he is mentioned
as the god of boxing, which refers, perhaps, to his presiding over the
education of youths (κουροτρόφος) and to his gift of manly prowess.
Pausanias records that he overcame Hermes in running and Ares in
boxing.[731] He gives these victories of the god as the reason why the
flute played a Pythian air at the later pentathlon. Plutarch says that
the Delphians sacrificed to Apollo the boxer (πύκτης), and the Cretans
and Spartans to Apollo the runner (δρομαῖος).[732] Apollo’s fight with
Herakles to wrest from the hero the stolen tripod of Delphi,[733]
which is the subject of many surviving works of art,[734] is outside
the realm of athletics. As with Hermes, it is often difficult to
distinguish between statues of Apollo and those of victors assimilated
to his type. A good instance of this doubt is afforded by the long and
indecisive discussion of the monument represented by several replicas,
especially by the _Choiseul-Gouffier_ statue in the British Museum
(Pl. 7A), and the so-called _Apollo-on-the-Omphalos_ (Pl. 7B) found
in 1862 in the ruins of the theatre of Dionysos at Athens, and now in
the National Museum there.[735] The bronze original of these marble
copies must have been famous, to judge from the number of replicas
of it. It has been ascribed to many different artists—to Kalamis,
Pythagoras, Alkamenes, Pasiteles,[736] to one on more, to another
on less probability. As A. H. Smith has pointed out, the _krobylos_
treatment of the hair almost certainly indicates an Attic sculptor
of the first half of the fifth century B. C. But here again the
main interest in these copies is to determine whether the original
represented Apollo or an athlete. The connection between the Athens
replica and the _omphalos_ found with it is all but disproved[737]
and can not be used as evidence that the statue represents the god.
However, the original has been called an Apollo because of the
presence of a quiver on certain of the copies. Thus, while we have a
tree-trunk beside the _Choiseul-Gouffier_ example, we have a quiver
on the copy in the Palazzo Torlonia in Rome,[738] and on a similar
statue in the Fridericianum in Kassel,[739] and both tree and quiver
on the fragment of a leg from the Palatine now in the Museo delle
Terme.[740] The Ventnor head in the British Museum[741] has long locks
suited to Apollo, and the head from Kyrene there[742] was actually
found in a temple of Apollo. It has also been pointed out that the
head of a similar figure, undoubtedly an Apollo, appears on a relief
in the Capitoline Museum,[743] and a similar figure is found on a
red-figured krater in Bologna, which shows the god standing on a
pillar with a laurel wreath in the lowered left hand and a bowl in the
right.[744] On coins of Athens, moreover, we see the figure of Apollo
in a similar attitude with a laurel wreath in the lowered right hand
and a bow in the left.[745] From such evidence a good case for an
Apollo has been made out by many scholars—A. H. Smith, Winter,[746]
Helbig,[747] Conze,[748] Furtwaengler,[749] Schreiber,[750] Dickins,
and others. The evidence of the quiver in the delle Terme fragment
and the Torlonia replica is looked upon as a deliberate device of the
copyist to indicate the god. The attempt especially to connect it with
the _Apollo Alexikakos_ of Kalamis[751] must certainly fall, since the
date is about the only thing in its favor. In the long list of statues
ascribed to this sculptor,[752] there is none of an athlete, and the
_Choiseul-Gouffier_ type, whether it represents Apollo or an athlete,
has a markedly athletic character. If the Delphi _Charioteer_ (Fig. 66)
be ascribed to Kalamis, certainly this type of statue can have nothing
to do with him or his school. Nor is the type at all identical with the
_Alexikakos_ appearing on coins of Athens,[753] in which the locks of
hair, in the true archaic fashion of a cultus statue, fall down over
the god’s shoulders. Besides, the work of Kalamis, characterized by
λεπτότης and χάρις,[754] must have been of the delicate later archaic
style of the transition period.
[Illustration: PLATE 7A
Statue of the so-called _Apollo Choiseul-Gouffier_. British Museum,
London.]
[Illustration: PLATE 7B
Statue of the so-called _Apollo-on-the-Omphalos_. National Museum,
Athens.]
Waldstein, however, has made a good case against the evidence adduced
for interpreting the original as Apollo and he believes that the
statue represents an athlete.[755] The thongs thrown over the stump
in the _Choiseul-Gouffier_ statue, doubtless those of a boxer, seem
to point to an athlete for that copy at least. The muscular form and
athletic coiffure of all the copies also point to the same conclusion,
even if Waldstein’s ascription of the original statue to the boxer
Euthymos, whose statue by Pythagoras of Rhegion stood in the Altis at
Olympia,[756] is only a guess. Wolters thinks the _Choiseul-Gouffier_
statue may represent an athlete, but is against Waldstein’s
ascription of the work to Pythagoras.[757]
Though differing in detail, the rendering of the hair, common to
all the replicas, is a purely athletic coiffure. The argument for
attributing the original to Apollo, based on the curls around the
face, is of no importance, since a similar coiffure appears on many
ephebe heads by various Attic masters of the same or a slightly
earlier period. The hair treatment on a little-known replica of the
head in the British Museum[758] gives us an additional argument in
determining whether the original was an Apollo or not. On this head
there are two corkscrew curls side by side just back of the ears,
which are so inorganically attached and so unsuited to the style
of head as to make us believe that they were added by the copyist,
even if their absence in other copies were not proof enough of this
fact. Apparently the copyist adopted a well-known type of athlete and
tried to convert it into an Apollo by the use of this Apolline hair
attribute. The only other Apolline attribute, the quiver on the copies
in the Palazzo Torlonia[759] and Museo delle Terme, may have been
added as a fortuitous adjunct by the copyists, who were converting an
original athlete statue into one of Apollo. It may be added, also,
that the quiver does not always indicate the god, as we shall see
in discussing the Delian _Diadoumenos_ (Pl. 18). When we consider,
therefore, the athletic pose, the massive outline and proportions, the
high-arched chest, the muscular arms and thighs, the accentuation of
the veins,[760] the fashion of the hair, and the relatively small size
of the head, together with the presence of the boxing-thongs on the
London example, it seems reasonable to conclude that in this series of
copies we may see an original athlete statue, which in certain cases
was later transformed into statues of Apollo. Even if the original
was actually an Apollo, its proportions were far better suited to the
patron of athletic exercises than to the leader of a celestial choir.
An instance of the similar use of the same type of head is shown by
the colossal statue of Apollo unearthed at Olympia.[761] Here we see
the same coiffure as in the heads discussed, but the presence of the
remnants of a lyre indubitably shows that this copy was intended for
Apollo, and so it has been rightly assigned by Treu, not to the fifth,
but to a later century. When long hair was no longer the fashion for
athletes, a later artist might mistakenly think that the earlier plaits
were genuinely Apolline, though we know that they were common to all
early athletic art. Another head in the British Museum has been ably
discussed by Mrs. Strong,[762] who shows that it comes from an Apollo
and not from an athlete statue. It is similar to an Apollo pictured on
a stater struck at Mytilene about 400 B. C.,[763] and consequently,
like the statue from Olympia, it is merely an instance of the process
of converting an athlete statue into that of an Apollo.
The marble copy of the _Diadoumenos_ of Polykleitos, found on the
island of Delos in 1894, and now in the National Museum in Athens[764]
(Pl. 18), has a chlamys and a quiver introduced on the marble support
against the right leg. Until recently these attributes were regarded
as the arbitrary introductions of the Hellenistic copyist, who wished
to convert the famous athlete statue into one of Apollo, but lately it
has been suggested that they belonged to the original statue, which
is assumed to have represented Apollo. Thus, Hauser has propounded
the theory that the _Diadoumenos_ was originally an Apollo.[765] He
does not believe that the Delian sculptor could have transformed a
short-haired athlete into an Apollo, since the typical Apollo after
the time of Praxiteles was never represented as athletic. He later
supported his theory that the _Diadoumenos_ was originally an Apollo by
the evidence of a bronze statuette and a Delphian coin, and reasserted
his view that so virile a short-haired Apollo did not originate with
the later copyist, but in the fifth century B. C.[766] Hauser’s
argument that Apollo was the original of the _Diadoumenos_ seems as
unsuccessful as his contention that Polykleitos’ other great creation,
the _Doryphoros_, is to be classed as an _Achilles_.[767] Loewy has
sufficiently opposed Hauser’s theory of the _Diadoumenos_, by showing
that the palm-tree prop in all the marble replicas of that statue
points to athletic victories.[768] He rightly explains the Apolline
attributes of the Delian copy as the perfectly natural additions of an
artist who lived on the island reputed to be the birthplace of the god.
His ascription of the Polykleitan statue to the pentathlete Pythokles,
the base of whose statue at Olympia has been found,[769] is doubtful.
More recently Ada Maviglia has shown the literary grounds for regarding
the _Diadoumenos_ as an athlete, and not an Apollo.[770]
The difficulty of distinguishing between statues of athletes and Apollo
is also shown by the very beautiful fifth century B. C. Parian marble
head in Turin,[771] which is certainly a copy of an original Greek
bronze. Furtwaengler, because of the hair, wrongly believed it the head
of a diadoumenos, and connected it with Kresilas,[772] while Amelung
and Wace[773] have found in it Attic and Polykleitan influences. The
hair is parted over the centre of the forehead, as in the _Diadoumenos_
and the _Doryphoros_, and in other works attributed to the Polykleitan
school, while the locks over the ears and the plaits wound round the
head have Attic analogues.[774]
ATHLETE STATUES ASSIMILATED TO TYPES OF HERAKLES.
Herakles was the reputed founder of the games at Olympia.[775] He
was a famous wrestler, Pausanias frequently mentioning his combats
with giants.[776] He won in both wrestling and the pankration at
Olympia.[777] In connection with the victory of Straton of Alexandria,
who won in these two events on the same day,[778] Pausanias names
three men before him and three men after him who won in these events
on the same day.[779] We learn their dates from Africanus.[780] After
the date of the last of these victories, Ol. 204 (= 37 A. D.), the
Elean umpires, in order to check professionalism, refused to allow
contestants to enter for both events.[781] To win the crown of wild
olive in both these events was therefore regarded as a great honor,
and in the Olympic lists a special note was made of such victors, who
were called πρῶτος, δεύτερος, τρίτος, κ. τ. λ., ἀφ’ Ἡρακλέους.[782]
They also received the title of παράδοξος or παραδοξονίκης.[783]
Statues of Herakles, like those of Hermes and Theseus, were commonly
set up in gymnasia and palæstræ throughout Greece,[784] and it was
but natural that Olympic victors, especially those in the two events
mentioned, should want their statues assimilated to those of the hero.
The difficulty of deciding whether a given statue is one of Herakles
or of a victor is even greater than that of distinguishing between
statues of victors and those of Hermes or Apollo. To quote Homolle:
“_Maintes fois, comme pour la tête d’Olympie, comme pour plusieurs
autres encore, on peut se demander si le personnage représenté est le
héros luimême sous les traits d’un athlête ou un athlête fait à l’image
du héros_.”[785] In reference to the statue of Agias by Lysippos
discovered at Delphi, which is an excellent example of the assimilation
process which we are discussing, he continues: “_Ici en particulier,
étant donnée la nature du monument, il est permis de supposer que
l’auteur ... ait voulu élever le personnage à la hauteur idéale du type
divin en qu’ Agias ait été assimilé à Héraclès_.”[786]
We shall discuss a few examples of this process of assimilation to
types of Herakles. Our ascription of the head from Olympia mentioned
by Homolle, which was found in the ruins of the Gymnasion, to the
statue of the Akarnanian pancratiast Philandridas by Lysippos[787]
(Frontispiece and Fig. 69) will be discussed in a later chapter.[788]
The swollen ears and hair-fillet might pass for hero or mortal, for
in deciding whether a given head represents Herakles or a victor,
the ears are not the deciding criterion, since many heroes had the
“pancratiast” swollen ear, as we shall see later. A good example of
assimilation is seen in the beautiful little marble head of a man,
found in Athens and now in the Glyptothek Ny-Carlsberg in Copenhagen,
dating from the early Hellenistic age.[789] As traces of color remain
in the hair, some have thought that this head came from the reliefs
on the “Alexander” sarcophagus from Sidon, belonging to the body of
a headless youth represented there. Though the marble (Pentelic)
and the dimensions would fit, it would be the only head on the
sarcophagus with a band in the hair, and so the question can not be
definitely decided.[790] The head was at first called a Herakles,
though Furtwaengler rightly saw in it an ideal representation of an
athlete, even if the ears are not swollen. A bronze head of a youth
from Herculaneum, now in Naples, is evidently a part of the statue
of a victor or of Herakles.[791] A Polykleitan ephebe head-type,
with rolled fillet around the hair and swollen ears, represented by
replicas in Naples, in Rome, and elsewhere, may represent a boxer in
the guise of the hero.[792] In the Roman copy of the group of Herakles
and Telephos in the Museo Chiaramonti of the Vatican, Herakles, still
the god, wears a fillet.[793] Similarly, a colossal head of mediocre
workmanship in the Sala dei Busti of the Vatican represents the hero
with a fillet,[794] while another head in the Capitoline Museum, with
fillet and swollen ears, seems to represent Herakles as a victorious
athlete.[795] Many other heads in various museums, which are commonly
called heads of Herakles, may represent athletes in the heroic guise. A
good example is the Parian marble terminal bust of the fourth century
B. C., representing a young Herakles wreathed with poplar, now in the
British Museum (Fig. 31).[796] In this head the ears are bruised.
It seems to have been copied from some well-known statue of Lysippan
or Skopaic tendencies. Another head in the British Museum shows the
beardless hero, his hair encircled by a diadem, and his ears broken
and crushed.[797] This almost certainly comes from a victor statue.
Many bronze statuettes in the British Museum may be interpreted either
as Herakles or as victors.[798] A bronze from Corfu represents a nude
Herakles or an athlete, with the left foot advanced and the left hand
extended. The objects held in both hands are lost, but the challenging
pose and expression indicate a boxer.[799] Similarly a small bronze
in Berlin, represented with a fillet and in the walking pose, may be
a Herakles or a victor.[800] Duetschke gives two examples of heads
in the Uffizi, both of them having fillets, and one of them having
swollen ears, which may come from statues of the hero or victors.[801]
Heads of the hero with the rolled fillet can not, however, according
to Furtwaengler, be classed as victors, since he believes that this
attribute was borrowed from the symposium, to distinguish the glorified
hero rejoicing in the celestial banquet.[802]
ATHLETES REPRESENTED AS THE DIOSKOUROI.
Kastor is said to have won the foot-race and Polydeukes the boxing
match, at Olympia.[803] They had an altar at the entrance to the
Hippodrome there,[804] and were called “Starters of the Race”
at Sparta.[805] A stadion, in which they were fabled to have
contended, was shown in Hermione, in Corinthia.[806] Kastor was a
famous horse-racer in Homer and later writers,[807] and Polydeukes
a famous boxer,[808] both being κατ’ ἐξοχήν the rider and boxer
respectively.[809] Scenes showing Athena setting garlands on
victorious hoplite racers (?) appear on reliefs of the Dioskouroi
from Tarentum.[810] An archaic Argive inscription tells how a certain
Aischylos won the stade-race four times and the hoplite-race three
times at Argos, for which he dedicated a slab to the Dioskouroi, which
depicted them in relief.[811] An inscribed bronze quoit of the sixth
century B. C. from Kephallenia(?), now in the British Museum, was
dedicated to the two heroes by Exoïdas for a victory (apparently in
the pentathlon).[812] A bronze four-spoked wheel with a dedicatory
inscription in their honor was found at Argos, probably the remnant
of a monument erected for a chariot victory.[813] Doubtless certain
victor statues were assimilated to them, though we have no direct
evidence of the fact. Ordinary dead men appeared in the guise of the
Dioskouroi on sepulchral reliefs, just as we have seen that in statuary
they were heroized into statues of Hermes. Thus a grave-relief in honor
of Pamphilos and Alexandros in Verona shows on the projecting lower
rim the two Dioskouroi, the figure to the right carrying a lance in
the right hand and holding the bridle of a horse in the left, while
the figure to the left holds a lance in the left hand and touches a
horse’s head with the right.[814] A votive relief in the British Museum
represents two youths on horseback, who, despite the absence of the
conical cap or pilleus, are probably the Dioskouroi.[815] Their short
hair is bound with diadems, which shows that the dead men may have been
victors.
Sufficient examples of the process of assimilation have now been given
to prove that it was not an uncommon device of the ancient sculptor
and to show the difficulty of distinguishing between types of gods and
athletes.
CHAPTER III.
VICTOR STATUES REPRESENTED AT REST.
PLATES 8-21 AND FIGURES 9-31.
We have seen[816] that it was a very old custom in Greece to dedicate
statues of victors at the great national games to the god in whose
honor the games were held. On many sites, especially at Olympia, tiny
statuettes of clay or bronze of very primitive technique have been
found in great numbers, which represent victors in many attitudes and
ways—as horsemen, warriors, charioteers, etc. By the sixth century B.
C. this ancient custom, as we learn from literary, epigraphical, and
monumental sources, had developed, with the rapid progress attained by
the sculptor’s art, into the regular practice of erecting life-size
statues of athletes at the site of the games or in the native city
of the victor. Especially at Olympia hundreds of such monuments were
gradually collected, whose numbers and beauty must have exerted an
overwhelming impression on the visitor to the Altis. We shall now begin
the consideration of these monuments in detail.
The victor statues at Olympia, as elsewhere, may be conveniently
divided into two main groups—those which represent the victor as
standing or seated at rest, before or after the contest, and those
which represent him in movement, _i. e._, in some contest schema.[817]
Examples of statues of athletes represented at rest are common in Greek
athletic sculpture. We need only mention the so-called _Oil-pourer_
of Munich (Pl. 11), who is represented as pouring oil over his body
to make his limbs more supple for the coming wrestling bout; the
_Diadoumenos_ of Polykleitos (Pls. 17, 18, and Fig. 28), who is binding
a victor fillet around his head after a successful encounter; the
_Apoxyomenos_ of the school of Lysippos (Pl. 29), representing an
athlete scraping off the oil and dirt from his body after his victory.
In this class of statues, which forms by far the greater number and
shows the richer motives, the poses are quiet and reserved, the figures
are compact, and the expression earnest and even thoughtful. As
examples of statues represented in movement we need only recall such
well-known works as the _Diskobolos_ of Myron with its rhythmic lines
and vivacious expression (Pls. 22, 23, and Figs. 34, 35); the bronze
wrestlers of Naples, who are bending eagerly forward watching for a
grip (Fig. 51); or the artistically intertwined pancratiast group of
Florence (Pl. 25). Such monuments show us the varied poses, the choice
of the critical moment, the truth to life, and the masterly rhythm
attained by certain sculptors.
THE APOLLO TYPE.
In this chapter we shall confine ourselves almost entirely to the
statues of victors represented at rest, discussing those represented
in motion chiefly in the next. Most of the oldest statues at Olympia,
dating from a time when there were few variations in the sculptural
type, must have been represented at rest and in the schema of the
so-called “Apollos.” Ever since the discovery of the _Apollo of Thera_
in 1836 (Fig. 9), this _genre_ of sculpture, the most characteristic of
the early period, extending from the end of the seventh century B. C.
to the time of the gable groups of Aegina, has been carefully studied.
Though we now know that the type passed equally well for gods and
mortals,[818] we still keep the name, because of its familiarity and
for the sake of having a common designation. That this type actually
represented Olympic victors we have indubitable proof. Pausanias
mentions the stone victor statue of the pancratiast Arrhachion, dating
from the first half of the sixth century B. C., which stood in the
agora of his native town Phigalia. He describes it as archaic in pose,
with the feet close together and the arms hanging down the sides to
the hips—the typical “Apollo” schema.[819] Moreover, this very statue
has survived to our time (Fig. 79).[820] A study, therefore, of this
type of statue will give us an idea of how some of the early statues at
Olympia looked.
[Illustration: FIG. 9.—Statue of so-called _Apollo of Thera_. National
Museum, Athens.]
[Illustration: FIG. 10.—Statue of so-called _Apollo of Orchomenos_.
National Museum, Athens.]
[Illustration: FIG. 11.—Statue of so-called _Apollo_, from Mount Ptoion,
Bœotia. National Museum, Athens.]
The “Apollo” statues,[821] because of differences in facial expression,
have been conveniently divided into two groups: those represented by
the examples from Thera, Melos, Volomandra, Tenea, etc., sometimes
named the “grinning” group, because the corners of the mouth are turned
upwards into the so-called “archaic smile,” and those represented
by the examples from Orchomenos, the precinct of Mount Ptoion, and
elsewhere, named the “stolid” group, because in them the mouth forms a
straight line.[822] There are, however, essential differences between
the statues of each group. Thus, while some of both groups—_e. g._, the
examples from Melos, Volomandra, and Orchomenos—have square shoulders,
most of the others have sloping ones. The type gradually improved, as
in each successive attempt the sculptor overcame difficulties, until
finally revolutionary changes had taken place in the original form.
This improvement is seen in the treatment of the hair, in the modeling
of the face and body, and in the proportions of the statues. In a
head of a statue from Mount Ptoion[823]—which is broken off at the
neck—we seem to see the sculptor in wood making his first attempt in
stone. In the archaic example from Thera[824] (Fig. 9) the arms hang
straight down close to the sides, as in the statue of Arrhachion, being
detached only slightly from the body at the elbows, showing that the
artist was afraid that they might break off. In other examples, as in
the one from Orchomenos[825] (Fig. 10) and one from Mount Ptoion[826]
(Fig. 11), the space between the arms and the body has become larger,
while in the example from Melos[827] (Fig. 12) only the hands are
glued to the thighs. In the “Apollo” found at Tenea in 1846, and now
in Munich[828] (Pl. 8A), the arms are free, but the hands are held
fast to the body by the retention of small marble bridges between them
and the thighs. The final step has been taken in two examples from
Mount Ptoion (Fig. 13), in which the arms from the shoulders down are
free from the bodies.[829] The bridges shown on the photograph in the
figure to the left, which connect the forearms with the thighs, are of
plaster, being added at the time the statue was set up in Athens.[830]
The figure to the right is smaller and clearly discloses Aeginetan
influence. The audacity of the sculptor in entirely freeing the arms
in both examples was rewarded by the arms being broken off. Similarly,
in the _Strangford Apollo_ of the British Museum (Fig. 14),[831] the
arms, which hung loose from the shoulders, are broken away. The larger
statue from Mount Ptoion just mentioned also has the arms slightly
crooked at the elbows, the forearms being extended at an oblique angle
to the body. This represents an intermediate stage between the earlier
“Apollos,” in which the arms adhered vertically to the sides of the
body (as _e. g._, in the ones from Orchomenos, Thera, Melos, and
Tenea), and the later ones, in which the arms were bent, the forearms
being extended at right angles to the body (see Figs. 15 and 19).[832]
[Illustration: FIG. 12.—Statue of so-called _Apollo of Melos_. National
Museum, Athens.]
The example from Thera shows the archaic method of working in planes
parallel to front and side and at right angles to one another, the
corners of the square block being merely rounded off. The outlines
of muscles are indicated by shallow grooves, which do not affect the
flatness of the surface, and there is but little facial expression. We
see the chest outlined in some examples from Aktion.[833] In the Melian
example the rectangular form is modified by cutting away the sides
obliquely in arms and body; here there is more expression in the face,
and the treatment of the hair and the proportions of the body are more
developed. In the example from Orchomenos we see a great improvement in
form. Here, as in later Bœotian examples, the original rectangular
form of the example from Thera has become round, so that a horizontal
cross-section through the waist is almost circular; the muscles of
the abdomen are indicated and the skin is naturalistically shown in
the back and at the elbows. In later Bœotian examples from Mount
Ptoion, which are directly developed from the Orchomenos type,[834]
the form is lighter and the proportions more graceful. In one example
(Fig. 13, left) even the veins are shown. In the example mentioned
above as showing Aeginetan influence, and dated about 500 B. C.,[835]
the muscles are clearly marked, just as in the _Strangford_ example
and in the statues from the temple at Aegina, showing that foreign
art had been introduced into Bœotia by that time. In the example
from Volomandra in Attica,[836] we see affinity to the examples from
Thera and Melos, but Attic softness in the carving of the shoulders
and in the proportions. In the _Apollo of Tenea_ (Pl. 8A), “by far
the most beautiful preserved statue of archaic sculpture,”[837] a
statue most carefully worked, we see a Peloponnesian example of the
beginning of the sixth or even of the end of the seventh century B.
C. Here the sculptor has shown great care in executing details and in
the proportions. The eyes are not flat, but convex, and are wide open
as in most of the earlier examples. The downward flow of the lines of
the statue is striking, which is caused by the sloping shoulders and
the elongated triangular-shaped abdomen. The slimness of the figure,
with the contour of bones and muscles, is remarkable at so early a
date. The fashioning of the knees is detailed. When we contrast this
tall, slim, agile statue with the massively square-built Argive type
found at Delphi (Pl. 8B), we find it reasonable to suspect that
the _Apollo of Tenea_ is an imported work, coming probably from the
islands.[838] The two statues of (?) Kleobis and Biton, discovered at
Delphi in 1893 and 1894, and inscribed with the name of the sculptor
Polymedes of Argos, have added much to our knowledge of early Argive
sculpture (Pl. 8B, = Statue A).[839] This Polymedes may have been
one of the predecessors acknowledged by Eutelidas and Chrysothemis,
among the first victor statuaries known to us by name, in the epigram
preserved by Pausanias from the base of the monument of Damaretos and
his son Theopompos at Olympia.[840] The epigram, in any case, implies
that the reputation of the Argive school in athletic sculpture was
already well established by the end of the sixth century B. C. These
massively built statues, dating from the beginning of the sixth century
B. C., outline the muscles to a certain extent, even showing the line
of the false ribs by incised lines. They display, however, but little
detail in modeling, except in the knees, where the artist has tried to
indicate the bones and muscles. The features of the large heads are
without expression; the large eyes are flat and not convex, as in the
example from Tenea, though the Argive artist was, perhaps, later than
the Corinthian one, and a long distance removed from the later artist
of the Ligourió bronze (Fig. 16), to be discussed later.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.—Statues of so-called _Apollos_ from Mount
Ptoion. National Museum, Athens.]
[Illustration: PLATE 8A
A. Statue of so-called _Apollo of Tenea_. Glyptothek, Munich.]
[Illustration: PLATE 8B
B. So-called _Argive Apollo_ from Delphi. Museum of Delphi.]
[Illustration: FIG. 14.—Statue known as the _Strangford Apollo_. British
Museum, London.]
In all these “Apollos,” which have been found all over the Greek world
from Naukratis in Egypt to Ambrakia, and along the Asian coast and
on the Aegean Isles, the archaic artists have attempted, by their
modeling of the muscles, especially of the chest and abdomen, to
express trained strength. The heavy Argive examples, which may be said
to be the prototypes of the Ligourió bronze and of the _Doryphoros_
of Polykleitos (Pl. 4 and Fig. 48), are in strong contrast with the
lighter type best represented by the example from Tenea. In the former,
with their big heads and shoulders and their powerful arms and legs,
we may see early boxers or pancratiasts; in the latter a long-limbed
runner, with powerful chest, but slim and supple legs. In the _Apollo
of Tenea_ there is no flabbiness nor softness, and yet no emaciation.
We see very similar runners on Panathenaic vases. Between the two
extremes we have a long series, those from Mount Ptoion and elsewhere.
We do not doubt that the early statues of athletes at Olympia showed
all the variations we have discussed in these “Apollos.” Of this
type, then, were the statues at Olympia of the Spartan Eutelidas,
the oldest mentioned by Pausanias,[841] those of Phrikias of Pelinna
in Thessaly,[842] and of Phanas of Pellene in Achæa,[843] to whom,
later on in this chapter, we shall ascribe the two archaic marble
helmeted heads found at Olympia (Fig. 30), the wooden statues of
Praxidamas and Rhexibios,[844] the statue of Kylon on the Akropolis
of Athens,[845] and that of Hetoimokles at Sparta.[846] The statue of
the famous wrestler Milo of Kroton by the sculptor Dameas, mentioned
by Pausanias[847] and described by Philostratos,[848] must also
have conformed with the “Apollo” type, though it showed a step in
advance of the earlier ones by having its arms bent at the elbow, the
forearms being extended horizontally outward. This statue needs a
somewhat detailed account. The description of Philostratos seems to
have been founded on the account in Pausanias[849] of Milo’s prowess,
which, in turn, may have arisen from the appearance of the statue and
the cicerone’s description. Philostratos says that it stood on a
quoit with the feet close together and with the left hand grasping a
pomegranate, the fingers of the right hand being extended straight out,
and a fillet encircling the brows.[850] Philostratos has Apollonios
explain the attributes of the statue on the ground that the people of
Kroton represented their famous victor in the guise of a priest of
Hera. This would explain the priestly fillet and the pomegranate sacred
to the goddess, while the diskos, on which the statue rested, would be
the shield on which Hera’s priest stood when praying. Scherer, however,
rightly pointed out that the statue in the Altis was of Milo the victor
and not the priest. He therefore explained the diskos[851] merely as
a round basis on which the statue, of the archaic “Apollo” type with
its feet close together, stood, and the _tainia_ as a victor band. He
followed Philostratos in believing that the gesture of the right hand
was one of adoration.[852] He looked upon the object in the left hand
not as a pomegranate at all, but as an alabastron, a toilet article
adapted to a victor. He, therefore, believed that the _Apollo_ of the
elder Kanachos of Sikyon,[853] the so-called _Philesian Apollo_,[854]
represented nude and holding a tiny fawn in the right hand and a bow
in the left, would give a good idea of the pose of Milo’s statue.[855]
Hitzig and Bluemner believe this explanation of Scherer probable,
although they rightly disagree with him in his exchanging the
pomegranate for an alabastron, since Pausanias expressly mentions a
pomegranate in the hand of another victor statue at Olympia.[856] Pliny
speaks of a male figure by Pythagoras, _mala ferentem nudum_,[857]
and Lucian says apples were prizes at Delphi,[858] and we know that
Milo was also a Pythian victor. The same commentators believe that
Pausanias’ story of Milo bursting a cord drawn round his brow by
swelling his veins arose from the victor band on the statue, and the
story of the strength of his fingers from the position of the fingers
on it.
[Illustration: FIG. 15.—Bronze Statuette of a Palæstra Victor, from the
Akropolis. Akropolis Museum, Athens.]
We have seen in the “Apollo” statues a considerable variety of
physical types. In the sixth century B. C. the artist was feeling
his way and was hampered by local school tendencies. At first he
knew only how to produce rigid statues in the conventional Egyptian
attitude with the arms glued to the sides, the two halves of the
body being symmetrical and the hips on the same level. He gradually
improved on this model, making the position more elastic—as in the
statue of Milo—rightly indicating bones and muscles and giving to the
figure natural proportions. Bulle has shown on one plate[859] three
statuettes which illustrate the improvements reached in bronze in
various parts of Greece by the end of the sixth century B. C. To the
left is represented a victorious palæstra gymnast—as is indicated by
the remnants of akontia in the hands—in the Akropolis Museum (Fig.
15);[860] in the center is the Payne Knight statuette of the British
Museum,[861] carrying a fawn in the right hand, which is a copy of
the _Philesian Apollo_ which stood in the Didymaion near Miletos; to
the right is Hermes with the petasos, short-girded tunic, and winged
sandals, holding a ram in the left and probably a kerykeion in the
right hand.[862] The attributes of the three, then, attest respectively
a victor, Apollo, and Hermes. In all three the arms are freed from the
body, and the muscles of the breast, chest, and abdomen are indicated,
though carelessly in the case of the victor. The proportions of the
three vary greatly; the Attic victor has a large head, broad shoulders,
powerful chest, long body, and short legs; the _Apollo_ has long
legs, shorter though slimmer body, and small head;[863] the _Hermes_
has a clearly outlined figure and shows the careful modeling so
characteristic of the schools of Argos and Sikyon in the fifth century
B. C. Bulle shows that the further development of the “Apollo” type was
halted by the Argive school, which, while continuing the restful pose
of these figures, counteracted their rigidity by inclining the head
to the side and throwing the weight unevenly on the legs by lowering
one hip and further advancing one foot. The central line was no longer
vertical, but curved, and it was now possible to give greater detail to
chest and abdomen. Polykleitos finally perfected this curve and threw
back the left foot, resting the weight of the body on the right—from
which time on we have the regular scheme of “free” and “rest” legs.
Despite all these later improvements, Olympic victors continued to
set up statues in the rest attitude of the “Apollo” type down perhaps
into the third century B. C. Such dedications were the result both of
school tendencies and economy, especially in the case of equestrian
victors, who frequently were content to use such “actionless” statues
in place of groups. We have only to mention the monuments of Timon of
Elis, whose statue was the work of the Sikyonian Daidalos,[864] and
of Telemachos of Elis, whose statue was made by the otherwise unknown
sculptor Philonides.[865]
Before systematically considering victor statues at Olympia and
elsewhere with general motives, _i. e._, represented at rest, we shall
now rapidly sketch the development of athletic sculpture in four great
centres, Argos, Sikyon, Aegina, and Athens, even though some of the
works mentioned were represented in motion. Sculptors of other schools
known at Olympia will be treated incidentally in both this and the
following chapters.
THE AFFILIATED SCHOOLS OF ARGOS AND SIKYON.
While in general it is unprofitable to discuss sculptors who have
not surely left any example of their art behind, there are two early
schools of Peloponnesian sculpture, those of Argos and Sikyon, which,
though we may assign work to them only by conjecture, can not be
summarily passed over, owing to their great importance in the history
of Greek athletic art. The bronze used in their works was too valuable
to escape the barbarians, and, furthermore, the monotony, which must
have characterized early Peloponnesian sculpture, militated against
these works being reproduced to any great degree by later copyists.
THE SCHOOL OF ARGOS.
The Argive school was devoted mainly to athletic statuary. The greatest
name in old Argive art is that of Ageladas or Hagelaïdas,[866] the
reputed teacher of Myron and Polykleitos, who lived from the third
quarter of the sixth century into the second quarter of the fifth
century B. C. While his connection with Myron and Polykleitos is
scarcely to be doubted,[867] his supposed connection with Pheidias has
made the chronology of the life of this sculptor one of the difficult
problems of the ancient history of art. A scholion on Aristophanes’
_Ranae_, 504, dates the statue known as the _Herakles Alexikakos_ in
the Attic deme Melite by Hagelaïdas after the pestilence in Athens of
431-430 B. C., and makes the Argive sculptor (Gelados = Hagelaïdas)
the teacher of Pheidias. As his statue of the Olympic victor Anochos
commemorated a victory won in Ol. 65 (= 520 B. C.), this late date is
manifestly impossible.[868] Furthermore, a better tradition says that
Hegias was the teacher of the Attic master.[869] Furtwaengler’s attempt
to show that these two divergent traditions were really in accord,
by the assumption that Hegias was the pupil of Hagelaïdas and that
his art came from the latter—thus explaining certain similarities in
the work of Hagelaïdas and Pheidias,—does not solve the problem.[870]
As the scholion is based on a good tradition,[871] the best solution
of the difficulty is that of Kalkmann[872] and others, that the
_Alexikakos_ was the work of a younger Hagelaïdas, the grandson of the
famous master, by the intermediate Argeiadas. For a lower limit to the
activity of Hagelaïdas there seems to be no good reason for distrusting
the evidence that he made a bronze _Zeus_ for the Messenians to be
set up at Naupaktos, whither they moved in 455 B. C.[873] This makes
quite possible a period of collaboration of four or five years at least
between Polykleitos and Hagelaïdas.
Pausanias mentions the monuments of three victors at Olympia by
Hagelaïdas: the statues of the pancratiast Timasitheos of Delphi, who
won two victories some time between Ols. (?) 65 and 67 (520 and 512 B.
C.);[874] of the runner Anochos of Tarentum, who won in the stade- and
double-race in Ols. 65 and (?) 66 (= 520 and 516 B. C.);[875] and the
chariot-group of Kleosthenes of Epidamnos, who won in Ol. 66 (= 516 B.
C.).[876]
None of the works of Hagelaïdas at Olympia or elsewhere is known.
Messenian coins of the fourth century B. C. show the motives of two of
his statues, that of his _Zeus Ithomatas_ just mentioned as being made
for the Messenians,[877] and the beardless _Zeus_ παῖς at Aigion.[878]
However, we infer the characteristics of his style from the bronze
statuette in Berlin which was found at Ligourió near Epidauros (Fig.
16).[879] This is undoubtedly an Argive work contemporary with the
later period of Hagelaïdas. Furtwaengler and Frost are right in looking
upon it as showing the prototype of the canon of Polykleitos. Though
too small to count as a characteristic work of the early Argive school,
it shows us that the style of that school was a short and stocky type,
similar to Aeginetan works, only somewhat fleshier and heavier. The
straight mouth and heavy chin, the treatment of the eyelids, and the
clumsy limbs are all archaic features to be expected in the period
preceding Polykleitos. The modeling is carefully executed, showing a
knowledge of anatomy. If such excellence is found in a statuette, we
can form some idea of the perfection of a statue by the master.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.—Bronze Statuette, from Ligourió. Museum of
Berlin.]
[Illustration: PLATE 9
Statue of an Athlete, by Stephanos. Villa Albani, Rome.]
The bronze _Apollo_ from Pompeii now in the Naples Museum,[880] with
marble replicas in Mantua and Paris,[881] shows us how Hagelaïdas
treated a god type, while the statue of an athlete by Stephanos will
give us some idea of how he treated his victor statues, as it seems
to have been modeled after an athlete statue of the early fifth
century B. C., perhaps after a work by some pupil of the master.
Stephanos belonged to the school of Pasiteles, a group of sculptors
flourishing at Rome at the end of the Republic and the beginning of
the Empire. They devoted themselves to the reproduction of early
fifth-century statues. They were not ordinary copyists, for their works
show individual mannerisms and a system of proportions foreign to the
originals. Thus their statues have the square shoulders of the Argive
school, but the slim bodies and slender legs of the period of Lysippos
and his scholars. Apart from such mannerisms, then, in the male figure
signed _Stephanos, pupil of Pasiteles_, in the Villa Albani in Rome
(Pl. 9),[882] which reappears in a very similar statue in groups
combined with a female figure of related style,[883] or with another
male figure,[884] we may see a copy of a bronze original of the Argive
school before Polykleitos. The standing motive and the body forms
are the same in both the Mantuan _Apollo_ and the Stephanos figure,
although the former is more developed and the head type is different in
both; this shows that the two, while displaying the same basic ideal,
were not works of the same master.[885] As the statue by Stephanos has
a fillet around the hair, it may well represent an ideal athlete, who
in the original held an aryballos or similar palæstra attribute in
the raised left hand. It is interesting to compare the copies of this
group with those of another representing mother and son, the work of
Menelaos, the pupil of Stephanos, which, though transferred from Greek
to Roman taste in respect of drapery and forms, is merely a variation
of the same theme without any heroic traits.[886]
The influence of Hagelaïdas can be easily traced in other schools of
art, especially in the Attic School and in the sculptures of the temple
of Zeus at Olympia, whether these latter be Peloponnesian in origin or
not. It will be convenient in this connection to discuss briefly the
style of these important sculptures, which we have already mentioned
several times. The statement of Pausanias,[887] that the sculptors of
the East and West Gables were Paionios of Mende in Thrace and Alkamenes
respectively—the latter being known as the pupil of Pheidias[888]—was
not doubted until the discovery of the Olympia sculptures.[889] Then
doubts arose both on chronological and stylistic grounds, and now only
a few archæologists would maintain that either artist had anything
to do with these groups. The style of the two gables (as well as that
of the metopes) is so similar that many have assigned them to one and
the same artist.[890] They have been referred to many schools from
Ionia to Sicily, even including a local Elean one. Thus Brunn assigned
them to a North Greek-Thracian school; Flasch[891] and (more recently)
Joubin[892] to the Attic; Kekulé[893] and Friedrichs-Wolters[894] to a
West Greek (Sicilian) one, because of their similarity to the metopes
of temple E at Selinos; Furtwaengler[895] to an Ionic one (Parian
masters). Most scholars, however, including K. Lange,[896] Treu,[897]
Studniczka,[898] Collignon,[899] and Overbeck,[900] have referred them
to Peloponnesian sculptors.[901]
To return to the art of Hagelaïdas: if we assume that the Ligourió
bronze comes from the school of that Argive master certain conclusions
must be drawn. The figure is archaic, but does not have the archaic
smile. In Athens at the end of the archaic period there was a reaction
against this smile, and doubtless the Athenian artists were strongly
influenced by Argive models. Thus an archaic bronze head of a youth,
found on the Akropolis and dating from about 480 B. C., shows a
serious mouth, a strong chin, heavy upper eyelids, and finely worked
hair, characteristics which we found in the Ligourió statuette. These
traits show that the statuette and the head were the forerunners of
the _Apollo_ of the West Gable at Olympia. So finished a bronze as
this one from the Akropolis, at the beginning of the fifth century B.
C., has inclined Richardson to look upon it as “not improbably a work
of Hagelaïdas,”[902] though here again Furtwaengler would ascribe it
to Hegias.[903] The Parian marble statue of an ephebe found on the
Akropolis (Fig. 17)[904]—one of the most beautiful recovered during
the excavations there—shows the same Argive influence. This statue
is chronologically the first masterpiece, thus far recovered, which
marks the break with archaism by having its head turned slightly to
one side.[905] It has the same pose as the _Athlete_ by Stephanos and
probably represents a palæstra victor. The head, with its heavy chin,
and the muscular body strikingly resemble the _Harmodios_ (Fig. 32),
which has led Furtwaengler and others to ascribe it to Kritios or his
school.[906] At the same time a similarity is seen between this head
and that of the _Apollo_ of the West Gable at Olympia, and so with
Bulle and others we ascribe it to the Argive school.
[Illustration: FIG. 17.—Statue of an Ephebe, from the Akropolis.
Akropolis Museum, Athens.]
One of the female statues (_Korai_) found on the Akropolis, and
approximately of the same date as the ephebe, viz, the fragmentary
one consisting of head and bust and known popularly as _la petite
boudeuse_, shows the same revolt against Ionism.[907] In many respects
this statue is very different from most of the other Akropolis _Korai_.
The eyes are not yet set back naturally, but the appearance of depth
is attained by thickening the eyelids, quite in contrast with the
modeling of the eyeball in most of the other statues. The corners of
the mouth turn down, which gives it the appearance of pouting. This
statue is also our first example in sculpture of the so-called Greek
profile—the nose continuing the line of the forehead. The same Argive
influence in Athenian art is also discernible in the Parian marble
head of an athlete with traces of yellow in the hair (Fig. 18),[908]
which may be dated a little later than the Akropolis ephebe—about
470 B. C. Because of its resemblance to the _Apollo_ of Olympia,
its Attic-Peloponnesian origin seems clear.[909] Its expression is
comparable with that of the _Kore_ just discussed—as it has the same
mouth, eyes, and nose, both monuments showing the reaction against the
archaic smile, which characterized the Ionian period of Attic art.
This same Ionic reaction also may be seen in the bronze statuette of a
diskobolos in the Metropolitan Museum (Fig. 46),[910] which resembles
in style that of the _Tyrannicides_, but shows also Argive traits.
These Argive traits, small head and slender limbs, are easily seen by
comparing this statuette with the Ligourió bronze.
[Illustration: FIG. 18.—Head of an Ephebe, from the Akropolis.
Akropolis Museum, Athens.]
We have already mentioned the monumental group of the hoplite victor
Damaretos and of the pentathlete Theopompos, which was made about 500
B. C. by the Argive sculptors Chrysothemis and Eutelidas.[911] These
artists were known to later antiquity only by the epigram inscribed on
the base of this monument at Olympia, and the probable dates of the two
victories of Theopompos, Ols. (?) 69 and 70 (= 504 and 500 B. C.), show
that they were contemporaries of Hagelaïdas, and not, as formerly was
believed, the forerunners of his school.[912]
Polykleitos, a Sikyonian by birth,[913] migrated early to Argos to
become the pupil of Hagelaïdas, and became the great master of the
Argive school in the next generation after him. We have four statues by
him at Olympia. His earliest work probably was the statue of the boxer
Kyniskos of Mantinea, who won in Ol. (?) 80 (= 460 B. C.); he made
the statues of the Elean pentathlete Pythokles and of the Epidamnian
boxer Aristion, both of whom won their victories in Ol. 82 (= 452 B.
C.); and lastly he made the statue of the boy boxer Thersilochos from
Kerkyra, who won in Ol. (?) 87 (= 432 B. C.)[914] The footprints on the
three recovered bases of the statues of the first three show that all
were represented at rest. Of Patrokles, the brother of Polykleitos,
Pausanias mentions no statues at Olympia, though Pliny says that he
made athlete statues.[915] Of Naukydes,[916] the nephew or brother
of Polykleitos, we have record of three athlete statues at Olympia:
those of the wrestlers Cheimon of Argos, who won in Ol. 83 (= 448
B. C.), and Baukis of Trœzen, who won some time between Ols. (?)
85 and 90 (= 440 and 420 B. C.); also one of the boxer Eukles of
Rhodes, who won some time between Ols. 90 and 93 (= 420 and 408 B.
C.).[917] A contemporary of Naukydes was the sculptor Phradmon, who,
according to Pliny, was a contemporary of Polykleitos;[918] he made
the statue of the boy wrestler Amertas of Elis, who won a victory some
time between Ols. 84 and 90 (= 444 and 420 B. C.).[919] In the next
century, Polykleitos Minor, the grandson or grandnephew of the great
Polykleitos, and the pupil of Naukydes,[920] had three statues at
Olympia: those of the boy boxer Antipatros of Miletos, whose victory is
given by Africanus as Ol. 98 (= 388 B. C.); of the two boy wrestlers
Agenor of Thebes, who won some time between Ols. 93 and 103 (= 408
and 368 B. C.), and Xenokles of Mainalos, who won some time between
Ols. 94 and 100 (= 404 and 380 B. C.).[921] The inscribed base of the
latter has been recovered and the footprints show that the statue was
represented at rest, the body resting equally on both feet, the left
slightly advanced. Andreas, a second-century B. C. Argive sculptor,
made a statue at Olympia of the boy wrestler Lysippos of Elis, who won
some time between Ols. 149 and 157 (= 184 and 152 B. C.).[922]
THE SCHOOL OF SIKYON.
[Illustration: FIG. 19.—Bronze Statuette of Apollo, found in the Sea off
Piombino. Louvre, Paris.]
The Sikyonian school of bronze founders was closely affiliated with the
one at Argos. Early in the archaic period the brothers Dipoinos and
Skyllis, sons or pupils of the mythical Daidalos of Crete, migrated to
Sikyon.[923] A generation later another Cretan sculptor, Aristokles,
founded there an artist family which lasted through seven or eight
generations.[924] His two grandsons Aristokles and Kanachos are known
to have collaborated with Hagelaïdas on a group of three Muses.[925]
Many have seen in the small bronze found in the sea off Piombino,
Tuscany, and now in the Louvre (Fig. 19),[926] a copy of the _Apollo
Philesios_, the best-known work of Kanachos. This gem of the bronze
art, in true archaic style, may very well represent the _Apollo_,
which, according to the description of Pliny[927] and the evidence of
Milesian copper coins of all periods,[928] had as attributes a
fawn in the outstretched right hand and a bow in the left. However,
Overbeck,[929] followed by von Mach, believes that it is not a copy
of Kanachos’ _Apollo_, but merely represents a boy assisting at a
sacrifice, and that the original held a cup in the left hand and a
saucer in the right. In any case the statuette is too inaccurate to
give us more than the pose of the _Apollo_ of Kanachos, even if it
were proved to be a copy. It may be merely a reproduction of the
mythological type of Apollo, which the artist himself followed, and
so we can not say definitely to what school it belongs. The Payne
Knight bronze in the British Museum,[930] which holds a tiny fawn in
the right hand, the bow originally in the left hand being lost, has
better pretensions, perhaps, to be a copy of the _Apollo_. Another
archaic half life-size bronze, formerly in the Palazzo Sciarra,[931]
is of a similar type, though its style is different. Another bronze
statuette from Naxos, now in Berlin,[932] shows the same position of
the hands, but has an aryballos or pomegranate in the right hand. We
have already classed it as an example of the conversion of an original
god-type into that of a victor. We might also mention the mutilated
torso found by Holleaux at the sanctuary of Apollo Ptoios in Bœotia
(Fig. 12, right), which has a similar pose to that of the statuette
from Piombino, and whose hair technique shows that it is an imitation
of a bronze work.[933] However, as we shall see later, it may be rather
representative of the Aeginetan school of sculptors. All these works
may tell us of the general character of the _Apollo_, but little of its
style.[934]
No athlete statue by Aristokles or his brother Kanachos is known
to have stood at Olympia. That the latter actually made victor
statues, however, is proved by Pliny’s statement (_l. c._) that he
made _celetizontas pueros_. Of the later Sikyonian school we have
twenty-seven statues of victors made by eleven different sculptors,
whose dates range from near the end of the fourth down into the third
century B. C., of whom we shall give a chronological list. Alypos, the
pupil of the Argive Naukydes, had four statues at Olympia: those of the
wrestler Symmachos of Elis, of the boy boxer Neolaïdas of Pheneus, of
the boy wrestler Archedamos of Elis, and of the boy and man wrestler
Euthymenes of Mainalos, all of whom must have won their victories some
time between Ols. 94 and 104 (= 404 and 364 B. C.).[935] Kanachos, the
Younger, made one statue, that of the boy boxer Bykelos of Sikyon,
who won some time between Ols. 92 and 105 (= 412 and 360 B. C.).[936]
Olympos made the statue of the pancratiast Xenophon of Aigion, who
won some time between Ols. 95 and 105 (= 400 and 360 B. C.).[937]
The sculptor Daidalos, the son and pupil of Patrokles, and probably
the nephew of Polykleitos, made four monuments for four victors: the
equestrian group of the Elean charioteer Timon and his son Aigyptos, a
victor in horse-racing, and statues of the Elean wrestler Aristodemos
and the stade-runner Eupolemos. Their victories fell between Ols. 96
and 103 (= 396 and 368 B. C.).[938] Damokritos made the statue of the
Elean boy boxer Hippos, who won between Ols. 96 and 107 (= 396 and
352 B. C.).[939] Kleon had five statues credited to him, all but one
being of boy victors: those of the boy runner Deinolochos of Elis,
the pentathlete Hysmon of Elis, the two boy boxers Kritodamos, and of
Alketos of Kleitor, and of the boy runner Lykinos of Heraia. Their
victories fell between Ols. 94 and 103 (= 404 and 368 B. C.).[940] The
great Lysippos had the same number of victor statues as Kleon, and also
two honor statues at Olympia: those of the equestrian victor Troilos
of Elis, of the Akarnanian pancratiast Philandridas, of the wrestler
Cheilon of Patrai, of the pancratiast Polydamas of Skotoussa, and of
the hoplite-runner Kallikrates. Their victories occurred between Ols.
102 and 115 (= 372 and 320 B. C.).[941] The son of Lysippos, Daïppos,
made two statues, one for the Elean boy boxer Kallon and the other for
the Elean Nikandros, who won the double foot-race. Their victories fell
within the activity of the sculptor, Ols. 115 and 125 (= 320 and 280 B.
C.).[942] Daitondas made the statue of the Elean boy boxer Theotimos,
who won his victory some time between Ols. 116 and 120 (= 316 and 300
B. C.).[943] Eutychides, the most famous pupil of Lysippos, famed
alike as a bronze founder, statuary, and painter, carved the statue
of the boy runner Timosthenes of Elis, who won some time between Ols.
115 and 125 (= 320 and 280 B. C.).[944] Pliny gives Ol. 121 (= 296 B.
C.) as the _floruit_ of this sculptor, which was probably the date of
the erection of his most famous work, the colossal bronze _Tyche_,
as tutelary deity of the city of Antioch on the Orontes, which was
founded by Seleukos I in Ol. 119.3 (= 302 B. C.).[945] This shows that
Eutychides was already by that date a famed sculptor, having begun his
career by 330-320 B. C. Kantharos, the pupil of Eutychides, made the
statues of the two boy wrestlers Kratinos of Aigira and Alexinikos of
Elis, who won their victories some time between Ols. 120 and 130 (= 300
and 260 B. C.).[946]
ÆGINETAN SCULPTORS.
We have but little left of the prominent early Aeginetan school of
bronze sculptors. Of Kallon, the earliest historical sculptor of the
school, the reputed pupil of Tektaios and Angelion (who in turn were
the pupils of Dipoinos and Skyllis), we have only literary evidence. He
was typical of archaic severity just prior to the era of transition,
and therefore should be compared with Hegias of Athens and Kanachos of
Sikyon. For Onatas, the most famous of the Aeginetan sculptors, whose
_floruit_ was in the first half of the fifth century B. C., we have
evidence of many monuments at Olympia. Besides the colossal _Herakles_
dedicated by the Thasians,[947] a _Hermes_ dedicated by the people
of Pheneus,[948] and a large group of nine statues of Greek heroes
standing on a curved base faced by a statue of Nestor on another, the
group being dedicated by the Achaians,[949] he made a chariot and
charioteer to commemorate the victory of Hiero of Syracuse at Olympia
in 468 B. C., for which monument Kalamis furnished two horses.[950]
Glaukias made a bronze chariot for Hiero’s brother Gelo of Gela, who
later became tyrant of Syracuse, and who won a chariot victory in
Ol. 73 (= 488 B. C.).[951] This sculptor also excelled in fashioning
statues of boxers and pancratiasts, making the monuments of the boxers
Philon of Kerkyra and Glaukos of Karystos, and that of the renowned
boxer and pancratiast Theagenes of Thasos.[952] The statue of Glaukos
was represented in the schema of one “sparring” (σκιαμαχῶν),[953] and
so was in movement and not at rest. We have athlete statues by three
other Aeginetan sculptors at Olympia. Thus Ptolichos, the pupil of the
Sikyonian Aristokles, set up statues of the Aeginetan boy wrestler
Theognetos, who won in Ol. 76 (= 476 B. C.), and of the boy boxer
Epikradios of Mantinea, who won between Ols. (?) 72 and 74 (= 492 and
484 B. C.);[954] Serambos made the statue of the boy boxer Agiadas of
Elis, who won between Ols. (?) 72 and 74;[955] Philotimos made the
horse for the horse-racing victory of Xenombrotos of Kos, who won in
Ol. (?) 83 (= 448 B. C.).[956] All of these sculptors appear to have
used bronze exclusively, and their art, though independent, showed a
bias toward Peloponnesian work. There are few examples left of this
art. The bronze head of a bearded warrior or hoplite victor found on
the Akropolis, if we are justified in classing it as Aeginetan and not
Attic, shows the excellence which we associate with this school.[957]
The delicate execution of its hair and beard, as well as the strength
and precision of this head, makes it not unworthy of being ascribed
to one of the best artists of the school, perhaps to Onatas himself.
The beardless bronze head discovered in 1756 in the villa of the Pisos
in Herculaneum, now in Naples, has also been assigned to Onatas, as
its features are similar to those of the one under discussion.[958]
The Tux bronze statuette of a hoplitodrome, to be discussed in Ch. IV
(Fig. 42), has also been assigned to an Aeginetan master.[959] The
marble statue known as the _Strangford Apollo_ in the British Museum,
already mentioned (Fig. 14),[960] may show the characteristics of the
early school in marble, though it is impossible to say whether it is
a copy of a bronze original or a minor work in stone under Aeginetan
influence. The smaller “Apollo” from Mount Ptoion, already discussed
(Fig. 13, right),[961] appears to show in exaggerated form the same
Aeginetan traits. However, we get out best notion of Aeginetan work
in marble from the gable statues in the Munich Museum, representing
Homeric warriors fighting, which adorned the temple of Aphaia in the
northeastern corner of the island. Their importance in this connection
calls for a brief account of them.
[Illustration: FIG. 20.—Figure, from the East Pediment of the Temple on
Aegina. Glyptothek, Munich.]