We have few representations of hoplitodromes in sculpture. In the

preceding chapter we discussed the two marble helmeted heads found at

Olympia (Fig. 30), one of which shows that the statue of which it was a

part was represented at rest, while the other, because of the twist in

the neck, seems to have come from a statue which represented the runner

in violent motion. Pausanias saw on the Athenian Akropolis the statue

of the hoplite runner Epicharinos, the work of the sculptor Kritios,

represented as practising starts (ὁπλιτοδρομεῖν ἀσκήσαντος).[1488] In

the well-known Tux bronze in the University Museum at Tuebingen, we

have a statuette in which the position of the statue of Epicharinos is

probably reproduced. This little bronze, which is only 0.16 meter tall

(Fig. 42),[1489] represents a bearded man, entirely nude, except for

the Attic helmet on his head, standing with feet close together, knees

slightly bent, and body inclined forward. The right arm is extended,

while the left, crooked at the elbow, rests upon the hip. While Schwabe

and Wolters, following the early theory of Hirt and of the sculptor

Dannecker, interpreted the bronze as the figure of a charioteer,

whose left hand was drawn back to hold the reins and whose right was

outstretched in a gesture intended to quiet the horses, Hauser, de

Ridder, Bulle, and many other archæologists have interpreted it better

as a hoplitodrome. The left arm, then, carried a round shield, such

as we have seen on Attic vases. The next moment the right leg will be

advanced, the shield, held back to get a better start, will be pushed

forward, and the runner will race to the goal in a series of leaps,

since the weight of the shield would prevent him from following the

more regular motion of the ordinary runner. It probably represents,

therefore, a hoplite runner, not in the actual course, as Hauser

thought, but practicing a preliminary start, as de Ridder argued. If

the figure represented a charioteer, the legs would have been set

farther apart, in order to give a firmer position, and it would not be

represented as standing on a base, nor would it be wearing a helmet.

The statuette stylistically belongs to the opening years of the fifth

century B. C., and may well be a free imitation of a life-size original

of such statues of hoplites as stood in the Altis at Olympia. Despite

the energy depicted in this figure, it is rash to connect it with the

Aeginetan sculptures, as Wolters and Collignon have done, since a

comparison between it and the _Champion_ of the East gable[1490] will

show great differences. Brunn ascribed the original to Pythagoras; de

Ridder, with reservations, to Kritios and Nesiotes; while Bulle is more

reasonable in referring it to an important though unnamed artist of the

early fifth century B. C.

Hartwig has published a bronze statuette from Capua,[1491] now in

the Imperial collection at Vienna, representing a nude youth with a

crested helmet on his head. There is no trace of a shield, but the

helmet and the similarity of the pose to that of the Tuebingen bronze

make it probable that this statuette also represents a hoplitodrome

starting. The so-called _Diomedes_ of Myronian style in the Palazzo

Valentini, Rome,[1492] whose stooping posture recalls the _Diskobolos_

and accordingly has been interpreted as one by Matz and von Duhn, more

probably also represents a hoplite-runner, as Furtwaengler maintained,

because of the similarity of its pose to that of the Tux bronze and

because of its helmeted head.[1493]

[Illustration: FIG. 43.—Statue of the so-called _Borghese Warrior_.

Louvre, Paris.]

Some other attempts to see hoplite runners in existing works of

sculpture have not been so successful. Thus Rayet’s attempt to

resuscitate the old interpretation of Quatremère de Quincy, who had

explained the statue of the so-called _Borghese Warrior_ by Agasias of

Ephesos (Fig. 43) as that of a hoplitodrome just before reaching the

goal, has been recently revived again by Six.[1494] This famous marble

statue of the Louvre, belonging to late Greek art, is an example of the

last development in the Argive-Sikyonian school, which for centuries

had been devoted to athletic sculpture.[1495] Since the statue has

no helmet, there seems to be no valid reason for not adhering to the

usual interpretation, according to which it represents a warrior—by

restoring the lost right arm and hand with a sword—who is defending

himself against a foe above him, conceived of as seated upon a horse.

The attitude and the upward gaze are certainly not those of a runner.

Though Collignon, following Visconti, believes the figure to be one

of a group, the man actually defending himself against a horseman and

covering himself with his shield as he looks up, it is doubtful whether

a second figure ever existed. The artist seems to have contented

himself with representing, not a fight, but only a fighting pose. We

are beginning to understand that the Greek sculptor left something to

the imagination of the beholder.

An attempt has also been made to see a dying hoplite runner in the

Parian marble archaic grave-relief in the National Museum in Athens,

which has already been mentioned as an example of the archaic scheme

of representing running.[1496] It represents a beardless youth running

in a half-kneeling posture, even though the head is bent and turned

in the opposite direction. The eyes appear to be closed—due, perhaps,

to the faulty sculptor—and the two hands are touching the breast.

While no shield is represented (it is contended that its presence

would nearly hide the figure), still, because of the helmet and the

position of the arm, which latter is obviously that of a long-distance

runner, Philios, followed by Perrot-Chipiez and Bulle, explained it

as the representation of a hoplite runner who is expiring at the end

of his course. They date it about 520 B. C.,[1497] the date of the

introduction of this race at Olympia. However, the absence of the

shield, to say nothing of the greaves, seems an insuperable objection

to such an hypothesis, as the shield was never omitted in this race,

but was invariably its symbol. Svoronos is therefore more probably

right in interpreting the relief as the monument of a military runner

(δρομοκῆρυξ), even if his dating (490-480 B. C.) is somewhat too

late,[1498] and if his identifying it with some particular messenger

(such as the Athenian runner Pheidippides, who ran to Sparta for aid

just prior to the battle of Marathon) is fanciful.

PENTATHLETES.

The peculiar features of the pentathlon (πένταθλον) were the three

events, jumping, diskos-throwing, and javelin-throwing. All five events

are summed up in Simonides’ epigram on the pentathlete Diophon, who

won at Delphi and on the Isthmus, the second line of which runs: ἅλμα,

ποδωκείην, δίσκον, ἄκοντα, πάλην.[1499]

The pentathlon did not exist in Homer’s time. Pindar expressly says

that it did not exist in heroic days, but that then a separate prize

was given for each feat.[1500] At the games on Scheria, King Alkinoos

boasts to Odysseus of the superiority of his countrymen in πύξ τε

παλαισμοσύνῃ τε καὶ ἅλμασιν ἠδὲ πόδεσσιν.[1501] The pentathlon for

men was introduced at Olympia at the same time as wrestling toward

the end of the eighth century, in Ol. 18 (= 708 B. C.),[1502] and the

pentathlon for boys eighty years later, in Ol. 38 (= 628 B. C.), only

to be stopped soon after.[1503] Pausanias mentions fifteen victors

at Olympia, who had statues erected in their honor, for seventeen

victories in the pentathlon, thus giving the pentathletes sixth rank

there in point of number.

The b.-f. Bacchic amphora in Rome already discussed represents four

events out of the five: running, leaping, diskos-throwing, and

akontion-throwing (Figs. 36 A and 36 B).[1504] On several Panathenaic

vases we find one or more events, and the three characteristic ones on

several, one of which we here reproduce (Fig. 44).[1505]

The various events are common on r.-f. vases,[1506] though these may

not represent the pentathlon contests, but merely gymnasium scenes,

showing that such contests were important. We have already said that

the pentathlon represented the whole physical training of Greek

youths; consequently the pentathlete was looked upon as the typical

athlete, being superior to all others in all-round development, even

if surpassed by them in certain special events. It was for this reason

that Polykleitos, in order to embody the principles of his athlete

canon, made a statue of a javelin-thrower (the _Doryphoros_) as the

best example of an all-round man.

[Illustration: FIG. 44.—Pentathletes. Scene from a Panathenaic Amphora

in the British Museum, London.]

None of the statues of pentathletes at Olympia has been recovered

with certainty in Roman copies. That some of them were represented

at rest is shown by the base of the statue of the victor Pythokles

of Elis, by the elder Polykleitos, which has been recovered.[1507]

This base supported two different statues in succession. The feet of

the earlier one by Polykleitos were riveted into circular holes, and

behind the right foot on the upper surface of the base was inscribed

the artist’s name, while the victor’s appeared on the vertical front.

This statue was later removed and was replaced by another, whose pose

was different, as we see from the footmarks, which show that the feet

were attached with lead in hollows. Probably the old inscription was

renewed in archaic letters when this second statue was set up, the

older letters being retained, perhaps, to conceal the theft. The

original statue was removed by the first century B. C., or perhaps

under Nero;[1508] the new one was also inscribed as the work of

Polykleitos. A base of the Hadrianic or Antonine age has been found in

Rome, inscribed with the names Polykleitos and Pythokles.[1509] Since

the footmarks do not agree with those of either one of the Olympia

statues, Petersen believes that the existing footmarks are due to an

older use of the base and that they have nothing to do with the statue

of Pythokles. Perhaps the statue on the Roman base was the original

one by Polykleitos removed from Olympia to Rome, though it is possible

that it was only a copy, the original being elsewhere in Rome. While

the later statue at Olympia had the feet squarely on the ground, the

original one stood on the right foot, the left being drawn back and

turned out, touching the ground only with the ball. Hence the left

knee must have turned outwards, a natural position, if the head of

the statue was turned slightly to the left. In other words, this is

the usual Polykleitan scheme. Furtwaengler has made a strong though

hardly convincing attempt to identify this original statue with a copy

surviving in two replicas at Rome and Munich, which, as he believes,

fit the conditions of the statue of Pythokles.[1510] These copies

represent a nude youth standing with the weight of the body on the

right leg, the left drawn back and outwards. The head is turned to

the left, the right arm is held close to the side (the hand, perhaps,

once holding a fillet), and the left forearm is outstretched from the

elbow and holds an aryballos in the hand. The two works are manifestly

Polykleitan in style—the body, head, and hair treatment resembling that

of the _Doryphoros_. He assumed that the feet corresponded in scale

with the footmarks on the Olympia base.

Helbig, in the first edition of his _Fuehrer_, recognized the kinship

between the Vatican statuette and the _Doryphoros_ of Polykleitos,

and was prone to accept Furtwaengler’s identification; but later

on, in the third edition, he ascribed the statuette only to the

Polykleitan circle and denied that its foot position corresponded

with that of the Pythokles base. Amelung also, while accepting its

Polykleitan character, has shown that the feet of the statuette are

closer together than those on the Olympia base and are placed at a

slightly different angle. As for the Munich statue, both Helbig and

Amelung have ruled it out of the evidence. The head, though similar

to that of the statuette, also discloses marked differences, and the

legs of the two works do not have the same pose. Loewy agrees with

Amelung that the statue of Pythokles conformed with the type of the

_Diadoumenos_—especially with the Vaison copy (see Fig. 28)—and with

that of the _Doryphoros_.[1511] We can not, therefore, safely assume

that the statue of Pythokles has been recovered in any existing

copy.[1512] A further variant of the works just discussed should be

mentioned here—the beautiful marble statue of a boy victor in Dresden,

known as the _Dresden Boy_ (Fig. 45).[1513] In this statue the leg

position is nearly like that indicated by the marks on the Pythokles

basis, though the left foot is not set so far back nor its tip so far

out. The head is turned to the left and slightly lowered, the right

arm hung to the side, and the left forearm was outstretched, the hand

doubtless holding some athletic article, at which the boy is looking

down, perhaps a diskos[1514] or a fillet. This beautiful athlete

statue has many stylistic points in common with the _Diadoumenos_, and

shows similar Attic influence, and its original may be referred with

Furtwaengler to the later period of the master himself. It gives us an

excellent idea how Polykleitos may have made his Olympia boy victors

appear. A more remote variant seems to be furnished by a fourth-century

B. C. bronze statuette of a youthful athlete in the Louvre.[1515] Here

the position of the feet, the turn of the head, and the direction of

the gaze are the same as in the _Dresden Boy_. However, as the right

arm is raised horizontally, Furtwaengler believed that the right hand

held a fillet which the youth is letting fall into the palm of the left.

[Illustration: FIG. 45.—Statue of a Boy Victor (the _Dresden Boy_).

Albertinum, Dresden.]

That statues of pentathletes at Olympia were also represented in

motion is shown by the footmarks on the recovered base of one of the

two statues mentioned by Pausanias as set up in honor of the Elean

Aischines, who won two victories some time between Ols. 126 and 132 (=

276 and 252 B. C.).[1516] These marks show that the statue represented

the victor in violent movement, since the left foot was turned outwards

and the right one was brought almost to the edge of the base.

We shall next consider in some detail how the pentathlete may have been

represented at Olympia in the three characteristic contests of jumping,

diskos-throwing, and javelin-throwing. We have already discussed the

runner, and in a future section we shall discuss the wrestler, both of

whom contended in these events not only in the pentathlon, but also in

the corresponding independent competitions.

JUMPERS.

Jumping was a well-known contest in heroic days. In Homer, however,

it did not take place at the games of Patroklos, but only at those

held by King Alkinoos.[1517] Quintus Smyrnæus has the Trojan heroes

contend in jumping,[1518] and the contest goes back to mythology.[1519]

Though Plato does not mention it, Aristotle does.[1520] Later it became

an essential part of the pentathlon, though never an independent

contest at the great games. It was probably considered to be the

most representative feature of the pentathlon, perhaps because of

the customary use of the _halteres_ in the physical exercises of the

gymnasium. Jumping-weights were, in fact, the special symbol of the

pentathlon, and, as we saw in the preceding chapter, were often the

definitive attributes indicated on statues of pentathletes.[1521] We

shall next discuss the appearance and use of such jumping-weights.

Their form is often a sure indication of the date of a statue.

Juethner has made a careful study of the different shapes of

_halteres_ and his conclusions have been followed, for the most part,

by Gardiner.[1522] The _halteres_ do not appear in Homer, but were

in existence at least by the beginning of the sixth century B. C.,

and a little later they probably appeared on pentathlete statues.

To this period belongs the lead weight from Eleusis now in Athens,

whose inscription records that it was dedicated by one Epainetos to

commemorate his victory in jumping.[1523] On vase-paintings of the

sixth and fifth centuries B. C., we see numerous types, but two main

ones. Early b.-f. vases show a semicircular piece of metal or stone

with a deep depression on one side for a finger grip, the two club-like

ends being equal (as in Figs. 36A and 44). In the early fifth century

B. C., a club-like type came in, which shows many modifications in

the size and shape of the ends.[1524] In the fifth century B. C., the

second main type appeared, of an elongated semispherical form, thickest

in the middle and with the ends pointed or rounded. These correspond

with the “archaic” ones, which Pausanias saw on the figure of _Agon_

in the dedicatory group of Mikythos at Olympia[1525] and describes as

forming half an elongated circle and so fastened as to let the fingers

pass through. We have two stone examples of this type: one found at

Corinth, now in the Polytechnic Institute in Athens,[1526] in which a

hole is cut behind the middle for the fingers and thumbs, and a more

primitive single one from Olympia.[1527] Philostratos divides the Greek

jumping-weights into “long” and “spherical,”[1528] which Juethner

identifies with the two types just discussed. Gardiner, however, finds

this impossible, since Pausanias speaks of one type as “archaic,”

and he consequently thinks that these were no longer in use in the

time of Philostratos. After the fifth century B. C. we have little

evidence about _halteres_ until Roman days, when a cylindrical type

appears on Roman copies of Greek statues of athletes, on mosaics and

wall-paintings.[1529] Thus it appears on the tree-trunk in two athlete

statues in Dresden[1530] and the Pitti Gallery in Florence,[1531]

and on the Lateran athlete mosaic from Tusculum of the imperial

period.[1532] In Roman days jumping-weights were used for the most part

in medical gymnastics, like our dumb-bells.[1533]

Philostratos says that the jump was the most difficult part of the

pentathlon.[1534] It never existed as an independent competition

despite its popularity in Greece. This popularity is attested by the

frequency with which it is depicted on vases from the sixth century

B. C. onward. Here the jumper is regularly shown with weights, and

we can assume that many pentathlete statues were so represented, the

sculptor ordinarily copying the kind of weight which was in use in his

own age. While Philostratos in his day thought that the use of weights

was merely to aid in exercise, Aristotle long before had rightly

understood that the jumper could make a longer jump with than without

them,[1535] a fact easily proved by the feats of modern jumpers. While

the modern record for the running broad jump is 25 feet 3 inches,[1536]

an English athlete jumped 29 feet 7 inches with the use of 5-pound

weights,[1537] and a German officer in full uniform jumped 23 feet

from a springboard.[1538] The recorded jumps of Phaÿllos at Delphi and

of Chionis at Olympia, the former 55 feet and the latter 52, can not,

however, be explained as ordinary broad jumps, even if we assume that

the Greek jumper was far superior to the modern one. Such jumps would

be impossible even with springboards or raised platforms, and we have

no evidence that the Greeks used such devices. We might explain them

on the theory of triple jumps[1539]—though the difficulty of such a

solution is very great—or simply as mistakes in the records. Thus the

record of Phaÿllos is found in a late epigram, in which this athlete is

also said to have thrown the diskos 105 feet.[1540] That of Chionis is,

to be sure, given by Africanus.[1541] But it is more than probable that

νβʹ (52) of his record should read κβʹ (22), since the Armenian Latin

text reads _duos et viginti cubitus_.[1542]

Vase-paintings tell us how the _halteres_ were used.[1543] The jumper

swung them forward and upward until they were level with or higher than

the head; then he brought them down, bending the body forward until

the hands were below the knees, the jump taking place on the return

swing. We find the preliminary swing represented most commonly on the

vases;[1544] we also see on them the top of the upward swing,[1545]

the bottom of the downward swing,[1546] the jumper in midair,[1547] and

the moment just before alighting.[1548] The act of landing is seen on

an Etruscan wall-painting from a tomb at Chiusi.[1549] Running jumps

are the ones most commonly depicted.[1550]

The representation of the jump, therefore, was specially adapted to the

vase-painter and not to the sculptor. If any movement in the jump could

have been represented to advantage in sculpture, it would have been the

early position in which the weights were swung forward and upwards.

This is the one represented on an incised bronze diskos from Sicily

now in the British Museum,[1551] where an athlete, with his right leg

drawn back for the spring, is holding the weights in his outstretched

hands. A small finely modelled bronze statuette dating from the middle

of the fifth century B. C., in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, may

represent a jumper either just taking off, or perhaps just finishing

the jump.[1552] The athlete is standing with his left foot advanced,

his knees bent back, and his body leaning forward, and is holding

both arms in front, the palms downwards. Such a concentrated attitude

reminds us strongly of Myron, under whose influence this statuette

must have been made. Some have interpreted it as the representation

of a diver, though the hands seem to be held too far apart and the

body wrongly poised for that position, as we see it in a statuette

of a diver from Perugia.[1553] More likely a jumper is intended, as

the attitude is very similar to that depicted on several vases.[1554]

However, as the jumper has no _halteres_, it can not represent a

pentathlete, but must be an ordinary gymnasium athlete.

DISKOBOLOI.

The diskos-throw (δισκοβολία) goes back to mythology and heroic

days.[1555] In Homer, at the games of Patroklos, Achilles casts a metal

mass called the σόλος.[1556] This was the primitive type of diskos.

Of such early contests and feats of strength we have a good record in

the red-sandstone mass, weighing 143.5 kilograms (= 315 pounds), which

has been found at Olympia, marked with a sixth-century inscription

to the effect that one Bybon threw it over his head.[1557] There is

nothing athletic, however, about the use of such a stone or of the

Homeric _solos_. The diskos was also known to Homer.[1558] It was of

stone, and in Pindar the heroes Nikeus, Kastor, and Iolaos still hurl

the stone diskos instead of the metal one of the poet’s day.[1559] The

stone diskos appears on sixth-century vases as a white object,[1560]

but metal ones were introduced at the end of the sixth century B.

C. A bronze one from Kephallenia (?) in the British Museum has a

sixth-century inscription in the Doric dialect and in the alphabet

of the Ionian Islands, which gives the dedication of Exoïdas to the

Dioskouroi.[1561] Several others have been found in different parts of

Greece, especially at Olympia.[1562] Pausanias says that boys used a

lighter diskos than men.[1563]

While only unimportant monuments outside of vase-paintings illustrate

the jump, those illustrating the diskos-throw are rich and varied,

including not only vases, but statues, statuettes, small bronzes,

reliefs, coins, and gems.[1564]

In his careful attempt at reconstructing the method of casting the

diskos, E. N. Gardiner has distinguished seven different positions,

which are illustrated by the monuments.[1565] He shows that while the

swing of the quoit was always the same, _i. e._, in a vertical and

not in a horizontal arc, and the throw was invariably made from a

position like that of Myron’s statue, the preliminary and certain other

movements varied. It will be well, before discussing representations

of the diskos-thrower in sculpture, very briefly to recapitulate his

summary of positions, using the evidence which he and others have

collected. First, the preliminary position or stance, with three

variations: either the position of the _Standing Diskobolos_ of the

Vatican (Pl. 6), which occurs in bronzes, but not on vases; or the

position in which the diskobolos raises the quoit with the left hand

level with the shoulder, which occurs on vase-paintings;[1566] or that

in which the diskos is held outwards in both hands level with the

waist.[1567] From any of these stance positions, either with or without

change of feet, we reach the second position, in which the diskos is

raised in both hands and extended either horizontally to the front

and level with the head,[1568] or held above the head.[1569] Thirdly

the diskos is swung downwards and rests upon the right forearm, with

either foot forward.[1570] This position leads up to that of Myron’s

statue, in which the diskos is swung as far back as possible (Pls. 22,

23, and Figs. 34, 35).[1571] The fifth position is the beginning of

the forward swing, when the body is straightened.[1572] As the diskos

swings downwards and the left foot advances, the sixth position is

reached.[1573] Lastly the right foot is advanced after the diskos is

cast.[1574]

[Illustration: FIG. 46.—Bronze Statuette of a _Diskobolos_. Metropolitan

Museum, New York.]

A victor statue of a diskobolos might conceivably have taken any one of

these seven positions. We have already considered the two statues, the

_Standing Diskobolos_ of Naukydes in the Vatican (Pl. 6) and that of

Myron (Pls. 22, 23, and Figs. 34, 35), the two most important works in

sculpture to illustrate positions of the throw. The statue of Naukydes

is not taking aim, as Juethner maintains, nor looking down the course.

The head is inclined a little to the right and downwards, and the eyes

are directed to the ground only a short distance away, thus measuring

the distance the left foot is to be advanced, when the diskos is

finally swung forward for the cast, which takes place off the left and

not off the right foot. The right forearm is rightly restored, as it

thus appears on bronzes which imitate this stance.[1575] A different

stance is shown in a fine bronze statuette in the Metropolitan Museum

(Fig. 46),[1576] dating from about 480 B. C. This little masterpiece

of the transition period of Attic art, still disclosing archaic traits,

represents a diskobolos standing firmly on both legs, the right being

slightly advanced, and holding with the left hand the diskos level with

the head. That he is preparing for intense action is seen by the way

in which the toes catch the ground. Though the right arm is broken off

from below the shoulder, we can infer from vase-paintings which show

diskoboloi in the same position[1577] that it was lowered and bent

at the elbow and the hand left open. From this position the diskos

will be raised high above the head with both hands, as in a bronze in

Athens,[1578] which illustrates Gardiner’s second position.

The movement is carried a little further—showing the moment of

transition to the downward swing or third position—in a fifth-century

B. C. bronze in the British Museum.[1579] Here a nude, beardless

athlete is represented standing with the right foot advanced and

holding the diskos in both hands before him above the head. The right

hand grasps the quoit underneath and the left at the top.[1580] The

third position is well illustrated by the tiny archaic bronze on the

cover of a lebes in the British Museum,[1581] which represents a nude

and beardless youth standing with the left foot advanced and with the

left hand raised, while the right holds the diskos. Almost the same

pose is also seen in a small bronze in the Antiquarium, Berlin.[1582]

Two archaic statuettes from the Akropolis, now in the National Museum

in Athens, and recently published, should be mentioned in this

connection.[1583] The more archaic of these represents a youth in an

attitude which has been misunderstood. De Ridder interpreted it as

a dancing man, while Staïs thought it represented a youth walking

along with his left hand raised as if to ward off a blow. White,

however, showed that it (like another less perfect example from the

Akropolis, no. 6594) represents a diskobolos standing with the right

foot advanced and holding the diskos in front of the body with the

right hand, resting it against the flat of the forearm, while the left

arm is raised above the head. Thus it is another example illustrating

the initial stage of Gardiner’s third position. The other statuette,

wrongly mounted, should, according to White, be made to lean further

forward; the knees are bent, the body swung forward from the hips, the

head thrown back and upward, the right arm stretched forth with the

flat of the forearm uppermost and the left similarly placed. Gardiner

and Staïs interpreted this figure as a charioteer, and de Ridder as

either a jumper, who has raised his _halteres_ preparatory to the

leap, or a diskobolos. White has shown that the position of the right

arm proves it to be a diskobolos, represented in a movement between

Gardiner’s third and fourth positions, just prior to that of Myron’s

statue. De Ridder believed both statues to be Aeginetan, but no. 6614,

when compared with Myron’s statue, is certainly Attic, and resemblances

in the treatment of the hair, eyes, and mouth show that both statuettes

are of the same school. It has often been said that Myron’s great

statue had no predecessor, as it certainly had no successor. Its

fame was enhanced by the assumption that Myron passed at one stride

from such statues as the _Tyrannicides_ to that complex work. Such

works, however, as these statuettes—especially no. 6614—show that the

preliminary problems had been solved on a humble scale before Myron

undertook his consummate work. Here, then, we have works by artists who

belonged to the very movement which produced Myron.

For the last three positions analyzed by Gardiner (nos. 5, 6, 7) our

only illustrations appear to be vase-paintings.

AKONTISTAI.

Javelin-throwing (ἀκοντίζειν, ἀκοντισμός) was very old and was

universal in Greece, its origin being traced back to mythology.[1584]

Stassoff tried to trace it to Oriental sources,[1585] but inasmuch as

no such contest is shown on the monuments of Egypt or Assyria, Juethner

is probably right in assuming that it was Greek in origin. In Homer

it was a separate contest at the games of Patroklos.[1586] Juethner

has distinguished two types of javelin-throwing in the historical

period: one in which the spear or akontion was pointed more or less

upwards,[1587] the other in which it was held horizontally.[1588] Only

the former type is represented in illustrations of purely athletic

competitions, the latter type referring to illustrations of the

practical use of javelin-throwing, _i. e._, in war or in the chase.

Vase-paintings of palæstra scenes almost invariably show javelins with

blunt points; the throwers’ heads are frequently turned back before the

throw, and there is no sign of any target. On vase-paintings, however,

which represent practical javelin-throwing from horseback, the javelins

are pointed. This proves that in athletic contests the throw was for

distance and not at a mark.[1589] The javelin used in Greek games had

several names, ἄκων, ἀκόντιον, etc.[1590] It was about the height of

a man, as we know from its appearance on a Spartan relief,[1591] and

from many vase-paintings representing palæstra scenes (Fig. 44). It was

thrown by means of a thong (ἀγκύλη, Lat. _amentum_), which was fastened

near the centre and consisted of a detachable leathern strip from 12

to 18 inches long. This was bound tight, with a loop left, into which

the thrower inserted his first and middle fingers.[1592] The method

of casting is seen on many vases.[1593] Gardiner has analyzed three

different positions from vase-paintings. Usually the throw was made

with a short run, though standing throws are also pictured.[1594] First

the thrower extends the right arm back to its full length and, with the

left hand opposite the right breast, holds the end of the spear and

pushes it back, holding it downwards or horizontally.[1595] Next he

starts to run, turning his body sidewise and extending his left arm to

the front. On a r.-f. Munich kylix[1596] we see the first and second

positions. The youth on the left is steadying the javelin with the left

hand, while the one on the right has just let it go. A further turn of

the body to the right takes place and the right knee is bent, while the

right shoulder is dropped and the hand is turned outwards.[1597] The

actual cast is very uncommon on vase-paintings, because of difficulty

in representing it.[1598]

Because of the assumed lack of sculptural monuments, Reisch[1599] and

others have wrongly doubted whether javelin-throwers were represented

in sculpture as victors. There certainly is no a priori reason why

athletic sculptors might not have made statues in any one of the three

poses which Gardiner has distinguished on vase-paintings, even if this

contest, like jumping, was better adapted to the painter than to the

sculptor. Furthermore, we shall attempt to show that such monuments

actually did exist.

[Illustration: FIG. 47.—Bust of the _Doryphoros_, after Polykleitos, by

Apollonios. Museum of Naples.]

[Illustration: FIG. 48.—Statue of the _Doryphoros_, after Polykleitos.

Vatican Museum, Rome.]

The best example of such a javelin-thrower seems to be the

_Doryphoros_, the most famous statue of Polykleitos, in which he

illustrated his canon of athletic forms. The _Doryphoros_ exists in

many copies, all of which agree fairly well in style and proportions.

K. Friedrichs, in his monograph _Der Doryphoros des Polyklets_, which

appeared in 1863,[1600] was the first to show that the statue found

in 1797 in the Palaistra at Pompeii, and now in the Naples Museum

(Pl. 4), was a copy of the original bronze, as it shows all the

peculiarities of the master’s style known to us from tradition.[1601]

Mahler enumerates 7 statues, 17 torsos, and 36 heads copied from the

original, and the fine, but expressionless, Augustan bronze bust from

the villa of the Pisos, Herculaneum, inscribed as the work of the

sculptor Apollonios, son of Archios, of Athens, which is now in Naples

(Fig. 47).[1602] The best-preserved copy of the statue, the one in

Naples, is surpassed in workmanship by the green basalt torso in the

Uffizi Gallery in Florence[1603] and by the marble one formerly in the

possession of Count Pourtalès in Berlin.[1604] A poorer copy is to be

found in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican (Fig. 48).[1605] In these

copies we see a thick-set youth standing with the weight of the body

on the right leg, the left one thrown back and touching the ground

only with the toes, seemingly ready to advance, though the shoulders

do not partake of the walking action. He is represented, therefore,

at the moment of transition from walking to a rest position—in other

words in a purely theoretical pose—at rest, indeed, but just ready

again to advance.[1606] His left hand held a short _akontion_ over the

shoulder and not the long spear (δόρυ), whence the name _Doryphoros_

or spear-bearer is derived.[1607] The head is turned to the same side

as the advanced foot, which perhaps is an example of the monotony

in the work of the master complained of by ancient critics; variety

would have been attained by turning it in the opposite direction.

In the carefully worked bronze original, which, however, must have

had an insignificant intellectual aspect, the apparently simple

problem—hitherto vainly attempted in Greek art—of representing a

man standing almost motionless, but full of life, was for the first

time solved. It is a long way from the motionless figures known as

“Apollos,” with their arms glued to the sides and their legs close

together, to this vigorous athlete. As we have already indicated,

Greek art developed the first step beyond the “Apollos” by further

advancing one leg of a statue and, it may be, extending one forearm

horizontally. The next step was to place one foot slightly sidewise and

thus relieve it of the weight of the body—the well-known scheme of the

“free” and “rest” leg. At first the relaxation was slight, the “free”

leg not being intended to move forward, nor the parts of the body to be

much shifted. Polykleitos’ innovation consisted in having the legs so

placed, one behind the other, that the figure, while apparently resting

on one,[1608] seemed to be advancing. On the ground of the familiar

passage in Pliny cited, it has been generally assumed that Polykleitos

introduced the walking motive into sculpture. However, this motive

was probably the invention of the earlier Argive school, borrowed by

Polykleitos for his canon, as seen in the statue of the so-called

_Munich King_ (_Zeus_?), of the Glyptothek, which Furtwaengler has

shown to be a work of about 460 B. C.[1609]

Does the _Doryphoros_ represent a pentathlete victor? Since Quintilian

says that it appears ready for war or for the exercises of the

palæstra,[1610] Helbig and others have classed it as a warrior, perhaps

one of the _Achilleae_ mentioned by Pliny[1611] as set up in the Greek

gymnasia. Furtwaengler stressed the incorrectness of calling an athlete

a _Doryphoros_[1612]—a name originally given to an attendant bearing a

lance (δόρυ), and so inapplicable to the statue of Polykleitos, which

represented not a server, but an athlete carrying an akontion (witness

the Berlin gem already mentioned)—but later[1613] concluded that an

athlete statue with the akontion might have been vaguely described in

late art jargon as a spear-bearer. Consequently he found probable the

interpretation of the various _doryphoroi_ mentioned by Pliny[1614] as

victor statues, and thought that the original of the _Doryphoros_ of

Polykleitos might very well have represented an Olympic pentathlete,

which was originally set up at Argos, where it was also adopted for a

figure on the heroic grave-relief already mentioned, which represented

the youth with a spear over his shoulder standing beside a horse. Bulle

also thinks that the statue represented a victor athlete set up in some

sacred spot.

For its interpretation as the statue of a pentathlete victor, an

added proof is furnished by the discovery of a late Roman copy of

it at Olympia.[1615] This may very well have been the dedication of

an athlete of late date—of the first century B. C. or of the first

A. D.—who preferred to be represented by a copy of the famous work of

Polykleitos rather than by a new statue. Treu’s contention that the

torso is too large for a victor statue,[1616] because Lucian says

that the Hellanodikai did not allow statues of victors to be over

life-size,[1617] falls to the ground, since we know that exceptions

to the rule existed at Olympia.[1618] He agrees with Collignon[1619]

in interpreting it as a decorative statue, which surely involves an

anachronism in the middle of the fifth century B. C.; and his argument

that its good preservation shows it to have been set up in an interior

room, perhaps of the Bouleuterion, in whose ruins it was found,

adducing this as additional evidence of its decorative character,

is no proof, since victor statues at Olympia seem sometimes to have

been housed.[1620] Thus the theory that the _Doryphoros_ represents a

pentathlete victor is well within the range of possibilities.

Two bronze statuettes in the Metropolitan Museum,[1621] New York,

belonging to the second half of the fifth century B. C., may be

representations on a small scale of pentathletes with the _akontion_.

The first shows a youth standing with the weight of the body on the

left foot, the right drawn slightly back. The left hand, held close to

the side, may have carried an akontion, the right arm being extended.

The other, more carelessly executed, represents a youth standing

similarly with his weight on the left foot, the right being drawn back.

Here again the left arm is hanging by the side, and probably held the

same attribute as the first statuette. The right arm is also bent at

the elbow. A patera may have been held in the outstretched hand of

each. The square build, short thighs, flat abdomen, long skull, and

oval face are all Polykleitan characteristics, and remind us of the

series of kindred works already discussed, which, as Furtwaengler

believed, went back to the original statue of the boy wrestler Xenokles

at Olympia, the work of the younger Polykleitos.[1622]

WRESTLERS.

Wrestling (πάλη) is perhaps the oldest, and in any case is the most

universal, of athletic sports. Wall-paintings at Beni-Hasan on the

Nile, dating from about 2000 B. C., show nearly all the grips and

throws now known.[1623] Plato says that this sport was instituted in

mythical times.[1624] In Greece its origin is lost in mythology.[1625]

The very name _palaistra_, “wrestling school,” indicates the early

importance of the contest. It was one of the most popular of Greek

sports from the time of Homer down.[1626] This popularity is shown by

the frequency with which it appears in mythology and art. Early b.-f.

vases picture Herakles wrestling with giants and monsters. Here we see

the same holds and throws as in the palæstra scenes on later r.-f.

vases. The whole history of coins down to imperial days shows such

scenes. No other exercise required so much strength and agility, and

consequently wrestling matches early became a part of the great games.

At Olympia wrestling was introduced in Ol. 18 (= 708 B. C.), the same

year in which the pentathlon was instituted.[1627] The boys’ match

appeared there less than a century later in Ol. 37 (= 632 B. C.).[1628]

Pausanias mentions statues erected to 36 victors (for 45 victories),

which makes this contest second only in importance to boxing there.

There were two sorts of wrestling in Greece, wrestling in the

proper sense (ὀρθὴ πάλη), where each tried to throw his antagonist

to the ground, making his shoulders touch three times, and ground

wrestling (κύλισις, ἁλίνδησις), where the fight was continued on

the ground by using every means, except biting and gouging, till one

was exhausted. The first kind was the only one used in the event

called πάλη at Olympia, as well as in the pentathlon; the other

was used only in the pankration. In this section we shall discuss

only the first.[1629] A recently discovered papyrus of the second

century A. D., containing brief instructions for wrestling lessons

intended to help the παιδοτρίβης, indicates that every movement in

the contest was systematically taught.[1630] The various positions

used—grips and throws—are shown by many monuments, vase-paintings,

gems, coins,[1631] statuettes, and statues. The vases[1632] especially

illustrate the various holds assumed by wrestlers during a bout—front

(σύστασις), side (παράθεσις), wrist, arm, neck (τραχηλίζειν), and body

holds. Still others illustrate the various throws—flying mare,[1633]

heave,[1634] buttocks and cross-buttocks (ἕδραν στρέφειν), and tripping

(ὑποσκελίζειν). We here reproduce two such paintings. The first,

the obverse of a r.-f. amphora from Vulci, signed by Andokides and

now in Berlin (Fig. 49),[1635] shows two positions. In the central

group the wrestler on the left side has grasped his opponent’s left

wrist with his right hand. The latter, however, has rendered the grip

useless by passing his own right hand behind his opponent’s back and

grasping his right arm just below the elbow. In this way he keeps

his opponent from turning round, which movement would not have been

possible if the latter had grasped him by the upper arm. In the group

of wrestlers to the right we see an illustration of a body hold.

Here a youthful athlete has lifted his bearded antagonist clear off

his feet preliminary to throwing him. However, the one lifted from

the ground has caught his foot around his opponent’s leg, which

is an illustration of tripping. On a r.-f. kylix in the University

of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia (Fig. 50a),[1636] we see a

body hold preparatory to the heave; here to the right are two youths

wrestling, and to the left stands a bearded trainer with his rod. One

wrestler has already lost his balance and is supporting himself with

both hands on the ground, while the other with his left hand holds the

other’s right arm down, and with his right prepares to throw him over

his head.

[Illustration: FIG. 49.—Wrestling Scenes. From Obverse of an Amphora,

by Andokides. Museum of Berlin.]

[Illustration: FIG. 5O.—Wrestling and Boxing Scenes. From a r.-f.

Kylix. University of Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia.]

[Illustration: FIG. 51.—Bronze Statues of Wrestlers. Museum of Naples.]

From vase-paintings, then, we can see what positions the sculptor might

have used in representing groups of wrestlers. For the positions of

individual figures of wrestlers, we are guided by several statues and

small bronzes. The preliminary position (σύστασις) seems to be best

represented by the bronze statues of wrestling boys discovered at

Herculaneum in 1754, and now in the Museum of Naples (Fig. 51).[1637]

These figures have been variously interpreted as runners,[1638]

diskoboloi,[1639] and wrestlers. Their attitude, bent forward with

outstretched hands, implies the utmost expectancy. If they were

runners, they would lean further forward; as they are standing, they

could not begin to run without loss of time in raising the heels of the

forward feet. If, on the other hand, they represented diskos-throwers

at the moment just subsequent to the throw, their right feet would be

advanced and not their left, in order to recover their balance, as

we have seen above in considering Gardiner’s seventh position. The

position of their arms, however, and the expression of their faces

make it almost certain that they are wrestlers eagerly watching for an

opening. The two statues certainly belong together, and may have been

set up as antagonists in the villa in whose ruins they were found. F.

Hauser was the first to show that the form of body and head in both was

the same.[1640] While most critics believe that they are Hellenistic

in origin, Bulle is certainly right in showing that the body ideal

expressed is Lysippan—_i. e._, long legs and slender trunk—even if

he goes too far in ascribing them to the master himself, basing his

conclusion chiefly on the similarity of their ears with those of the

_Apoxyomenos_ (Pl. 29). A good illustration of a hand or wrist grip

is afforded by a small wrestler group, which decorates the rim of a

bronze bowl from Borsdorf.[1641] This is a poorly wrought Etruscan work

of fifth-century B. C. Greek origin. The two wrestlers have already

gripped and their heads are close together, though the lunge in each

case is much exaggerated. Similar are the two groups on the rim of a

bronze bowl in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.[1642] A third-century

B. C. Etruscan cista in the Metropolitan Museum,[1643] has a handle on

the lid in the form of two nude wrestlers, whose bodies are inclined

toward one another, their heads in contact, and their arms locked

behind their heads. Groups of wrestlers in similar attitudes commonly

appear as cista handles.[1644] A portion of a bronze group of wrestlers

was dredged from the sea near Kythera and is now in Athens.[1645] The

heave is represented by a metope from the Theseion representing the

wrestling bout between Theseus and Kerkyon.[1646] A later moment is

seen in a bronze wrestling-group in Paris.[1647] The cross-buttocks is

illustrated by a small Hellenistic bronze group in the collection of

James Loeb in Munich, of which five other copies are known.[1648] Here

two athletes, one bearded and the other beardless, are just ending the

bout. The youth is in the power of the man, who stands behind him and

presses him down by holding his arms backward. All the other replicas

differ from the Loeb example in that the victor has both legs and

not one in front of the right leg of the vanquished wrestler. A good

illustration of tripping is seen in another related series of groups

known to us in five bronze copies. These represent a wrestler on the

ground supporting himself on his left arm, while over him stands the

victor, whose left foot is twisted around the other’s right. These

groups are, like the preceding, also Roman provincial copies of a

Hellenistic original.[1649] The two groups are very similar, the only

real difference being that the vanquished wrestler in the second series

still has his left arm free and holds himself up on his right knee.

Both series seem to have been influenced by the marble pancratiast

group in the Uffizi (Pl. 25).[1650] The head of an athlete in the Museo

delle Terme, Rome,[1651] shows by its strongly projecting neck that

it comes from the statue either of a runner ready to start or of a

wrestler about to grip his adversary. The face is fourth-century B. C.

Attic in character and the head may, therefore, come from Euphranor’s

circle. Pliny speaks of a panting wrestler (_luctator anhelans_) by the

statuary Naukeros, which must have exhibited the contestant in intense

movement.[1652] It might have represented him after victory, as in the

painting of Parrhasios discussed above, which pictured a hoplitodrome

after the race, breathing hard.[1653] Pliny also mentions a painting of

a wrestler by Antidotos without describing it.[1654] As we have already

remarked, doubtless some of the _apoxyomenoi_ and _perixyomenoi_

mentioned by Pliny were also wrestlers.

Whether wrestling-groups were set up at Olympia is doubtful.

Chariot-groups were indeed common, but there is no reason why the

victorious wrestler should have had himself coupled with his defeated

opponent. Pausanias, moreover, mentions no such groups. We are

therefore safe in inferring that in most, if not in all, cases the

wrestler would content himself with a single statue, and this might

represent him in any position in which he was not actually interlocked

with his adversary. That such statues represented him both in repose

and in motion is attested by recovered bases. The footprints on the

base of the statue of the Elean wrestler Paianios, a victor of the

early third century B. C.,[1655] shows us that he was represented

as standing in repose, the weight of the body resting on the right

leg, the left being drawn back and touching the ground with the toes

only. A hole in the base may have been for a spear on which the

victor’s hand rested, though the statue is not that of a pentathlete.

The perfectly preserved footprints on the base of the statue of the

boy wrestler Xenokles by Polykleitos the Younger show that he was

represented as standing with his weight on the right leg, the left

being slightly advanced and to one side, though resting flat on the

ground. The head was probably turned a little to the right. Thus the

wrestler was poised ready to grip his adversary.[1656] This statue must

have been a favorite among athlete monuments, since the same motive

appears in various Roman copies, which Furtwaengler assigns to the

immediate circle of the pupils of Polykleitos. The statue of the Argive

wrestler Cheimon by Naukydes may have represented him in motion, since

Pausanias, in mentioning two statues of the victor, one in Olympia and

the other in the temple of Concord at Rome, says that they were among

the most famous works of that sculptor. From this encomium Reisch has

assumed that the one at Olympia was represented in lively motion.[1657]

BOXERS.

Boxing, like wrestling, was one of the oldest sports in Greece, as it

has been everywhere else. The fist is the simplest and most natural

of all weapons.[1658] Boxing was popular already in Homer, matches

being described both in the Iliad and the Odyssey.[1659] Homer speaks

of it as πυγμαχίη ἀλεγεινή,[1660] and this “painful” character is

also mentioned by Xenophanes.[1661] However, boxing was far older

than epic poetry. We have already seen that it was the only form of

real athletics in Aegean Crete. One of the oldest representations of

a boxing match is seen on the fragments of a bronze shield discovered

there in the grotto of Zeus on Mount Ida. Here on a single concentric

ring are seen two warriors, armed like Assyrians with corslets,

shields, and helmets, fighting with doubled fists.[1662] The high

antiquity of boxing in Greece is also shown by myths.[1663] At Olympia

Apollo is said to have beaten Ares,[1664] and Polydeukes won a victory

there.[1665] Apollo appears as the god of boxing in the Iliad,[1666]

and the Delphians sacrificed to Apollo Πύκτης.[1667] Herakles,

Polydeukes, Tydeus, and Theseus were all famed boxers; the latter was

said to have invented the art.[1668] The historical boxing match was

introduced at Olympia in Ol. 23 (= 688 B. C.), and Onomastos of Smyrna,

the first victor, instituted the rules of the contest.[1669] The boys’

contest was instituted in Ol. 41 (= 616 B. C.).[1670] It was by far the

most popular contest there. Of the 192 monuments erected to 187 victors

mentioned by Pausanias, 56, or nearly one-third, were erected to men

and boy boxers for 63 victories.

Greek boxing[1671] is conveniently divided into two periods by the kind

of glove used in the matches. From Homer down to the end of the fifth

century B. C., soft gloves (ἱμάντες, ἱμάντες λεπτοί or μειλίχαι) were

used; from then to late Roman days the heavy gloves (σφαῖραι or ἱμάντες

ὀξεῖς) were the fashion. The weighted Roman cestus was not used in the

Greek contest. Before discussing representations of boxers in art, we

shall devote a few words to these two kinds of boxing-gloves, which

frequently give us the date of a given monument.[1672] The Cretans are

thought to have worn boxing-gloves, as they seem to be visible on the

so-called _Boxer Vase_ from Hagia Triada (Fig. 1). Here, on the top and

lower two rows, a leather gauntlet appears to cover the arm to beyond

the elbow, being padded over the fist and confined at the wrist by a

strap. Mosso derives the later Greek glove, which appears on athlete

statues, from this primitive thong.[1673] In any case the antiquity

of the glove in Greece is attested by its origin being ascribed to

the myth of Amykos, king of the Bebrykes.[1674] Gloves were already

known to Homer, who speaks of “well-cut thongs of ox-hide.”[1675]

They are not mentioned in any detail before the time of Pausanias and

Philostratos, so that we are mostly dependent for our knowledge of them

on the monuments. The simplest form consisted of long, thin ox-hide

thongs, which were wound round the hands, the soft gloves (ἱμάντες

μαλακώτεροι or μειλίχαι) of later writers.[1676] They were used, not to

deaden the blow, but to increase its force. Vase-paintings show that

the thongs were about 10 or 12 feet long before being wound.[1677] On

the exterior of a r.-f. kylix from Vulci by Douris, in the British

Museum, showing chiefly boxing scenes, we see two youths standing

before a _paidotribes_ preparing to put on the thongs (Fig. 54).[1678]

One of them is holding the unwound thong in his outstretched hands.

A similar figure appears on the r.-f. vase in Philadelphia already

discussed (Fig. 50b), which represents a palæstra scene.[1679] This

scene has been wrongly interpreted as an illustration of the game

of σκαπέρδη described by Pollux[1680] as a sort of tug-of-war, the

unwound thong being explained as the rope used in this game,[1681] and

the hurling-sticks stuck in the ground at either end as goals instead

of akontia. A wound thong is seen hanging on the wall to the left.

Philostratos describes how the boxing thongs were put on,[1682] and

vase-paintings illustrate the method.[1683] The best example of the

thongs on statuary is afforded by the bronze arm found in the sea off

Antikythera (Cerigotto) (Fig. 52), which Svoronos[1684] believes to

be a remnant of the statue of the Nemean victor Kreugas of Epidamnos,

which stood in the temple of Apollo Lykios in Argos.[1685] Pausanias

says that Kreugas was crowned notwithstanding that he was killed by his

adversary Damoxenos, and his description of the soft glove corresponds

so closely with the one on the recovered arm that it seems as if it

had been written in the presence of the statue: “In those days boxers

did not yet wear the sharp thong (ἱμὰς ὀξύς) on each wrist, but boxed

with the soft straps (μειλίχαις), which they fastened under the hollow

of the hand in order that the fingers might be left bare; these soft

straps were thin thongs (ἱμάντες λεπτοί) of raw cowhide, plaited

together in an ancient fashion.”[1686] The strap allowed the ends of

the fingers to project, and was held together by a cord wound around

the forearm, just as Philostratos says. These μειλίχαι were used at

the great games through the fifth century B. C., and were continued in

the palæstra in the fourth. Early in the latter century the σφαῖραι

mentioned by Plato[1687] and other writers appeared. We see them

on Panathenaic vases of that century and on Etruscan cistæ of the

following one.[1688] About the same time the regular ἱμάντες ὀξεῖς came

in,[1689] but the old μειλίχαι or something similar were still used in

the exercises of the palæstra.[1690]

[Illustration: FIG. 52.—Bronze Arm of Statue of a Boxer, found in the

Sea off Antikythera. National Museum, Athens.]

[Illustration: FIG. 53.—Forearm with Glove. From the Statue of the

_Seated Boxer_ (Pl. 16). Museo delle Terme, Rome.]

Our best illustration of these more formidable gloves on statuary

is the gauntlet clearly represented on the forearms of the _Seated

Boxer_ of the Museo delle Terme (Fig. 53). Here a close-fitting

glove covers each forearm, leaving the upper joints of the fingers

free and the palm open. It extends to above the wrist and ends in a

rim of fur. Over it are drawn three thick bands of leather, which

cover the first joints of the fingers and are fastened together on

the outside of the hands with metal clasps. A soft pad keeps these

bands from chafing the fingers. They are kept in place and the wrists

are strengthened by two narrow straps which are interlaced several

times around hand and wrist. Similar gloves appear on the Sorrento

boxer in Naples (Fig. 57),[1691] on the bronze forearm of a statue

from Herculaneum in Naples,[1692] on a left fist found in 1887 in

the arena at Verona,[1693] and on many other statues and fragments.

The last representation in art of this sort of glove appears on the

Roman relief in the Lateran, which dates from the time of Trajan, and

represents a fight between two pugilists.[1694] The metal cestus was a

Roman invention. None of the late Greek writers—neither Plutarch, nor

Pausanias, nor Philostratos—makes any mention of this loaded glove. The

“sharp thongs” were enough to cause all the injuries mentioned by the

writers of the _Greek Anthology_.[1695] The cestus, perhaps used in the

later gladiatorial shows in Greece, but never in the great games there,

gave the death blow to real boxing. Virgil describes it and the vicious

results of its use.[1696]

There are fewer representations of boxing matches on vases than of

almost any other Greek sport, despite its great popularity. Gardiner

has collected a number of vase-paintings dating from the sixth to

the fourth centuries B. C., which illustrate the different positions

assumed by boxers in action—attack, slipping, ducking, and leg and arm

movements. We reproduce two from r.-f. kylikes in the British Museum.

In one by Douris (Fig. 54)[1697] we have, besides the group already

mentioned of two athletes preparing to put on thongs, three pairs of

boxers engaged in a bout. In two groups one of the contestants is

seen from behind; in all three the boxers extend their left arms for

guarding and draw the right back for hitting—the fists being level

with the shoulders. In one group we see the beginning of the fight, in

the other two the middle, perhaps, and the end of it, respectively. In

the last scene one contestant has fallen to the ground on his knee,

and his conqueror has swung his right hand far back for a final blow,

only to be stopped by the other, who raises his finger in token of

defeat. On the other vase we see, besides a scene from the pankration,

two pairs of boxers sparring (Fig. 55).[1698] Here in one group the

contestants do not have their fists doubled, but keep their fingers

opened. On an Attic b.-f. Panathenaic panel-amphora in the University

Museum in Philadelphia (Fig. 56),[1699] we see bearded boxers sparring,

while a boxer with thongs in his right hand stands to the right, and

a trainer with his rod at the left. Statues of victorious boxers

at Olympia were represented either in motion, _i. e._, probably in

the position of sparring, or in repose, like that of the boy boxer

Kyniskos by the elder Polykleitos discussed in the preceding chapter.

The same foot position visible on the _Kyniskos_ base[1700] occurs

on two other Olympia bases, which, therefore, must have supported

Polykleitan statues represented in repose. One of these, in the form

of an _astragalos_, will be discussed further on in our treatment

of pancratiast statues; the other supported the statue of the boy

boxer Hellanikos of Lepreon, who won a victory in Ol. 89 (= 424 B.

C.).[1701] In this case the statue was also life-size, the left foot

was firmly placed, and the right was set back resting on the ball, the

stride being a little longer than in the case of the _Kyniskos_. Three

other Olympia bases supported statues of boxers represented in repose,

those of the boy Tellon from the Arkadian town Oresthasion,[1702]

of the Epidaurian Aristion by the elder Polykleitos,[1703] and of

the Rhodian Eukles by Naukydes of the Polykleitan circle.[1704]

Furtwaengler believed that a number of existing statues of the Hermes

type reproduced the statue of Aristion, because of a similar foot

position. Among them the Pentelic marble one in Lansdowne House,

London, is the best preserved, and most faithfully reproduces the

Polykleitan style.[1705]

[Illustration: FIG. 54.—Boxing Scenes. From a r.-f. Kylix by Douris.

British Museum, London.]

[Illustration: FIG. 55.—Boxing and Pankration Scenes. From a r.-f.

Kylix. British Museum, London.]

[Illustration: FIG. 56.—Boxing Scene. From a b.-f. Panathenaic

Panel-Amphora. University of Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia.]

[Illustration: FIG. 57.—Statue of a Boxer, from Sorrento. By Koblanos

of Aphrodisias. Museum of Naples.]

We may infer how a Polykleitan statue of a boxer at rest looked, from

the Roman copy of one in Kassel.[1706] Here a youth just out of boyhood

is represented as standing with the weight of the body resting upon the

right leg and the head turned to the right. The forearms are covered

with gloves, the right fist being raised for attack and the left for

defense. Another marble statue, representing a boxer in repose, was

found in a fragmentary condition in Sorrento in 1888, and is now in the

National Museum at Naples (Fig. 57).[1707] It is inscribed as the work

of Koblanos of Aphrodisias in Karia, whom we know as a copyist of the

first century A. D., and who was active in reproducing Greek works for

the Roman market.[1708] The body forms are too badly injured for us

accurately to date the original from which this copy was made, but the

head gives us the clue, as its style appears to be a connecting link

between that of the seated statue of _Herakles_, in the Palazzo Altemps

in Rome[1709] and the Munich _Oil-pourer_ (Pl. 11),[1710] as it shows

affinity to both. Though Sogliano referred it to the school of Lysippos

and Juethner to the beginning of the fourth century B. C., it shows

indubitable Myronian characteristics and may have been the work of

Myron’s pupil Lykios, who is known to us as an athlete sculptor.[1711]

In this statue the youth is resting his weight on his right leg, the

left, with full sole on the ground, being turned to one side. The left

forearm is extended outwards and to the side, the head leaning toward

the right leg—in other words, the athlete is represented in an attitude

similar to that of the _Idolino_ (Pl. 14). As there is an olive crown

in the hair, it seems reasonable to conclude that the original statue

was that of an Olympic victor.

By the beginning of the fifth century B. C., if not earlier, boxers

were represented in violent motion, as we saw in the case of the statue

of the boy boxer Glaukos, by the Aeginetan sculptor Glaukias,[1712]

represented in the act of sparring (σκιαμαχῶν). Whether he was

represented as facing an imaginary antagonist or as merely punching

a bag we can not say, though the latter seems the more probable. The

motive is depicted in many art works, notably in the figure of a youth

punching a bag which hangs from a tree on the Ficoroni cista in the

Museo Kircheriano, Rome,[1713] and in that of another represented

on the so-called Peter cista in the Museo Gregoriano Etrusco of the

Vatican, whose engraved scenes show exercises of the palæstra.[1714]

The same motive is seen also in a statuette in the Museo Chiaramonti of

the Vatican, which is proved to be that of a boy boxer by the glove on

the right hand.[1715] Here the boy is represented with the right foot

far advanced and rising on the toes of both feet, the right shoulder

being drawn back, the right forearm raised, and the left extended

forwards. The marble torso of a copy of the same original on a large

scale is in Berlin.[1716] While Amelung believes that the original of

both statuette and torso was a bronze of the second half of the fourth

century B. C., Furtwaengler thought that the torso went back to the

severe style of the fifth century, and that this original once stood in

Olympia, where it might have served as the inspiration for a carelessly

worked bronze statuette of a boxer found there, which repeats the

motive of the torso and similarly belongs to the fifth century B. C.

(Fig. 2).[1717] The Olympia statuette also has the right foot advanced,

the upper part of the body leans backward, and the left arm with open

palm is outstretched for defense, while the right with balled fist

is held up ready to strike. It certainly is a votive offering of an

Olympic victor—doubtless one of the small reductions, which were not

uncommonly erected for economy’s sake.[1718] Whether the Aeginetan

Glaukias also made victor statues in repose is doubtful.

Waldstein, on insufficient grounds, has argued that the so-called

_Strangford Apollo_ in the British Museum (Fig. 14)[1719] is a copy

of the statue at Olympia of the famous Thasian boxer and pancratiast

Theagenes by Glaukias. Its close observation of nature finds its

analogy in the statues of the Aeginetan pediment groups (see Figs. 20,

21). The statue of the boy boxer Athenaios of Ephesos, by an unknown

sculptor, was represented as lunging at his adversary, as we see from

the footmarks on the recovered base. The left foot was advanced and

turned outwards, while the right one touched the ground only with the

toes.[1720] Similarly the statue of the boxer Damoxenidas by Nikodamos

of Arkadia was represented as about to strike. On its recovered base

the left foot stood solidly upon the ground, while the right foot

was drawn back and touched the ground only with the toes—if we judge

rightly from the size of the missing part of the stone.[1721] The

statue of the Ionian boxer Epitherses by Pythokritos of Rhodes seems to

have had but one foot flat upon the ground, and consequently must have

been represented in motion, though we are not sure of the position of

the other, since one stone of the base is missing.[1722]

[Illustration: FIG. 58.—Statue known as _Pollux_. Louvre, Paris.]

The bronze plate from the base of the statue of the boy boxer

Philippos, an Azanian of Pellene, was found at Olympia and has

been referred to the end of the fourth or beginning of the third

century B. C.[1723] However, since Pausanias says that Myron made

the statue,[1724] various attempts have been made to reconcile the

discrepancy in dates. Our own solution is that the statue seen by

Pausanias did not represent Philippos at all, but some earlier unnamed

Arkadian boxer, who was contemporary with Myron.[1725] Years later

the Azanian boy Philippos won a victory at Olympia and attached the

recovered epigram to the old base, in which he implored Zeus to let

the ancient glory of Arkadia be revived in him, and also a newer one

in which he said that he had restored the statue of Myron.[1726]

Pausanias saw the newer one, but omitted to mention the older, which

was probably illegible from weathering. He therefore thought that the

original Myronian statue used by Philippos represented the latter

victor.[1727] The words on the affixed plate beginning ὧδε στὰς ὁ

Πελασγὸς ἐπ’ Ἀλφειῷ ποκα πύκτας κ. τ. λ., may refer to the position of

the boxer rather than to a portrait of the victor.[1728] We have long

ago hazarded the suggestion[1729] that the so-called _Pollux_ of the

Louvre (Fig. 58),[1730] whose body forms recall the _Marsyas_ and whose

head recalls the _Diskobolos_, may go back to the statue of the unnamed

Arkadian by Myron.[1731] But the uncertainty which we have found in a

former section[1732] in assigning this and kindred works to Myron or to

Pythagoras leaves it only a suggestion.

PANCRATIASTS.

The pankration (παγκράτιον)[1733] was a combination of boxing and

wrestling, in which the contestants fought either standing, or prone on

the ground. While the wrestler merely tried to throw his opponent in

a series of bouts, the pancratiast continued the fight on the ground

until one or the other acknowledged defeat. The etymology of the word

shows that it was a contest in which every power of the contestants

was exerted to the utmost.[1734] Strangling, pummeling, kicking,

and, in fact, everything but biting and gouging were allowed. Both

Lucian[1735] and Philostratos[1736] speak of the prohibition against

biting and gouging, which statements Gardiner thinks are quotations

from the rules governing the contest at Olympia, as they are twice

quoted by Aristophanes.[1737] Philostratos, however, says that the

Spartans allowed both biting and gouging, but that the Eleans allowed

only strangling. A case of gouging the eye of an opponent with the

thumb is seen on the r.-f. kylix in the British Museum, already

mentioned (Fig. 55).[1738] Here the official is rushing up with his

rod to punish such a breach of the rules. Philostratos calls the men’s

pankration the “fairest” of contests at Olympia, probably in reference

to the impression made on the spectators by the various positions

of the contestants, who had to rely quite as much on skill as on

strength. Pindar wrote eight odes in praise of this contest.[1739]

However, even though it was carefully regulated at Olympia by rules,

it was a dangerous sport—τὸ δεινὸν ἄεθλον ὅ παγκράτιον καλέουσιν,

in the words of the protesting philosopher Xenophanes.[1740] But it

was never the brutal sport which some modern writers have pictured

it.[1741] Plato, to be sure, kept it out of his ideal State,[1742] not,

however, because of its brutality, but merely because its distinctive

feature, the struggle on the ground, was of no service in training a

soldier. The Greeks themselves considered the boxing match far more

dangerous. Inasmuch as gloves were not used in the pankration, this

seems reasonable.[1743] We have in the preceding section mentioned

the epithets applied to boxing. Pausanias, in speaking of the boxing

match between Theagenes and Euthymos, says that the former was too much

wearied by that contest to enter the pankration, and was in consequence

compelled to pay a talent to the god and another to Euthymos.[1744]

In speaking of another contest, between Kapros and Kleitomachos, he

records that the latter told the umpires that the pankration should be

brought on before he had received hurts from boxing.[1745] Artemidoros

states that no wounds resulted from the pankration.[1746] However,

death by strangulation was often the result of the bout. Thus the

pancratiast Arrhachion was crowned after he had been throttled by his

adversary, for just before expiring he was able to put one of the toes

of his opponent out of joint and the pain caused the latter to let go

his grip.[1747] Pausanias tells also how the boxer Kreugas was slain

by Damoxenos in the pankration at Nemea, but adds that the body of the

former was proclaimed victor.[1748]

The pankration was not known to Homer, though later writers ascribed

its invention either to Theseus or Herakles, the typical mythical

examples of skill as opposed to brute force.[1749] It was introduced

at Olympia in Ol. 33 (= 648 B. C.),[1750] long after the separate

events, wrestling and boxing, had appeared there. The boys’ contest

was instituted at Olympia in Ol. 145 (= 200 B. C.),[1751] though it

had appeared elsewhere much earlier.[1752] It must have been a popular

sport at Olympia, since Pausanias records statues erected to twenty

victors for thirty victories in this contest.

Vase-paintings[1753] show many grips and throws of the pankration—the

flying mare, leg hold,[1754] tilting backwards by holding the

antagonist’s foot, “chancery” (_i. e._ catching the adversary around

the neck with one arm and hitting his face with the other fist),

stomach throw (_i. e._, seizing the adversary by the arms or shoulders

and at the same time planting one’s foot in the other’s stomach, and

then throwing him over one’s head),[1755] jumping on the back of one’s

opponent,[1756] strangling, wrestling and boxing combined, and kicking

and boxing combined. Ground wrestling is very commonly depicted

on vases and especially on gems, since such groups were adapted to

oblong or oval spaces.[1757] We reproduce a pancratiast scene from

a Panathenaic amphora of Kittos, dating from the fourth century B.

C., in the British Museum (Fig. 59).[1758] This is a conventional

representation of wrestling and boxing combined. The pancratiast at the

right of the group has rushed in with his head down and has been caught

around the neck by his adversary’s arm, a hopeless position, from which

he can not escape. The latter is either about to complete the neck hold

(if it be an actual case of “chancery”), or perhaps to hit him with his

right hand. A third pancratiast is looking on from the extreme right,

while a _paidotribes_, switch in hand, appears at the left. The fight

on the ground is well depicted on the r.-f. kylix of the British Museum

already discussed as showing boxing scenes (Fig. 55).[1759]

[Illustration: FIG. 59.—Pankration Scene. From a Panathenaic Amphora by

Kittos. British Museum, London.]

We have but few representations of pancratiasts in sculpture.

The preliminary sparring—known as ἀκροχειρισμός[1760]—must have

characterized the statue of the Sikyonian pancratiast Sostratos at

Olympia by an unknown sculptor, since Pausanias says that this victor

was known as ὁ ἀκροχερσίτης, explaining the epithet as that of one

who gained his victories by seizing and bending his adversaries’

fingers, holding them fast till he yielded.[1761] Since a Delphian

inscribed base[1762] gives the same number of victories as Pausanias,

we infer that they were given also on the Olympia base, the source of

Pausanias’ information. Since nothing is said, however, of Sostratos’

mode of fighting in the Delphi inscription, Pausanias must have argued

it from the pose of the statue. The Sicilian wrestler Leontiskos of

a century earlier, whose statue was by Pythagoras, had, according to

Pausanias, used similar tactics, for “he vanquished his adversaries

by bending back their fingers.”[1763] These cases show that statues

of pancratiasts and wrestlers were frequently represented in vigorous

lunging attitudes as well as in groups. The epigram on the base of the

monument of the pancratiast Teisikrates at Delphi shows that the statue

was represented in a similar way.[1764] The same lunging attitude is

also shown on the Halimous grave-relief.[1765] Sometimes the contest

ended with the preliminary sparring, though usually it developed into

wrestling and boxing.

[Illustration: FIG. 60.—Bronze Statuette of a Pancratiast (?), from

Autun, France. Louvre, Paris.]

A good representation of a pancratiast trying to kick his antagonist

seems to be furnished by the small bronze statuette from Autun, South

France, now in the Louvre (Fig. 60).[1766] This statuette is of

mediocre workmanship, its hard muscles, imperfect proportions, and

realism showing that it comes from the Hellenistic period of Greek art.

It represents a bearded athlete, who holds his hands ready to strike

and his left foot raised apparently to kick his adversary’s leg. The

foot is just ready to return to its original position, so that the

motive of this poor little statuette discloses a transient period of

time between two movements, just as the _Diskobolos_ and _Marsyas_ of

Myron did. We have already noted[1767] that on the head is a cap with a

ring in the top, by which it could be suspended as a decorative piece,

or perhaps as part of a steelyard. Hauser believes that this motive

was known to the elder Polykleitos and that this is the interpretation

of that sculptor’s statue of a _nudus talo incessens_ mentioned

by Pliny, a statue which has formed the basis for much discussion

among archæologists.[1768] The Plinian passage, therefore, is to be

translated as “the nude man attacking with his heel (_talo_)”—in

other words, it describes a statue represented as kicking, which was

allowable in the pankration. The manuscripts of Pliny all read _talo_,

which Benndorf[1769] thought could be retained only by assuming

that the naturalist mistranslated his Greek source γυμνὸς ἀστραγάλῳ

ἐπικείμενος, translating the word ἐπικείμενος “standing upon,” as

_incessens_ “pursuing.” He therefore assumed that Polykleitos’ statue

stood upon an astragalos (_talus_) basis, which he believed was the

forerunner of the statue of _Opportunity_ (Καιρός) by Lysippos,[1770]

and he referred it to the knuckle-bone basis found at Olympia.[1771]

Woelfflin,[1772] however, has shown that _talo incessens_ can only

mean “_mit einem Knochel nach Jemand einwerfen_.” Following this,

Furtwaengler showed[1773] how impossible on grammatical and other

grounds it was to read _talo_ in Benndorf’s sense, since the passage

then would mean “advancing towards” or “pursuing,” by means of a

knuckle-bone, which is manifestly nonsense. The word could be only

instrumental in use, as Woefflin said, _i. e._, the weapon by means

of which the man was attacking. Furtwaengler, therefore, followed

Benndorf’s earlier alternative reading _telo_, assuming that Pliny

mistakenly wrote _talo_ because he was influenced by the presence of

the same word in the passage immediately following: _duosque pueros

item nudos talis ludentes qui vocantur astragalizontes_.[1774] But

Hauser’s interpretation of _talo_ meets all the conditions better,

since it keeps the manuscript readings, makes grammatical Latin, and

seems to be illustrated by the statuette in question.

Sometimes the statues of Olympic pancratiasts were represented at

rest with the weight of the body equally on both legs, as we see from

the recovered basis of the statue of the Athenian Kallias by the

Athenian sculptor Mikon.[1775] Furtwaengler has identified a statue

in the Somzée Collection as a copy of this work.[1776] The footprints

on the recovered base of the statue of the Rhodian Dorieus show that

it was represented at rest with one leg slightly advanced.[1777]

We have actual remnants of statues of Olympic pancratiasts in the

marble head found at Olympia, which we are to assign to the statue

of the Akarnanian Philandridas by Lysippos, mentioned by Pausanias

(Frontispiece and Fig. 69),[1778] and the beautiful statue of Agias

discovered by the French at Delphi in 1894, a work by the same sculptor

(Pl. 28 and Fig. 68).[1779]

The struggle on the ground implies groups and not single statues.

Our best representation of such a group is furnished by the famous

marble one in the Uffizi, Florence (Pl. 25).[1780] Though having no

pretensions to be a victor monument, this group is the most important

monument extant connected with the pankration, a fine anatomical study

from Hellenistic times, evincing the direct influence of Lysippos

in its proportions.[1781] It shows affinity of design to certain

sculptures from the frieze of the Great Altar at Pergamon.[1782] Pliny

speaks of a _symplegma_ by Kephisodotos, the son of Praxiteles, at

Pergamon, but that group was of an erotic character and can not have

had anything to do with the Florentine one.[1783] Unfortunately the

group in question has been much restored, though the restoration in

the main is right. The heads, though probably antique, do not seem to

belong to the statues, but both appear to be copies of the head of one

of the Niobids, with which group the pancratiasts were discovered in

1583. The right arm of the uppermost athlete seems to have been wrongly

restored; in any case this athlete is not strangling his opponent. One

youth has thrown the other down on to his knee, and his left leg is

intertwined with the left leg of the other, and he is drawing back his

arm to aim a blow. The wrestler underneath supports himself upon his

left arm, and the intention of his opponent is to destroy this support

by a blow of the fist, which would bring the contest to a sudden

conclusion, since the right arm of the under youth is fast and he must

defend himself with the left. As Gardiner points out, such a situation

is illustrated by Heliodoros’ description of the match between

Theagenes and an Aethiopian champion.[1784] The under man’s position,

however, may suddenly change and the issue yet be in his favor. Many

writers have explained the group as ordinary wrestlers,[1785] but

Gardiner has conclusively shown that it belongs to the pankration,

since in wrestling the contest is ended when one of the contestants has

been thrown, while here the struggle is continuing on the ground.[1786]

[Illustration: PLATE 25

Marble Group of Pancratiasts. Uffizi Gallery, Florence.]

Kapros of Elis was the first of seven Olympic victors to emulate

the fabled feat of Herakles by winning the pankration and wrestling

matches on the same day—that is, he was the first professional

strong man.[1787] The other six all came from the East. It has been

suggested[1788] that the colossal _Farnese Herakles_ found in Rome

in the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla in 1540 and now in Naples,

inscribed as the work of the Athenian Glykon, which represents the hero

leaning wearily on his club against a rock,[1789] may represent

the type of these professional strong men, who called themselves the

successors of Herakles. But such a suggestion is as unfounded as the

one already examined, which identifies the original of the _Seated

Boxer_ of the Museo delle Terme (Pl. 16 and Fig. 27) with Kleitomachos

of Thebes, the redoubtable opponent of Kapros, since the dates in both

cases are against such identifications. The Farnese statue and other

replicas of the same original[1790] obviously revert to a Lysippan

original, though they are considerably metamorphosed by the taste of a

later age. Such big swollen muscles at first sight appear to be alien

to the sculptor of the graceful _Agias_, but that the Naples copy by

Glykon—who, from the inscription on the base, must be referred to the

first century B. C.[1791]—really represents the work of Lysippos seems

well established by the fact that a smaller copy, though still over

life-size, of poorer workmanship, in the Pitti Gallery in Florence,

is inscribed as Λυσίππου ἔργον.[1792] This type of weary hero appears

in the _Telephos_ group on the small Pergamene frieze, but is even

earlier, since the latter seems to have been borrowed from a statue

which is reproduced on a coin of Alexander, which was struck at least

as early as 300 B. C.[1793] The type of Herakles wearied by his

superhuman labors was inaugurated still earlier by Lysippos, who was

fond of representing the hero in many poses, seated and standing,

resting and laboring. We might mention his colossal bronze statue

of Herakles, which was set up in Tarentum and then carried to Rome

and placed on the Capitol by Q. Fabius Maximus, when Tarentum was

captured in 209 B. C., and was later transferred to the Hippodrome

at Constantinople, where it remained until the sack of that city by

the Franks in 1204.[1794] It is hazardous, therefore, to reject the

evidence, and it will be best to see in the original a genuine Lysippan

work, as do Bulle, Overbeck, von Mach, Schnaase,[1795] and others, and

so to make Glykon responsible only for the exaggerations of his own

copy. Thus we have to face the fact of divergent styles in the great

bronze founder of the fourth century B. C., even if we admit with

Richardson that “for our peace of mind this statue might well have been

sunk in the sea.”[1796]

[Illustration: A B

FIG. 61.—Bronze Head of Boxer (?), from Olympia. National Museum,

Athens.]

Long ago, I referred the life-size bronze portrait-like head of a

boxer or pancratiast found at Olympia, now in the Athens Museum (Figs.

61A and B),[1797] to one of two statues of the pancratiast Kapros

mentioned by Pausanias.[1798] The remnant of a wild-olive crown in the

hair proves that it comes from the statue of an Olympic victor. Its

bruised appearance may, however, betoken the punishment administered by

the gloves of a boxer rather than by the bare fists of a pancratiast.

That Greek sculpture was not always ideal we have seen from the

description of the _Seated Boxer_ of the Museo delle Terme (Pl. 16 and

Fig. 27). This peculiarly life-like head is another example of the

same realism; it would be hard to name a more brutal and repellent

piece from the whole range of Greek sculpture. The profession of this

bruiser is evident in every feature, for the sculptor has betrayed it

by the swollen ears, flat nose, thick neck, swollen cheeks, projecting

under lip, frowning brows, and unkempt hair and beard. All these

traits—especially the treatment of the eyes—give to it the sullen

gloomy look so characteristic of boxers and pancratiasts.[1799] The man

appears to be awaiting the attack, his contracted brows showing alert

expectation, and his closed lips great determination. Furtwaengler,

Bulle, Flasch, and others have dated it in the fourth century B. C.,

and are fain to see in it the work of an artist of the immediate

circle of Lysippos or Lysistratos;[1800] but its exaggerated realism

seems rather to point to a later period, not earlier than the third

century B. C.[1801] The bronze foot of a victor statue also found at

Olympia (Fig. 62)[1802] has been assigned by Furtwaengler to one of the

statues of Kapros, an ascription which we also have followed.[1803]

The position of this foot shows—as an experiment with a living model

has disclosed—great movement, which makes it obvious that it comes

from a statue in lively motion, probably of a boxer or pancratiast. It

belongs to the statue of a strong man of coarse build; there is not the

slightest trace of unnecessary flesh on it, but the whole is vigorous

muscle, even the swollen veins being clearly visible in the photograph.

While Furtwaengler finds its stylistic parallels in the copies of the

Pergamene works of the third century B. C., _e. g._, the _Dying Gaul_

statues, the material and form of the base fitting that period, Wolters

emphasizes its stylistic analogy to the bronze head just discussed.

[Illustration: FIG. 62.—Bronze Foot of a Victor Statue, from Olympia.

Museum of Olympia.]

The monuments which represent equestrian victors will be left for

another chapter.

CHAPTER V.

MONUMENTS OF HIPPODROME AND MUSICAL VICTORS.

PLATES 26-27 AND FIGURES 63-67.

In the preceding chapters we have considered the monuments of victors

in various gymnic contests, in which the victor won by his own strength

and skill. In the present chapter we shall be concerned chiefly with

the monuments set up by victors at Olympia in chariot- and horse-races,

in which the victory did not depend upon the athletic prowess of

the victor, but upon the skill of his charioteer or jockey and the

endurance of his horses.[1804] Though such events were not in the

strict sense a part of Greek athletics, they formed a very important

feature of the festival at Olympia as elsewhere.[1805] Indeed the

four-horse chariot-race was the most spectacular and brilliant event

at Olympia. Chariot-races, and to a less extent horse-races, were the

sport only of the rich—kings, princes, and nobles.[1806] Thus victories

were won in these events at Olympia in the fifth century B. C. by Hiero

and Gelo, kings of Syracuse, and Arkesilas IV of Kyrene; in the fourth,

by Philip II of Macedonia, and in Roman days by Tiberius, Germanicus,

Nero, and many others. Alkibiades in Ol. 91 (= 416 B. C.), _i. e._, in

the midst of the great Peloponnesian war, entered seven chariots at

Olympia and won three prizes.[1807] Sometimes a city entered a chariot

or horse. Thus in Ol. 77 (= 472 _B. C._) the public chariot of Argos,

and in Ol. 75 (= 480 B. C.) the public horse of the same city, won at

Olympia.[1808] Such entries show not only the expense attending these

contests, but also their importance in the eyes of the Greeks.

Hippodromes, chariot-races, and horse-races were very common in Greece.

A votive inscription in the museum at Sparta, dating from near the

middle of the fifth century B. C., enumerates sixty victories by

Damonon and his son Enymakratidas in both chariot- and horse-races

at eight different meets in or near Lakonia, and Damonon was merely

a local victor, unknown at Olympia.[1809] Greeks of Sicily and

Magna Græcia were especially fond of such contests, as we see these

constantly represented on coins of different cities there from the

beginning of the fifth century B. C. on.[1810] However, only a few of

the sites of these many hippodromes are now known, and only one can be

positively identified, that mentioned by Pausanias on Mount Lykaios

in Arkadia.[1811] The others are known from literary sources.[1812]

The one at Olympia was destroyed in the course of centuries by the

floods of the Alpheios, and its exact location can not be determined,

though we know in general that it lay somewhere southeast of the Altis,

between the river and the Stadion, and surmise that it ran somewhat

parallel to the latter.[1813]

Its measurements, however, are known to us from a Greek metrological

parchment manuscript in the old Seraglio, Constantinople, which dates

from the eleventh century A. D.[1814] According to it the length of the

course, _i. e._, from the starting-point to turning-post and return,

was about 8 stades (1538 meters, 16 centimeters) or nearly 1 mile. One

of the two sides—which Pausanias says were of unequal length[1815]—was

3 stades and 1 plethron long. The breadth of the course at the

starting-point was 1 stade and 4 plethra. We are told, however, that

only a portion of the entire course, six stades, or about two-thirds of

a mile, was traversed in the various races.

The oldest literary account of a Greek chariot-race is found in Homer

in the description of the games of Patroklos—the longest and finest

episode there described.[1816] But the first trace of such a contest

goes back to mythology, to the story of Pelops and Oinomaos contending

for the hand of the latter’s daughter Hippodameia.[1817] This mythical

race began at the village of Pisa in Elis and ended at the altar of

Poseidon on the Isthmus of Corinth.[1818] The chariot-race was the

chief if not the only event at the oldest funeral games in Greece,

those mentioned by Pausanias as held in honor of Azan, the son of

Arkas, in Arkadia.[1819] It figured largely in mythology[1820] and

was represented in many works of art.[1821] At Olympia it was one of

the earliest, and perhaps the earliest, of the events. Pausanias says

that the four-horse chariot-race was introduced there in Ol. 25 (= 680

B. C.),[1822] but this may merely mean, as Gardiner points out, the

date of exchanging the older prehistoric two-horse chariot for the one

drawn by four horses. In any case the antiquity of the race at Olympia

is shown by the great number of early votive offerings in the form of

models of chariots and horses, which have been found there in a stratum

extending below the foundations of the Heraion.

PROGRAMME OF HIPPODROME EVENTS.

By the middle of the third century B. C. the fully developed programme

of equestrian events at Olympia and elsewhere consisted of six races,

three for full-grown horses (τέλειοι), and three for colts (πῶλοι);

for each of these two classes there were a four-horse chariot-race

(ἅρμα, τέθριππον), a two-horse chariot-race (συνωρίς), and a horse-race

(κέλης), thus:

ἅρματι τελείῳ, συνωρίδι τελείᾳ, κέλητι τελείῳ.

ἅρματι πωλικῷ, συνωρίδι πωλικῇ, κέλητι πωλικῷ.

These six events comprised the ἀγὼν ἱππικός at Olympia, Delphi, Nemea,

Corinth, Athens, and elsewhere, as opposed to the ἀγὼν γυμνικός.[1823]

The distinction between horses and colts was apparently a matter

which was decided by the Hellanodikai at Olympia. Thus, Pausanias

recounts how the Spartan victor Lykidas entered a pair of colts for

the chariot-race, and that one of them was rejected by the judges; he

thereupon entered both for the race with full-grown horses and won

it.[1824] Though such a story does not fit the date of Lykidas, who won

before the colt-race was introduced at Olympia, it shows the method

of selection.[1825] The race in which the chariot was drawn by four

full-grown horses (ἵππων τελείων δρόμος) was introduced, as we have

seen, in Ol. 25. The contestants drove twelve times round the course,

a distance of seventy-two stades or over eight miles.[1826] Pausanias

mentions the monuments of eighteen such victors at Olympia for nineteen

victories. The race in which the chariot was drawn by four colts (πώλων

ἅρμα) was introduced in Ol. 99 (= 384 B. C.),[1827] and extended eight

times round the course, or about 5.5 miles.[1828] Pausanias mentions

the monuments of only two such victors at Olympia.[1829] The race in

which the chariot was drawn by pairs of full-grown horses (συνωρίς)

was introduced in Ol. 93 (408 B. C.) and extended eight times round

the course.[1830] Pausanias mentions but one victor in this event at

Olympia[1831] and an Olympic victress who had a statue erected to her

in Sparta for such a victory.[1832] This was probably the original

chariot-race at Olympia revived in Ol. 93, since the two-horse chariot

was the historical descendant of the Homeric war-chariot.[1833]

Panathenaic vases show that this race existed at Athens in the sixth

century B. C., side by side with the four-horse chariot-race and

horseback-race. The earliest of these vases, the so-called Burgon

vase in the British Museum,[1834] was a prize there for this event.

The race in which the chariot was drawn by a pair of colts (συνωρὶς

πώλων) was introduced at Olympia in the third century B. C., in Ol.

129 (= 264 B. C.),[1835] and extended three times around the course.

Pausanias mentions no monument erected to a victor in this race. The

horse-race (ἵππος κέλης) was instituted in Ol. 33 (= 648 B. C.)[1836],

and the foal-race (πῶλος κέλης) nearly four centuries later, in Ol.

131 (256 B. C.).[1837] Neither of these races was known to Homer, for

κελετίζειν in the Iliad,[1838] as we saw in Chapter I, refers only to

the acrobatic feat of vaulting from the back of one horse to that of

another. Pausanias mentions monuments erected to eight victors (for

nine victories) in the regular horse-race at Olympia. We conclude from

a passage of his work[1839] that the riding-race consisted of one lap

only or six stades, about two-thirds of a mile. A mule chariot-race

(ἀπήνη) was introduced in Ol. 70 (= 500 B. C.), and a trotting-race

with mares (κάλπη) in Ol. 71 (= 496 B. C.), but both were abolished in

Ol. 84 (= 444 B. C.).[1840] Pausanias mentions one monument erected

to an anonymous victor in κάλπη, who won some time between Ols. 72

and 84 (= 492 and 444 B. C.).[1841] He mentions the first victor in

the mule-race, Thersias of Thessaly, but this does not occur in his

_periegesis_ of the Altis.[1842] Only three other victors in this event

are known to us, and they came from Sicilian towns.[1843]

Equestrian events were discontinued at Olympia in the first century

B. C., owing to the waning of interest in athletics in consequence of

the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 B. C. They were revived thereafter

under the Empire only spasmodically and were destined finally to be

replaced by the amusements of the Roman circus. Thus we learn from the

Armenian version of Africanus that the chariot-race ceased at Olympia

in Ol. 178 (= 68 B. C.). It must, however, have been reinstated toward

the end of the century, since Tiberius Claudius Nero—afterwards the

Emperor Tiberius—won in Ol. 194 (= 4 B. C.).[1844] It again went into

disuse, since Africanus says that it, πάλαι κωλυθείς, was reintroduced

in Ol. 199 (= 17 A. D.), when Germanicus, the adopted son of Tiberius,

won.[1845] Once more it was discontinued, and again renewed in Ol.

222 (= 109 A. D.), according to the same authority, who, however, does

not name any victor for that date. Just when this discontinuance took

place, we can not say, but it was certainly after Ol. 211 (= 65 A. D.),

when the emperor Nero is known to have won victories in various kinds

of chariot-races.[1846] Three Olympiads before, an Elean, Tiberios

Klaudios Aphrodeisios, had also won the horse-race.[1847]

REPRESENTATIONS OF THE CHARIOT-RACE.

[Illustration: PLATE 26

Racing Chariot and Horses. From an archaic b.-f. Hydria. Museum of

Berlin.]

Representations of the various chariot-races are commoner than

those of any other Olympic contest, appearing on vases, reliefs,

coins, and gems.[1848] There seem to have been two distinct types

of racing-chariot in Greece.[1849] The four-horse chariot was a

modification of the heroic two-horse war-chariot, which was a low car

on two wheels, surmounted by a box consisting of a high framework,

open only at the rear, and large enough to contain the chieftain and

the charioteer. The war-chariot was known to both Mycenæan Greece and

Crete. There is a relief of uncertain date in the Museum of Candia,

which represents a chariot and charioteer.[1850] It is far superior

to the type of chariots appearing in relief on the gravestones found

at Mycenæ,[1851] though the type on both is of the same general

pattern, having the same box and four-spoked wheels. On the Mycenæan

reliefs the box seems to rest directly upon the rim of the wheel, and

the portrayal of a single horse is very inartistic. On the Candia

relief, however, there are at least two horses discernible, and

both the horses and the warrior, who is about to mount the car, are

lifelike. The Greek racing-car was much lighter than the Homeric and

Mycenæan war-chariot, and the box had room only for the charioteer.

It was drawn usually by four horses. The Athenian type appears on

Panathenaic vases throughout the whole history of the manufacture

of these vases,[1852] and also on Macedonian and Sicilian coins. On

certain vases of later date the car is still lighter and has larger

wheels. One of the earliest racing-cars is seen on a vase in the

British Museum,[1853] dating from the eighth century B. C. It seems

to be a two-horse car, as we should expect at this early date, though

the artist has drawn but one horse. The charioteer is clothed in a

long chiton, a custom which was generally kept throughout the history

of the chariot-race. The regular two-horse type of chariot appears on

vases as a cart, the body of the old war-chariot being so diminished

that nothing is left but the driver’s seat with a square open framework

on the sides. The driver rests his feet on a footboard suspended from

the pole.[1854] Perhaps this represents a peculiarly Athenian type

of chariot, since the two-horse chariot on coins of Philip II, son

of Amyntas and father of Alexander the Great, a victor at Olympia in

both horse-racing and charioteering, resembles the ordinary four-horse

car, and the driver stands instead of sits.[1855] The mule-car was

like the two-horse chariot, as we see in representations of it on

coins of Rhegion and Messana.[1856] The best illustrations of racing

with four-horse cars are afforded by coins of Sicilian cities.[1857]

We see an excellent representation of such a race on a sixth-century

B. C. Panathenaic vase recently found at Sparta, on which a chariot

driven by a standing charioteer is represented as passing a pillar on

the right, and therefore perhaps near the end of the race.[1858] The

harnessing of two horses to a racing-car is seen on an archaic b.-f.

hydria in Berlin (Pl. 26).[1859] Here a third horse appears, led by

a nude youth, who is crowned, and who therefore probably represents

a victorious horse-racer. Several other b.-f. vase-paintings showing

four-horse chariots have been collected by Gerhard.[1860] However,

we are not dependent upon vase-paintings and coins to judge of the

magnificence of Greek chariots of the historical period, for we have

actual remains of them—war-chariots, to be sure, but not very unlike

the ones used at the corresponding dates in Olympia. Among these is

the fine bronze _biga_ found in the grave of an Italian prince at

Monteleone, Etruria, in 1902, and now one of the chief treasures of

the Metropolitan Museum in New York.[1861] This is a war-chariot of the

beginning of the sixth century B. C., the only complete ancient bronze

chariot now known. The restored frame of wood is sheathed with thin

bronze plates richly ornamented with reliefs in repoussé. Because of

its form and its relationship to chariots appearing on archaic Ionic

monuments of Asia Minor, for example, on the reliefs of sarcophagi

from Klazomenai, and because of the strong resemblance between its

decorative designs and those of archaic Italian monuments of Ionicizing

style, Furtwaengler has classed it as the product of Ionic Greek art.

Professor Chase, on the other hand, finds these decorations pure

Etruscan in character, comparing them with the reliefs on three bronze

tripods in the possession of Mr. James Loeb, which are dated some half

a century later.[1862] In any case this chariot is “_das glaenzendste,

vollstaendigste_” archaic metal work yet recovered. In the British

Museum there are considerable remnants of the chariot-group of King

Mausolos and his wife Artemisia, which once stood on the apex of the

Mausoleion at Halikarnassos, the work, according to Pliny,[1863] of

Pythis (or Pytheos), the architect and historian of the tomb.[1864]

Besides the figures of the royal pair, we have the head of one horse,

the hinder half of another, fragments of still others, and one wheel of

the chariot.[1865]

CHARIOT-GROUPS AT OLYMPIA.

Great artists were engaged to set up chariot-groups at Olympia and

elsewhere. Many of the _quadrigae_ and _bigae_ mentioned by Pliny

as the works of sculptors and painters must have been agonistic

offerings.[1866] Aeginetan sculptors were especially in favor at

Olympia. Thus Onatas, in conjunction with the Athenian Kalamis, made

a group for King Hiero,[1867] and Glaukias made another for Hiero’s

brother Gelo;[1868] Simon made an equestrian group for Phormis,[1869]

and Philotimos made a statue for the horse-racer Xenombrotos of

Kos.[1870] The oldest dedication by a chariot victor at Olympia was

the votive offering of Miltiades, the son of Kypselos, of Athens,

which consisted of an ivory horn of Amaltheia, inscribed with archaic

letters and set up in the treasury of the Sikyonians. Miltiades won his

victory in Ol. (?) 54 (= 564 B. C.).[1871] The next oldest dedication

at Olympia was that of a chariot, without any human figure, by the

Spartan Euagoras, who won three victories in Ols. (?) 58-60 (= 548-540

B. C.).[1872] This custom of dedicating merely the model of a chariot

continued sporadically into the third century B. C. Thus Polypeithes

of Sparta, who won a victory near the end of the sixth century B.

C.,[1873] dedicated a chariot, while a figure of his father, the

wrestler Kalliteles, stood beside it.[1874] A Pythian victor, Arkesilas

IV, son of Battos IV, king of Kyrene, who won a victory in the 31st

Pythiad (= 462 B. C.), dedicated a chariot at Delphi.[1875] At the

beginning of the fourth century B. C. the Spartan princess Kyniska

set up “bronze horses less than life-size” in the pronaos of the

temple of Zeus at Olympia. The recovered base shows that Pausanias was

right about the size of this votive offering.[1876] Theochrestos of

Kyrene, who won some time between Ols. (?) 100 and 122 (= 380 and 292

B. C.),[1877] and Glaukon of Athens, who won in the third century B.

C.,[1878] also set up votive chariots. The recovered base of Glaukon’s

chariot shows that it was small. Sometimes a chariot victor, for

economy’s sake, contented himself with dedicating merely a statue of

himself in honor of his victory—a custom which continued from the sixth

to the third centuries B. C. Perhaps one of the oldest examples of such

a dedication of which we have record is that of the Elean Archidamas,

who won a victory at an unknown date, but certainly some time after

Ol. 66 (= 515 B. C.).[1879] In the fifth century B. C., the Spartans

Anaxandros[1880] and Lykinos[1881] dedicated merely statues of

themselves. In the fourth century B. C. the Elean victors Timon,[1882]

whose monument was by Daidalos, Troilos, whose monument was by

Lysippos,[1883] and Telemachos, whose statue was by Philonides,[1884]

set up statues in honor of their victories. The footprints on the

inscribed base of the statue of Telemachos show that he was represented

standing at rest with both feet flat on the ground. This was probably

the position of the statues of the other two victors mentioned. The

statue of the Spartan victor Polykles, surnamed _Polychalkos_, stood

in a singular group. He was represented as being greeted on his return

home by his children, one of whom held a small grace-hoop in his

hand, while the other was trying to snatch the victor ribbon from his

father’s hand.[1885] We learn from Diogenes Laertios that the tyrant

Periandros of Corinth vowed to set up a golden statue of himself if he

won the chariot-race.[1886]

The first instance chronologically recorded by Pausanias of a chariot

victor dedicating his statue along with chariot and horses is that

of king Gelo of Syracuse, the group being the work of the Aeginetan

Glaukias.[1887] The first instance of a victor dedicating his statue in

a group with chariot, horses, and charioteer, is that of Kleosthenes

of Epidamnos, the group being the work of the Argive Hagelaïdas.[1888]

Even the names of the horses were inscribed on this monument.[1889] The

owner of the chariot, to be sure, took the prize, but he felt that the

victory was due to the horses and driver, and so he associated them

with himself in the monument. Sometimes the victor acted as his own

charioteer. Thus the Spartan Damonon, already mentioned as the hero of

many chariot victories in and near Sparta, tells in the inscription

appearing on his votive relief that he was his own charioteer.[1890] In

the first _Isthmian Ode_ Pindar congratulates Herodotos of Thebes, who

won the chariot-race (?) in 458 B. C., on not entrusting his chariot

to strangers, but driving it himself.[1891] Thrasyboulos seems to

have driven his father’s car at the victory commemorated by the sixth

_Pythian Ode_, sung in honor of the chariot victory of Xenokrates of

Akragas in 490 B. C. at Delphi. Karrhotos, the charioteer of Arkesilas

of Kyrene already mentioned, was the latter’s brother-in-law.[1892]

Similarly Aigyptos appears to have ridden his own horse at Olympia

instead of entrusting it to a jockey.[1893] Sophokles, in the

_Electra_, has the hero Orestes drive his own chariot at the _Pythia_.

Kyniska, the daughter of king Archidamas of Sparta, was the first

woman to enter the contests at the race-course and the first to win an

Olympic victory with her chariot.[1894] Apart from the small votive

offering, already mentioned as standing in the temple of Zeus, she had

also a victor-group at Olympia, by the sculptor Apellas, consisting

of chariot, horses, charioteer, and herself. The rounded form of the

recovered base,[1895] in connection with the description of Pausanias,

permits us to assume that the statue of the princess stood in front on

the projecting rounded portion of the pedestal. This is the contention

of Loewy, who opposes the theory of Furtwaengler[1896] that the statue

stood away from the rest of the group, since Pausanias makes no mention

of such an arrangement. In any case, the charioteer in the group can

not have been separated from the car.

In an unpublished paper by my former teacher, Dr. Alfred Emerson, which

was read by Professor D. M. Robinson before the Archæological Institute

of America at its Christmas meeting in Providence in 1910, and entitled

_The Case of Kyniska_,[1897] the argument was made that the chariot was

in miniature; that the statue of Kyniska was a portrait, because of the

wording of the recovered epigram; and, lastly that the smallest of the

so-called bronze dancers from the villa of the Pisos in Herculaneum,

now in Naples, is a late reproduction of the statue at Olympia by

Apellas. Emerson thinks that Pliny no doubt often visited the villa and

may well have had these statues in mind when he mentioned Apellas as

the author of several statues of women adorning themselves.[1898]

The monument erected by Hiero, son of Deinomenes and brother and

successor of king Gelo at Syracuse, who won two horse-races and a

four-horse chariot victory at Olympia in Ols. 76, 77, 78 (= 476-468

B. C.),[1899] consisted of a bronze chariot, on which the charioteer

was mounted, and on either side a race-horse with a jockey on each.

Onatas made the chariot (and possibly the statue of the driver), while

Kalamis sculptured the horses and jockeys. Such a division among

sculptors was not uncommon at Olympia. Thus the Aeginetan artist

Simon and the Argive Dionysios made a group in common for Phormis,

which we have already mentioned, consisting of two horses and two

charioteers.[1900] The Chian Pantias and the Aeginetan Philotimos made

a group in common for Xenombrotos of Kos, victor in horse-racing, and

for his son, the boy boxer Xenodikos, which consisted of statues of

the man and the boy on horseback.[1901] Pliny mentions a four-horse

chariot-group for which the elder Praxiteles made the charioteer and

Kalamis the chariot, adding that Praxiteles did this out of kindness,

not wishing it to be thought that Kalamis had failed in representing

the man after succeeding in representing the horses.[1902]

In some of the Olympic chariot-groups doubtless the charioteer was

represented at the moment of entering the chariot or already in it.

Sometimes a figure of Nike took the place of the charioteer, in order

that the victor’s exploit might be more exalted. Thus Pausanias, in

mentioning the bronze chariot of Kratisthenes of Kyrene by Pythagoras

of Rhegion,[1903] says that statues of Nike and Kratisthenes himself

are mounted upon the car. The Nike in some cases was replaced by the

figure of a young maiden, who stood beside the victor, as in the cases

of the Elean Timon[1904] and the Macedonian Lampos.[1905] Pliny notes a

similar example in reference to the chariot of Teisikrates, a Delphian

victor in the two-horse chariot-race.[1906] The maiden in all these

cases may have been merely a Nike personified or a mortal.[1907] Pliny

records that the painter Nikomachos, son and pupil of Aristeides,

painted a _Victoria quadrigam in sublime rapiens_.[1908] The figure

of Nike appears often on reliefs. Thus on a terra-cotta sarcophagus

from Klazomenai we see a two-horse chariot driven by a boy, while

alongside is a winged female figure—Iris or Nike—mounting it.[1909]

The moment of victory is shown on an Attic marble votive relief

representing a four-horse chariot, now in the British Museum. Here a

figure of Nike is represented as floating in the air and extending

a wreath (now wanting) towards the head of the charioteer, who is

draped with a tunic girdled at the waist, as he mounts the car. If

the charioteer in this relief is a female (which is doubtful), it may

he the personification of the city to which the winner belongs.[1910]

On a votive relief in Athens a horse is represented as being crowned

by Nike.[1911] On a relief in Madrid Nike is represented as driving

a chariot.[1912] A quadriga with a female figure, apparently Nike,

appears on a relief dedicated to Hermes and the Nymphs, which was found

in Phaleron.[1913] Doubtless some of the chariot-groups at Olympia

represented movement—the start, the course, or the end of the race—as

do these and similar reliefs.[1914] We should add that the figure of

Nike was not confined to equestrian monuments. On the Ficoroni cista

in Rome is represented the boxing match between Polydeukes and Amykos

among the Bebrykes. In the centre we see Amykos hanged to a tree by the

hands, while to the right stands Athena, and above her Nike is flying

with a crown and fillet of victory for Polydeukes.[1915]

REMAINS OF CHARIOT-GROUPS.

From this discussion of the literary evidence about the monuments

of chariot victors at Olympia and elsewhere, we shall turn to a

brief consideration of certain existing works of sculpture, reliefs

and statues, which will serve to illustrate the manner in which the

sculptor represented this class of victor monuments.

[Illustration: FIG. 63.—Charioteer Mounting a Chariot. Bas-relief from

the Akropolis. Akropolis Museum, Athens.]

The motive of representing a figure in the act of mounting a

chariot is old. Amphiaraos was thus represented on the chest of

Kypselos at Olympia[1916] and appears in a similar pose on the b.-f.

Corinthian vase from Cerveteri, now in Berlin, which we have already

mentioned.[1917] Among reliefs we shall first discuss the Parian (?)

marble one found in 1822 near the Propylaia at Athens and now in the

Akropolis Museum (Fig. 63).[1918] Here we see represented a robed

figure stepping into a chariot, holding the reins in the extended

hands. This Attic work, perhaps dating from the very beginning of the

fifth century B. C., has long been admired for its vigor and grace.

Whether the figure is male or female, human or divine, is still a

matter of debate. The head is too badly weathered to make the decision

final. The upper part of the figure of Hermes (?) on another fragment,

which appears to come from the same relief and which was found near the

south wall of the Akropolis in 1859,[1919] has made it seem reasonable

to call the charioteer a god, perhaps Apollo.[1920] The hair of

Hermes and of the charioteer is arranged in the old Attic _krobylos_

fashion. This also makes it natural to interpret the charioteer as

male, despite the slender and delicate arms and hands, which appear to

be female.[1921] But such effeminate male figures are not unknown to

Attic art, which was characterized by grace and softness.[1922] The

line of the breast, however, shows no such fulness as archaic masters

were wont to give to female forms, and hence this figure may very well

be that of a male. Schrader has tried to refer the slab to the frieze

of the Old Temple of Athena, which, he believes, survived the sack of

the Akropolis by Xerxes,[1923] thus assuming a chariot-frieze similar

to the later one appearing on the Mausoleion at Halikarnassos, which

antedated similar scenes on the Parthenon frieze by nearly a century.

As the Parthenon slabs represent mortal charioteers, who are doubtless

males, the relief may also represent a mortal. However, the Akropolis

relief may have had nothing to do with any temple frieze nor with the

adornment of a great altar of Athena, as Furtwaengler contended,[1924]

but may be from a votive monument set up by a chariot victor.[1925]

We see a good representation in relief of a chariot-group on one side

of the arched roof of the so-called Chimæra tomb discovered by Sir

Charles Fellows at Xanthos in Lykia. Here is represented a chariot

drawn by four horses, in which stands a charioteer, with sleeved tunic

and Phrygian cap, and an armed figure. Because of the figure of the

Chimæra in the lower right-hand corner, the charioteer, despite the

absence of Pegasos, has been called Bellerophon.[1926]

THE APOBATES CHARIOT-RACE.

On the north frieze of the Parthenon there were originally at least

9 four-horse chariot groups,[1927] while on the south frieze there

were 10 such groups.[1928] These various groups represent a ceremonial

chariot-race called the _apobates_, known at Athens and in Bœotia

and a favorite contest at the Panathenaic games.[1929] This race

preserved the tradition of Homeric warfare, when the chieftain was

driven to battle in his chariot, but dismounted to fight, remounting

only to pursue or avoid his enemy. During the race, while the

charioteer kept the horses at full speed, the _apobates_ dismounted,

ran alongside the chariot, and mounted again. In the last lap he

dismounted and ran beside the chariot to the goal.[1930] In the North

frieze we see the charioteer in the chariot, and the _apobates_, armed

with shield and helmet, either stepping down from the chariot or

standing beside it; while a third figure, a marshal, stands nearby.

Thus on slab XIV we see the _apobates_ about to step down; on slab XV

he is standing up in the chariot; on slab XVII (Fig. 64) he is leaning

back, supporting himself by means of his right hand, which grasps

the chariot rail, and is just ready to step down; on slab XXII he is

remounting the chariot. In the scenes on the South frieze, on the

other hand, the _apobates_ is not represented as dismounting, but is

standing either inside the chariot or by its side. The South frieze,

therefore, represents preparation or the beginning of the race, while

the North one represents the actual course. There is, therefore, as

Gardiner points out, no need to accept Michaelis’ theory that the two

friezes portray different motives, the North one representing the

_apobates_ at the games and the South one representing war-chariots.

The double character of the race is shown by inscriptions which make

both charioteer and _apobates_ equally victors. Many other reliefs

show the _apobates_ dismounting. Thus, on a fragmentary relief found

in 1886 at the Amphiareion at Oropos and now in Athens,[1931] we see

a nude and beardless youth standing in a chariot, which is moving

rapidly to the left. He has a helmet on his head and a shield in his

left hand and holds on to the rim of the chariot, as in the Parthenon

frieze slab just mentioned. To his right is a charioteer with his arms

outstretched to hold the reins. As this relief is obviously influenced

by the Parthenon frieze, it must stand midway between that frieze and

the Hellenistic relief to be described below. Another relief, found

at Oropos in 1835[1932] and dating from the first half of the fourth

century B. C., represents a four-horse chariot moving to the left and

containing two persons. One is the charioteer, who has long waving hair

and a short beard and is clothed in the usual long tunic; the other

is a nude _apobates_, who is armed with helmet and shield and holds

on to the rim of the chariot with his right hand, the upper part of

his body being inclined backwards, the knees bent, and the shield held

away from the body.[1933] We can not say whether these two reliefs from

the Amphiareion represent offerings of _apobatai_, who were victorious

at races held in Oropos or elsewhere in Bœotia, or represent the

victorious Panathenaic _apobatai_. They may well be _ex votos_ to

the hero Amphiaraos at the games held in Oropos. We see an excellent

illustration of an _apobates_ in the very act of dismounting on a

Hellenistic votive relief discovered in 1880 on the Akropolis, which

dates from the end of the fourth century B. C.[1934] A marble relief,

supposably from Herculaneum, but now in Portugal,[1935] represents a

figure dressed in a long chiton. Wolters suggests that it may represent

an _apobates_, but the absence of the usual armor makes it probable

that a charioteer is intended. In a future section we shall discuss the

_apobates_ in the horse-race at Olympia known as κάλπη.

[Illustration: FIG. 64.—Apobates and Chariot. Relief from the North

Frieze of the Parthenon, Athens.]

[Illustration: FIG. 65.—Charioteer. Relief from the small Frieze of the

Mausoleion, Halikarnassos. British Museum, London.]

STATUES OF CHARIOTEERS.

The best-preserved slab from the small Parian marble chariot-frieze

from the Mausoleion of Halikarnassos, now in the British Museum,

represents a male figure standing in a chariot (Fig. 65).[1936]

This long-haired charioteer, dressed in a tunic which extends to

the feet and is girded at the waist, is leaning forward in an eager

attitude. The folds of his garment curved to the wind show the speed

of his horses, and the mutilated face discloses a look of intense

excitement. The deep-set eyes and overhanging brows recall the Tegea

heads of Skopas (Fig. 73) and the combatants pictured on the so-called

_Alexander Sarcophagus_ discovered near Sidon in 1887 and now in

Constantinople.[1937] The pose is so characteristic and spirited that

it was copied by later artists on reliefs and gems.[1938] The same

pose, forward inclination of the body, half-opened mouth, and intense

look seem to be reproduced in a statue of the fourth century B. C. now

in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (Pl. 27).[1939] Robinson, because

of the similarity of its head to certain heads of Apollo published by

Overbeck,[1940] interpreted this statue as Apollo starting to run. Von

Mach, however, has pointed out that its head bears a more striking

resemblance to that of a _Kore_ in Vienna.[1941] Klein interpreted it

as a jumper, assuming that the two supports on the legs were for the

wrists, indicating that the arms were held downwards, the hands, then,

holding _halteres_. But von Mach makes it clear that these supports

are not parallel, as Klein thought, but that they diverge outwards

and consequently may have made the connection with the sides of a

chariot rim. Furthermore, the likeness to the figure on the Mausoleion

frieze (Fig. 65) makes it probable that we are here concerned with

a charioteer. The objection to this theory on the ground of nudity

is baseless. Though the conventional garb of the charioteer in Greek

art from the eighth century B. C. onwards[1942] was certainly a long,

close-fitting chiton, there are several examples in existence of

nude charioteers.[1943] Similarly the objection that the artificial

head-dress does not belong to a charioteer is equally erroneous. Klein

has shown that it appears on several heads of boys, and, as von Mach

says, it is certainly no better suited to Apollo or a jumper than to

a boy driving colts in a chariot-race. The pose of the Boston statue

also reminds us somewhat of that of the small bronze statue of a boy

found in the Rhine near Xanten in 1858 and now in Berlin.[1944] This

is a Roman work seemingly inspired by a Greek prototype, and has been

interpreted variously as the statue of _Bonus Eventus, Novus Annus_,

and Dionysos. However, here again the forward inclination of the

body points to the interpretation of a charioteer,[1945] despite its

nudity. The nude statue found on the Esquiline in 1874 and now in the

Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome, which has already been mentioned,[1946]

has been shown to be that of a charioteer by a comparison with

figures on Attic vases which represent mortals and gods entering

chariots, and with a figure on the so-called _Satrap Sarcophagus_ in

Constantinople.[1947] The youth is represented as standing on his left

foot; he places his right on the chariot floor and extends his hands

to hold the reins. The statue seems to be a mediocre Roman copy of a

Greek original bronze of about the middle of the fifth century _B.

C._, as it shows certain traces of archaism. Furtwaengler has assigned

it to the sculptor Kalamis along with a closely connected group of

monuments.[1948]

[Illustration: PLATE 27

Statue of a Charioteer (?). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.]

[Illustration: FIG. 66.—Bronze Statue of the Delphi _Charioteer_.

Museum of Delphi.]

Finally, in this connection, even though it has nothing to do with

monuments set up at Olympia, we shall discuss the life-size bronze

statue of the _Charioteer_ discovered by the French in 1896 in the

excavations of Delphi, and now the cynosure of the village museum

there. (Fig. 66.)[1949] This example of ripe archaic art is one of

the finest bronzes yet recovered in Greece. Its ancient fame is

disclosed by the fact that it was copied in many monuments down to

the end of antiquity.[1950] The figure is clothed in a short-sleeved

chiton, which reached nearly to the ground, and is girded above the

waist. With the figure were found also fragments of reins, which were

held in the extended right hand, portions of three horses, a chariot

pole, and the left arm and hand of a second figure, that of a boy or

woman, showing that the _Charioteer_ was part of a group. The group

rested on a base on which was cut a two-line metrical inscription, the

ends of which are preserved. The first line ends Πολύζαλός μ’ ἀνέθηκεν.

A part of the inscription is lost and another part, including the above

words, is written over the erased original, which is still partly

legible. The original inscription gives the name of the first dedicator

as ending in ιλας. From this ending Professor Washburn recovers the

name Ἀρκεσίλας. He refers the original dedication to Arkesilas IV of

Kyrene,[1951] and identifies it with the group known from Pausanias to

have been dedicated at Delphi by the people of Kyrene, representing

Battos and the figure of Libya crowning him in a chariot and the

charioteer personified as Kyrene outside, the whole being the work of

the Knossian sculptor Amphion.[1952] Svoronos[1953] follows Washburn’s

suggestion and identifies the _Charioteer_ with Battos, believing that

the fragment of the left arm found with the statue is from the statue

of Kyrene represented as a charioteer.[1954] Ingenious as the theory

is, there are chronological difficulties in the way of accepting it

unreservedly. Thus Amphion’s pupil Pison worked on the Spartan memorial

of Aigospotamoi at Delphi in 404 B. C.[1955] Furthermore, the ending

ιλας may equally well refer to Anaxilas, the tyrant of Rhegion, as

the original dedicator,[1956] in which case it seems reasonable to

assume that the group might have been the work of Pythagoras, the great

sculptor of Rhegion.[1957] A Greek scholar believes that the original

dedicator was Gelo, and that his name was erased and replaced by that

of his brother Polyzalos; he consequently dates the group shortly

after Gelo’s death in 478 B. C.[1958] He refers it to Glaukias of

Aegina, while Joubin[1959] classes the _Charioteer_ as an Attic work.

However, the whole subject of Greek sculpture in the years just after

the Persian war period is too complicated to name definitely the artist

of this simple and severe work. Its deficiencies are as apparent as

its virtues. Thus the parallel folds of the chiton show little of the

form beneath; the feet are too flatly placed on the ground, and the

contour of the head and face is not altogether graceful.[1960] Whatever

the original purpose of the group was, it may well have been used by

Polyzalos to honor the Pythian victory of his brother Hiero.[1961] From

it, then, we can get, perhaps, an idea of the magnificence of Hiero’s

monument by Onatas and Kalamis at Olympia.

DEDICATIONS OF VICTORS IN THE HORSE-RACE AT OLYMPIA AND ELSEWHERE.

The hippic victor at Olympia frequently dedicated merely the model of

his victorious horse without the jockey, just as the early chariot

victor dedicated a chariot without the charioteer. We have evidence

of several instances of this custom from the sixth century B. C. on.

Krokon of Eretria dedicated a small horse of bronze in the Altis.[1962]

The Corinthian Pheidolas dedicated a model of his horse alone, but

for a different reason.[1963] The jockey who rode for him fell off at

the start, but the mare, named _Aura_, continued the race and reached

the goal as victor. The owner was allowed by the judges to set up

a monument to her. The sons of Pheidolas were also victors in the

horse-race[1964] and set up a horse on a column with an epigram upon

it—ἵππος ἐπὶ στήλῃ πεποιημένος καὶ ἐπίγραμμά ἐστιν ἐπ’ αὐτῷ. Just how

this monument looked is doubtful. Pausanias may have seen the bronze

horse of the father Pheidolas, and nearby a column with a bas-relief

representing the horse of the sons;[1965] or the horse may have stood

on top of the column in the round, since the epigram was ἐπ’ αὐτῷ (on

the horse) and not ἐπ’ αὐτῇ (on the stele).[1966]

More frequently a jockey was seated upon the model of the horse, just

as we see frequently on vase-paintings. In the Olympic monument of

King Hiero already mentioned, race-horses with boys seated upon them

stood on either side of the chariot in honor of his two victories in

the horse-race and one in the chariot-race.[1967] Another Olympia

group represented the boy horse-racer Aigyptos on horseback, and his

father, the chariot victor Timon, standing beside him.[1968] This is

also a case in which the victor (Aigyptos) acted as his own jockey.

In the group representing Xenombrotos of Kos, the horse-racer, and

his son, the boy boxer Xenodikos, by the Aeginetan Philotimos and the

Chian Pantias respectively, the boy was seated on a horse and the

statue of the father stood nearby.[1969] The base of this group has

been recovered, large enough to have carried the two monuments.[1970]

Pliny says that the sculptors Kanachos and Hegias made groups of

horse-racers.[1971] We have seen that Pausanias mentions others by

Kalamis and Daidalos. The work of Kalamis, the immediate predecessor

of Pheidias, an artist noted for his grace and softness and as an

unrivaled sculptor of horses,[1972] must have been excellent.

MONUMENTS ILLUSTRATING THE HORSE-RACE.

When we turn to the monuments which illustrate the horse-race, we find

as varied a number—vase-paintings, reliefs, coins, statuary, etc.—as in

the case of chariot victors.

[Illustration: FIG. 67.—Horse-Racer. From a Sixth-Century B. C. b.-f.

Panathenaic Vase. British Museum, London.]

Vase-paintings show that the jockey was generally nude and rode without

stirrups or saddle. We see nude long-haired jockeys on horseback with

whips pictured on a sixth-century B. C. Panathenaic amphora in the

British Museum.[1973] One also appears on a silver tetradrachm in

the same museum, which commemorates the Olympic victory of Philip II

of Macedonia.[1974] Here the victorious mounted jockey has a palm in

his hand, the symbol of his victory. On the other hand, the jockey is

sometimes represented as wearing a close-fitting short-sleeved chiton.

We see such a one on an archaic b.-f. Panathenaic vase of the sixth

century B. C. in the British Museum (Fig. 67).[1975] In front of the

mounted youth on this vase stands a herald in official robes, from

whose mouth issue the words “the horse of Dyneiketos is victorious.”

Behind the jockey is an attendant bearing a wreath in his left hand and

holding a prize tripod over his head. The short chiton also appears on

a horse-racer on the Amphiaraos vase.[1976] We see racing boys on a

proto-Corinthian lekythos in the museum at Taranto, with tripods as

prizes.[1977] A fine example of five nude horse-racers also appears on

a vase pictured in the Daremberg-Saglio Dictionary.[1978] Here one has

fallen from his horse and is being dragged by the bridle.

A boy on a galloping horse is shown on a terra-cotta relief from

Thera.[1979] On a funerary marble relief from Sicily, now in the Museo

Gregoriano, Rome, a rider is represented urging his horse on with

a whip.[1980] An Athenian relief shows victorious ephebes leading

horses,[1981] while another from Athens shows a mounted boy.[1982]

Horsemen representing Athenian knights appear on many slabs of the

Parthenon frieze,[1983] either mounted or standing by their horses.

The inscribed base of Onatas found on the Akropolis seems to have borne

the statue of a horse-racer.[1984] The bronze statue of Isokrates at

Athens, which represented him as a παῖς κελητίζων, is mentioned by

the pseudo-Plutarch.[1985] A bronze statuette in Athens from Dodona

represents an ephebe on a galloping horse.[1986] A statue in the

Palazzo Orlandi in Florence represents a horse-rider.[1987] In the

Akropolis Museum there are two monuments which we should mention in

this connection. One is the lower part of the statue of a nude rider on

horseback, the mutilated horse being represented as pawing the ground

with its forefoot. Closely resembling it in scale and finish, though

more developed in style, is another fragmentary statue of a horse

without a rider, the latter probably to be understood as standing in

front of the horse, as in some of the riders pictured on the Parthenon

frieze. The two are good examples of pre-Persian Attic sculpture.[1988]

A later example is the small bronze statuette of an ephebe represented

as a horseman (the horse is lacking) discovered recently at the French

excavations at Volubilis in Morocco. This almost perfectly preserved

work has been referred to the first half of the fifth century B.

C.[1989] The position of the hands holding the reins reminds us

strongly of the Delphi _Charioteer_ (Fig. 66). The diadem in the hair

shows that a victor is represented. A small bronze statuette in the

Loeb collection in Munich represents a boy riding a prancing horse,

which is standing on its hind legs. This vigorous, but poorly finished,

work is decorative in character and probably once belonged to the crown

of a candelabrum. It appears to be either an Etruscan or early Roman

work based on a Hellenistic original.[1990]

THE APOBATES HORSE-RACE.

In a previous section we discussed the _apobates_ chariot-race run at

the Panathenaic games in Athens, in which the _apobates_ leaped down

and ran to the goal abreast of the chariot. We shall now briefly speak

of a similar race at Olympia (the κάλπη) in which the rider leaped

from his mare in the last lap and ran with her to the goal.[1991]

There is no certain illustration in sculpture or on vase-paintings of

this race, but Gardiner believes that something like it appears on

coins of Tarentum, on which a nude youth, armed with a small round

shield, is represented in the act of jumping from his horse.[1992]

The military character of this race, like that of the _apobates_

chariot-race discussed, is shown by the shield held in the left hand of

the dismounting horseman. Helbig has shown that the Greek knight of the

sixth century B. C. was merely a mounted infantryman, the successor of

the Homeric warrior who used his chariot merely for pursuit or flight,

while actually fighting from the ground.[1993] Just so the knight rode

to battle on his horse, but dismounted when near the enemy, leaving

the horse in charge of his squire, as the Homeric chieftain left his

chariot in charge of his charioteer. This old custom of the heroic age

survived not only in the Panathenaic chariot-race, but also, for a few

years in the fifth century B. C., in the Olympic mare-race known as

the κάλπη. It seems to have been instituted there for military reasons

in order to revive the old form of fighting that had gone out of use

just at the close of the sixth century B. C., but it endured for only a

half century, from Ols. 71 to 84 (= 496 to 444 B. C.). The corresponding

chariot-race at Athens and elsewhere continued at least to the end of

the fourth century B. C.

DEDICATIONS OF MUSICAL VICTORS AT OLYMPIA AND ELSEWHERE.

In closing this chapter we shall say a few words about monuments

erected to trumpeters, heralds, and musical victors at Olympia, though

such contests had nothing to do with athletics.

Contests for trumpeters and heralds were held in many parts of

Greece.[1994] They were introduced at Olympia in Ol. 96 (= 396 B.

C.), when Timaios of Elis won as trumpeter and Krates of Elis as

herald.[1995] Pausanias mentions an altar, near the entrance to the

stadion, upon which trumpeters and heralds stood when competing.[1996]

Such contests seem to have been mere displays of lung power. Herodoros,

for example, who won as trumpeter at Olympia ten times in the last

quarter of the fourth and beginning of the third century B. C.[1997],

could blow two trumpets at once so loud that no one could stand near

him.[1998] To perform such a feat he was said to be a very large

man.[1999] Diogenes, son of Dionysios of Ephesos, won five victories

in trumpeting at Olympia. He was twice _periodonikes_ and also won

many other victories at the Isthmus, Nemea, and elsewhere—eighty in

all.[2000] We have an excellent bronze statuette of a trumpeter,

which was found in the Hieron of Athena Chalkioikos at Sparta, dating

from the middle of the fifth century B. C., about a century and a

half before the event was introduced at Olympia.[2001] This “little

masterpiece of Spartan art,” whose style resembles that of the Olympia

pediment sculptures, represents a nude man standing, the left arm

hanging by his side, while the right is bent upwards to the mouth,

where it held a tubular object pointing upwards. Since the lips are

tightly compressed, Dickins has interpreted the object as a trumpet. A

much damaged bronze statuette in the British Museum represents a man

playing on a long trumpet-shaped instrument.[2002] Trumpeters also

appear now and then on r.-f. Attic vases of the middle of the fifth

century B. C.

Music victors played a greater role at Delphi than elsewhere, since

music from the first was the chief interest there. Monuments to such

victors, though few in number, by little-known artists were set up

there, but they seem to have enjoyed the same meagre honor at Delphi

as the statues of athletic victors.[2003] We have record of a statue

of the Epizephyrian Locrian _kitharoidos_ Eunomos, set up in his

native town in honor of his Pythian victory over Ariston of Rhegion.

Timaios says that this monument showed a cicada seated on the singer’s

lyre.[2004] Whether such monuments at Delphi or elsewhere were regarded

as victor or votive in character, we can not say.[2005] Pausanias

mentions several statues of poets and musicians, mostly mythical, on

Mount Helikon, which were set up partly in consequence of victories

won there or elsewhere.[2006] Of these the statue of the Thracian

or Odrysian Thamyris was represented as a blind man holding a broken

lyre;[2007] that of Arion of Methymna as riding a dolphin;[2008] that

of Hesiod, seated, as holding a lute on his knees; and that of the

Thracian Orpheus with Telete at his side and round about beasts in

stone and bronze listening to his song. Of the statue of the Argive

Sakadas, Pausanias says that the sculptor, not understanding Pindar’s

poem on the victor, made the flutist no bigger than the flute.[2009]

The epigram on the statue of the Sikyonian flutist Bacchiadas,

mentioned by Athenæus as standing on Mount Helikon,[2010] was votive

in character. The inscribed base of the statue of the _kitharoidos_

Alkibios has been found on the Athenian Akropolis.[2011] Musical

contests are pictured on many imitation Panathenaic vases, and many

Greek reliefs seem to have been set up in honor of such victors. Among

the latter we might instance the one in the Louvre representing Apollo,

Artemis, and Leto,[2012] and another found in Sparta in 1885, which

represents Artemis pouring a libation before Apollo.[2013]

At Olympia flute-playing accompanied certain of the events of the

pentathlon. Pausanias says that the reason why the flute played a

Pythian air while the athletes jumped was that this air was sacred

to Apollo, who had beaten Hermes in running and Ares in boxing at

Olympia.[2014] Thus on the chest of Kypselos a flutist was represented

as standing between Admetos and Mopsos at their boxing match.[2015]

But the explanation given by Philostratos seems more sensible, that

leaping was a difficult contest, and that the flute stimulated the

jumpers.[2016] At Argos, at the games in honor of Zeus Σθένιος,

wrestlers contended to the tune of the flute.[2017] Many vase-paintings

illustrate flute-playing at the pentathlon.[2018] At Olympia only a

few monuments were set up in honor of musical victors, and these seem

to have been statues erected _honoris causa_, instead of primarily for

victories. An example is that of the Sikyonian flutist Pythokritos, who

won a victory as αὐλητής in the sixth century B. C.[2019] Pausanias

says that his monument was that of a small man with a flute wrought

in relief on an inscribed slab. The explanation of such a description

probably is that the size of the flute made the victor appear small,

just as in the case of the monument of Sakadas just mentioned.[2020]

We know that artists, poets, prose writers, musicians, and actors all

had an audience at Olympia, and that statues were often erected there

in honor of such men, though these are not to be treated as victor

monuments and do not properly fall within the scope of the present

work.[2021]

CHAPTER VI.

TWO MARBLE HEADS FROM VICTOR STATUES.[2022]

PLATES 28-30 AND FIGURES 68-77.

THE GROUP OF DAOCHOS AT DELPHI, AND LYSIPPOS.

If in these later years our knowledge of Skopas has been greatly

augmented by the discovery of the Tegea heads (Fig. 73), that of

Lysippos has been almost revolutionized. With the discovery in

1894 at Delphi of the group of statues dedicated by the Thessalian

Daochos[2023] in honor of various members of his house, whose dates

covered nearly two centuries,[2024] an entirely new impetus was

given to the study of the last of the great Greek sculptors. Homolle

immediately recognized the fourth-century origin of the group, and at

first pronounced the statue of Agias Lysippan;[2025] later he saw in

the types, poses, and proportions of the group the mixed influences

of Praxiteles, Skopas, and Lysippos, but referred the _Agias_ to the

school of Skopas,[2026] while still later he again pronounced it

Lysippan.[2027] But its true character was not destined to be long

in doubt. When Erich Preuner[2028] found almost the same metrical

inscription, which was on the base of the best preserved statue of

the group, that of Agias (Pl. 28 and Fig. 68),[2029] in the traveling

journal of Stackelberg,[2030] copied from a base in Pharsalos, the

Thessalian home of Daochos, with the additional information that

Lysippos of Sikyon made the statue, our views of the work of that

artist had to undergo a thorough revision. For this discovery brought

the _Agias_—if not the others of the group—into direct relation to

Lysippos by documentary evidence, while the easily recognized Lysippan

characteristics of the statue—the slender body and limbs, the small

head, the proportions and pose—confirmed this connection on stylistic

grounds. It became clear that Daochos had set up a series of statues

in honor of his ancestors both at Pharsalos and Delphi. Whether the

Thessalian group was of bronze, as is generally held, owing to the

widespread belief that Lysippos worked only in metal, and the Delphian

group was composed of contemporary marble copies of those originals,

will be discussed further on. If the marble group was a copy, we may

infer that it reproduced the original statues, not mechanically and

laboriously as was often the case in Roman days, but accurately; for

having employed a noted artist in the one case, the dedicator would

have desired an accurate reproduction of the work in the other.

[Illustration: PLATE 28

Statue of the Pancratiast Agias, from Delphi. Museum of Delphi.]

[Illustration: FIG. 68.—Head from the Statue of Agias (Pl. 28). Museum

of Delphi.]

THE APOXYOMENOS OF THE VATICAN, AND LYSIPPOS.

[Illustration: PLATE 29

Statue of the _Apoxyomenos_, after Lysippos or his School. Vatican

Museum, Rome.]

But another statue, the _Apoxyomenos_, of the Vatican (Pl. 29),[2031]

ever since its discovery by Canina in 1849, had held the honored

place of being regarded as the centre of the stylistic treatment

of Lysippos. Seldom has the discovery of a Roman copy of a Greek

original proved so important for the study of ancient sculpture as

this athlete statue, which was found in an appropriate place, in the

ruins of a building, which almost certainly was a Roman bath. Despite

unimportant restorations, the statue is well preserved. The fingers of

the right hand holding the die were wrongly restored by the sculptor

Tenerani at the suggestion of Canina who wrongly interpreted the

passage in Pliny (XXXIV, 55), which refers to two works by Polykleitos,

_destringentem se et nudum talo incessentem_, as meaning one and the

same monument.[2032] This slightly over life-size statue represents

a nude athlete, who is standing with legs far apart, employed in

scraping the sand and oil from his extended right arm with a strigil

held in the left hand. This, as we saw in Chapter III, was a common

palæstra motive.[2033] Despite certain portrait-like features, this

statue may not represent an individual victor, but, like Myron’s great

work, an athletic model. The words of Pliny,[2034] which mention one

of the best-known works of Lysippos in antiquity—it heads the list

in his account of the sculptor—as an athlete _destringentem se_,

and his statement in another passage[2035] that Lysippos introduced

a new canon into art _capita minora faciendo quam antiqui, corpora

graciliora siccioraque, per quae proceritas signorum major videretur_,

_i. e._, a canon of bodily proportions essentially different from

that of Polykleitos, seemed to have their best illustration in the

slender and graceful body and limbs, and noticeably small head of

this statue. It was, therefore, though admittedly a Roman work, long

regarded as a direct copy of the Lysippan original, and as faithfully

representing his style in every detail.[2036] Such a view, of course,

was founded entirely on circumstantial evidence, and could not survive

any positive evidence to the contrary which might come to light in the

future. G. F. Hill, in speaking of the insufficient evidence on which

the _Apoxyomenos_ had been accepted as the key to Lysippan style,

rightly remarks: “It is more scientific, until we acquire documentary

evidence of excellent character, to classify our extant examples

of ancient art as representing tendencies rather than men.”[2037]

The Lysippan character of the Vatican statue had not been seriously

attacked until the discovery of the _Agias_. Its original was certainly

a work worthy of Lysippos. Its rhythm, proportions, and fine modeling

have received praise of connoisseurs ever since its discovery. Its

difficult pose had been remarkably well executed. While appearing at

rest, the statue suggests vigorous action both by its supple limbs

and the suppressed excitement indicated by the partly opened lips,

an excitement befitting a victorious athlete. Perhaps it was the

difficulty of such a pose that best explains why the _Apoxyomenos_

has left no other copy.[2038] The very excellence of the Vatican

statue prejudiced us in favor of regarding it as an illustration of

Lysippos’ ideal of bodily proportions. But we really knew very little

of the original _Apoxyomenos_, only what we gathered from Pliny, that

Lysippos made such a statue and that it was carried to Rome by M.

Agrippa and was set up in front of his Thermæ, whence it was removed

by the enamored Tiberius to his bed-chamber, only to be restored when

the populace remonstrated. As for the proportions of the supposed copy

in question, they only prove that this statue goes back to an original

which was not earlier than Lysippos, but not that it was by the master

himself.[2039] The discovery of the _Agias_ showed us at last on

what slender foundations our theory had been built. Despite certain

well-marked similarities in the pose, proportions, and relatively

small head—characteristics which were not even exclusively Lysippan,

since they are just as prominent in certain other works, _e. g._, in

the warriors of the Mausoleion frieze—between the _Agias_ and the

_Apoxyomenos_, nevertheless just as striking differences appear, which

make it difficult to keep both statues as examples of the artistic

tendency of one and the same artist, even if we should assign them to

different periods of his career.

THE AGIAS AND THE APOXYOMENOS COMPARED, AND THE STYLE OF LYSIPPOS.