Enkidoodle

Another ordinary palæstra motive was employed in representing the athlete after the contest, scraping oil and dirt from his body and arms with the scraping-blade or strigil (στλεγγίς, _strigilis_).[1048] This motive is not uncommon on r.-f. vase-paintings of the fifth century B. C.[1049] It was treated in sculpture by many masters. Pliny mentions such statues of athletes _destringentes se_ (ἀποξυόμενοι), by Polykleitos, Lysippos, and Daidalos of Sikyon.[1050] Perhaps the _perixyomenoi_ by Antignotos and Daïppos, the latter the son of Lysippos, had the same motive.[1051] Of the _Apoxyomenos_ of Polykleitos we have no authenticated copies in sculpture, though Furtwaengler believes that he has found reminiscences of it on gems which represent a youth resting the weight of his body on the left leg, the right being drawn back (_i. e._, in the attitude of the _Doryphoros_), the right forearm extended, and the left holding a strigil. The similarity of these gem-designs makes it certain that they are all derived from a well-known work of art.[1052] Perhaps the fine bronze statuette, dating from the middle of the fifth century B. C., and now in the Loeb collection in Munich, represents the pose of the _destringens se_ by Polykleitos.[1053] It represents a nude youth resting the weight of the body on the soles of both feet, the left one slightly advanced, and holding a strigil in the raised right hand. The famous marble copy of an _Apoxyomenos_ in the Vatican[1054] (Pl. 29), which, because of its long slim legs and graceful ankles, might well represent a runner, has long been held to represent the canon of Lysippos, as it exhibits proportions widely different from those employed by Polykleitos, and agreeing with Pliny’s account of Lysippos’ innovations.[1055] However, the doubts arising in recent years as to whether this statue is a copy of Lysippos’ statue or a later work will be considered at length in Chapter VI.[1056]

[Illustration: PLATE 12

Statue of an _Apoxyomenos_. Uffizi Gallery, Florence.]

The same motive is exemplified by many existing statues, statuettes, reliefs, etc. The marble statue of an athlete in the Uffizi, Florence, (Pl. 12),[1057] a copy of an original of the end of the fifth century B. C., wrongly restored as holding in both hands a vase at which the athlete is looking down, was interpreted by Bloch as an ephebe pouring oil from a lekythos held in the right hand into an aryballos held in the left. This action for an athlete has been characterized by Furtwaengler as “unparallelled, unclassical and, above all, absurd.” Through recent discoveries we now know that it represents an apoxyomenos, and that it should be restored with the left forearm close to the thigh, and with the right crossing the abdomen diagonally in the direction of the left hand. This attitude so closely corresponds with that of a figure on a gem as to make it probable that both gem and statue are copies of the same original. The figure on the gem[1058] holds a strigil in both hands and is generally explained as scraping the dirt from the left thigh; the light hand holds the handle and the left the blade. A hydria, palm-branch, and crown are pictured to the right—showing that the figure represents an athlete, just as the statue has the swollen ears of one. The attention of the athlete in both monuments is concentrated on the operation involved—a concentration reminding us of Myron’s _Diskobolos_. While, however, in the latter work the concentration is momentary, it is less transient in the Florence statue and also in the Munich _Oil-pourer_. This pose is too conscious in the Florentine statue to be the work of Myron. Arndt names no artist, but as the similarity between the head of the statue and that of the _Oil-pourer_ is so marked, and as every one now regards the latter as Attic—even if not by Alkamenes—he thinks that the two must be by the same Attic sculptor, although the Uffizi statue is somewhat later than the Munich one.[1059] The original of the Florence statue was famous, if we may judge by the existing number of replicas with variations.[1060]

Among statues showing the same motive and pose, we may note the bronze statue of an athlete over life-size—pieced together from 234 fragments—found by the Austrians at Ephesos and now in Vienna.[1061] The subject, pose, and heavy proportions recall the Argive school of Polykleitos, and its original has been assigned by Hauser to the Sikyonian Daidalos, the son and pupil of Patrokles, who was the pupil of Polykleitos. As further reproductions of the same type of figure, we may cite a bronze statuette in Paris,[1062] and a marble one found at Frascati in 1896 and now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.[1063]

A chalcedony scarab of archaic type in the British Museum represents a nude athlete with a lekythos slung over the left arm and a strigil in the left hand, which rests on the hip.[1064] A beautiful marble grave-relief, much mutilated, in the museum at Delphi,[1065] which dates from the middle of the fifth century B. C., represents a palæstra victor, with his arms extended to the right, cleansing himself with a strigil, which is held in the right hand, while a slave boy, holding the remnant of an aryballos in his right hand, looks up at him from the right. The careful anatomy of this relief may point to Pythagoras of Samos, as its author, though we have no certain work of his, for it fits the description of that artist by Pliny, who says that he was the first to express sinews and veins.[1066]

LIBATION-POURING.

[Illustration: PLATE 13

Statue of an Athlete, after Polykleitos. Farnsworth Museum, Wellesley College, U. S. A.]

[Illustration: FIG. 24.—Bronze Statuette of an Athlete. Louvre, Paris.]

An original Greek bronze statuette in Paris (Fig. 24)[1067] reproduces the motive of the statue of the boy wrestler Xenokles by the sculptor Polykleitos Minor at Olympia, as a comparison with the footprints on the recovered base of the latter shows.[1068] As the forms correspond with those of the _Doryphoros_ and _Diadoumenos_, and as its execution is so marvelous, Furtwaengler has ascribed the statuette to the circle of Polykleitos’ pupils. The position of the right hand, which has the thumbs drawn in, corresponds with that of the _Idolino_ (Pl. 14), which we are to discuss, and can best be explained by assuming that it similarly held a kylix; the left hand carried a staff-like attribute. The head is bent and looks to the right. Furtwaengler believed that, inasmuch as the act of pouring a libation does not occur in art or literature as an athletic motive, the statuette represented a hero or god. Many Roman marble copies show the same motive and preserve to us a Polykleitan work which corresponds in all essentials with the Louvre statuette.[1069] We mention two, the only ones of the type in which the heads are on the trunks, one in the Galleria delle Statue of the Vatican,[1070] the other in the Farnsworth Museum at Wellesley College (Pl. 13).[1071] These copies represent a youth standing with both feet flat upon the ground, the weight of the body resting upon the right one, while the left is turned a little to the side. He is looking downwards to the right. Doubtless we should restore these copies after the Paris bronze, with a kylix in the right hand. The palm-branch in a similar statue, to be mentioned further on, shows that in all probability the origin statue was that of an athlete; and that he was a famous athlete is shown by the number of copies of the torso and head.[1072] A bronze head from Herculaneum (Fig. 25)[1073] so strongly resembles in its forms the type under discussion—which Furtwaengler has called the “Vatican athlete standing at rest”[1074]—and corresponds with it so closely in its measurements, that it might be regarded as a copy of the same original, if certain differences, not due to the copyist, did not rather show that it comes from a closely allied work. This head shows an intense melancholy, which has been explained by Furtwaengler as due to the lack of skill on the part of the copyist, who fashioned it slightly askew. Amelung very properly explains the absence of the motive of libation-pouring in athletic art as merely a lacuna in our sources.[1075] If the original of these copies and variations represented an athlete, he was certainly pouring a libation before victory; if a warrior, he was doing the same thing before going on a campaign. In the latter case the left hand should be restored with a spear.

[Illustration: FIG. 25.—Bronze Head of an Athlete, from Herculaneum. Museum of Naples.]

We must also place here the life-size original Greek bronze in Florence, discovered at Pesaro, near Ancona, in 1530, and known from the early eighteenth century as the _Idolino_ (Pl. 14),[1076] for its motive connects it with the series just discussed. This is, perhaps, our finest bronze statue from antiquity, as it represents the highest ideal of boy beauty, just as the _Doryphoros_ does of manly beauty. The chief characteristics—the positions of the feet, head, and arms, though essentially those of the statues discussed, offer certain differences. Thus the left leg is placed more to one side and turned further outwards than in the statue of Xenokles and kindred works; the left hand hangs down at an angle to the leg differently from the others. In other words, by comparing it with the Paris statuette, we see a slightly different rhythm from that found in Polykleitan works. The _Idolino_ has been looked upon as Myronic by Kekulé,[1077] Studniczka,[1078] and hesitatingly Klein,[1079] while Mahler regarded it as Pheidian.[1080] Furtwaengler, however, by a careful analysis, has shown its Polykleitan characteristics—especially the shape of the head and the features, and the treatment of the hair, which reminds us of the Naples copy of the _Doryphoros_. Owing to differences, however, he did not assign it to the master himself, but suggested that it was the work of his pupil Patrokles.[1081] Bulle found the head Polykleitan, but the body Attic, and assigned the figure to an unknown Attic sculptor working in the Polykleitan circle. In this controversy on its style, a statue found in 1916 in the excavations of the Baths at Kyrene should be of use, for it is the most faithful of all the Roman copies known of the bronze original and clearly shows a Polykleitan character influenced by Attic art.[1082] By a comparison of this marble copy with the Florentine bronze we see that the latter was a subsequent rendition of the same original, and doubtless by some artist of lesser fame from the Polykleitan school, who was influenced by Attic art.

But it is the interpretation of the _Idolino_ which chiefly interests us here. While Longpérier called the similar Paris statuette a _Mercure aptère_, and the publisher of the statue from Kyrene called that copy a _Hermes_, yet Kekulé, Bulle, and most other archæologists have seen in the _Idolino_ an athlete. The inner surface of its outstretched right hand is left rough, and the fingers are in the same position as those of the Paris bronze. Such a position can be explained satisfactorily by restoring the hand with a kylix or a φιάλη, such as was commonly used in libations. The left hand is smooth and evidently empty, though Bulle restores it with a victor’s fillet, and so, following Kekulé, calls the statue that of a boy victor, who is bringing an offering to the altar in honor of his victory. The marble statue in the Galleria delle Statue has the right forearm restored; in the Kyrene statue the right hand is preserved and has a thick object held downwards at a greater angle than in the _Idolino_. The photograph does not let us judge decisively, but it seems to be too thick an object for the remnants of a kylix. A marble statue in the Barberini Palace, Rome,[1083] which resembles the _Idolino_ so closely as to be considered a copy of it, though with variations of pose and technique, has the arms broken off, and so adds nothing to the solution of the motive of the _Idolino_. The fact that a palm-stem stands beside the right leg, however, adds weight to the interpretation as victor. Furtwaengler interprets the _Idolino_ and kindred works as divinities. Though boys serve at libations, he thinks they never perform the ritual act of pouring the libation.[1084] That a libation-pourer should appear in the guise of a boy victor (that of Xenokles) he calls a genuine Argive trait. Svoronos, also, has recently tried to show that the _Idolino_ is not a victor,[1085] but represents the hero Herakles. He compares the figure with a fourth-century Pentelic marble relief in Athens,[1086] which represents Herakles standing at the door of Hades and beside him a father leading his son up to the open air. The pose of the figure of Herakles resembles that of the _Idolino_ in a remarkable way. In the relief Herakles holds a kylix in the right hand[1087] and a club in the left, and a lion skin is thrown over the left arm. Svoronos believes that the left hand in the relief explains the turning in of the left hand of the _Idolino_—for he believes that the latter also held a club. We must, however, leave the final solution of the motive of the _Idolino_ and kindred works open, although inclining to the belief that they represent a victor.

[Illustration: PLATE 14

Bronze Statue known as the _Idolino_. Museo Archeologico, Florence.]

[Illustration: FIG. 26.—Marble Statue of an Athlete(?). National Museum, Athens.]

A statue in Athens, which was found in 1888 in the Roman ruins at the Olympieion, may represent a boy victor pouring a libation (Fig. 26).[1088] It is a poor Roman copy, dry and lifeless, of a bronze original of the middle of the fifth century B. C.[1089] In this statue Mayer has seen the motive, and probably the copy, of the _Splanchnoptes_ (Roaster of Entrails) by the sculptor Styphax (or Styppax) of Cyprus, which, according to Pliny,[1090] represented Perikles’ slave “roasting entrails and blowing hard on the fire, to kindle it, till his cheeks swell.” He thinks that the position of the broken arms and a comparison of the figure with similar ones on vases make the identification possible. Von Salis concurs in his restoration and interpretation and publishes a small statuette in Athens from Dodona,[1091] which has a similar pose, and holds a three-pronged fork in the left hand, which he believes should be restored in the statue. Although statue and statuette have much in common (_e. g._, the position of the breast and shoulders, the treatment of the hair, etc.), which shows that both may be copies of one original, the conception of the two is somewhat different. The statue from Athens represents a boy standing busily engaged at the altar; the statuette represents one standing at rest merely looking on, the fork not being held in position for use.[1092] In any case the face of the Athens statue can not correspond with Pliny’s description—_ignemque oris pleni spiritu accendens_. Quite a different explanation of the statue is possible—one which Mayer thought improbable. The right arm—broken above the wrist—was raised to the height of the shoulder and may have held an object in the hand; the left arm—broken off below the shoulder—seems to have been held close to the body and appears to have corresponded in movement with the other. The boy, therefore, may have held a cup in the right hand and a branch or a victor fillet in the left. Thus it may merely be another example of a boy victor pouring a libation.

Certain other statues have been mistaken either for libation-pourers or oil-pourers, when they are really wine-pourers and have nothing to do with the athletic motives under discussion. A good example is the marble statue of a _Satyr_ in Dresden,[1093] which represents the youthful demi-god lifting a can with his right hand, out of which he is pouring wine into a drinking-horn held in the left. There are many copies of this work,[1094] a fact which shows that the original bronze was famous. An attempt has therefore been made to identify it with the bronze _Satyr_ of Praxiteles mentioned by Pliny as the _Periboëtos_ or “far-famed,”[1095] which seems to have been grouped with a _Dionysos_ and a figure of _Drunkenness_—a grouping which might fit the Dresden _Satyr_, since a second figure should be imagined, for which the horn is being filled. However, it differs stylistically so much from the _Hermes_ of Olympia that the ascription has been given up, though its graceful form shows Praxitelean influence and certainly emanates from the fourth century B. C.

RESTING AFTER THE CONTEST.

[Illustration: PLATE 15

Marble Head of an Athlete, after Kresilas (?). Metropolitan Museum, New York.]

A very favorite motive was to represent a victor, either standing or seated, resting after the exertions of the contest (ἀναπαυόμενος). An excellent example of this motive in a standing posture is the fourth-century B. C. statue of Attic workmanship found at Porto d’Anzio and now in the Vatican,[1096] which reproduces the type of the _Apollo Lykeios_.[1097] Many of the statues, by various sculptors, which represent the victor standing at rest may be intended to represent him as resting after the contest. The well-known head of a youth adorned with the victor’s chaplet, and preserved in four copies in European museums, appears to come from a statue which represented a victor in this manner. The best of these copies is in the collection of Lord Leconfield at Petworth House, Sussex.[1098] We should add a fifth, a Roman copy of the head, in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (Pl. 15).[1099] In these copies the ears are not swollen, and a certain refinement and gentleness show that the original was not from the statue of a boxer or pancratiast, but from that of another type of athlete, perhaps a pentathlete. Since Pliny mentions the statue of a _Doryphoros_ by Kresilas,[1100] and because of its supposed Kresilæan style, Furtwaengler, albeit on slender grounds, has attempted to identify the original of these heads with that work.[1101] The expression is certainly one of complete repose. On the crown of the head, and on the left side over the fillet, is a rectangular broken surface,[1102] apparently the remnant of a support for the right arm, which, as Conze thought, proves that the athlete stood with one arm resting on the head, the hand hanging over the left side. Furtwaengler admitted that such an attitude might be that of an apoxyomenos,[1103] but pointed out that the expression of the face in all the copies seems too tranquil for such an interpretation. Since the victor was in repose and the left arm required a slight support, he believed that this support might have been an akontion. He therefore reconstructed the original statue as that of a resting pentathlete, and assigned it to the great Cretan contemporary of Pheidias, who worked in Athens.[1104] The number of replicas at least shows that the original was a famous work.

Perhaps our best example of the motive of a seated victor resting after the contest is the bronze statue of a boxer found in Rome in 1884 and now in the Museo delle Terme there (Pl. 16 and Fig. 27).[1105] This is a masterpiece in the portrayal of brute strength in the most naturalistic and revolting way. If we like to think of victors as having noble forms, we are rudely startled on looking at this brutal prize-fighter. If we compare it with works of the fifth and fourth centuries B. C., we see in it, as in no other example of Greek sculpture, the great change which professionalism had later wrought in the Greek ideal of athletics. Here are massive proportions, bulging muscles, arms and legs hard and muscle-bound. We can compare it only with the bronze head of a boxer found at Olympia (Fig. 61 A and B) of similar style and age.[1106] But there we have only the head, while here we have a complete statue almost perfectly preserved, the only restorations being a portion of the left thumb, a piece of the right flank, and the base.

[Illustration: FIG. 27.—Head from Statue of the _Seated Boxer_. Museo delle Terme, Rome.]

[Illustration: PLATE 16

Bronze Statue of the _Seated Boxer_. Museo delle Terme, Rome.]

It represents a professional boxer, who is seated exhausted at the close of the bout, the severity of which is indicated by every part of the body. He leans forward, his arms rest on his thighs, and his head, sunk between his shoulders, is raised and turned to the right, as he stupidly looks around at the applauding spectators. His nose is broken and his ears are swollen and scars of the contest show on his face and limbs. Beneath his retreating upper lip some of his teeth appear to have been knocked out as the result of previous fights, while indications of the recent struggle are to be seen in the blood dripping from his ears and the deep lacerations in face and shoulder, which may have once been filled with red paint to make his appearance even more realistic. The right eye is swollen and the lower lid and the cheek imperceptibly sink into each other. The mustache shows flecks of blood and the swollen back of the right hand protrudes through the glove. His nose is clotted with blood and he seems to be struggling to get his breath.

Such realism and delight in depicting the hideous show that the work, like the Olympia head, belongs to the Hellenistic age. The careful workmanship, especially visible in the hair and beard and in the hair on the chest[1107], proves that the statue is not a Roman copy, but a Greek original of the beginning of the Hellenistic age, of the end of the fourth or beginning of the third century B. C. Nor is it a portrait, as Winter maintained,[1108] since it is an adaptation of a late type of Herakles. It certainly is a victor statue from one of the great Greek games, and is, perhaps, from Olympia itself. Since the head is turned toward the right shoulder and the mouth is open, as if speaking, Wunderer tried, on the basis of a passage in the history of Polybios,[1109] to identify it with the statue of the famous Theban boxer and pancratiast Kleitomachos at Olympia by an unknown artist.[1110] The historian states that Kleitomachos, while fighting with the Egyptian Aristonikos, was angered by the acclaim given the foreigner and, stepping aside, chided the spectators for not cheering one who was fighting for the honor of Greece. The speech caused a revulsion in the popular feeling, which helped, even more than the fists of Kleitomachos, to vanquish Aristonikos. However, the motive of the statue does not fit the incident, as the boxer is not speaking, but breathing hard, nor is the seated posture that of one haranguing a crowd. Moreover, the date of the Theban’s victory is too late for the statue.[1111]

ATTRIBUTES OF VICTOR STATUES.

At the beginning of the fifth century B. C. athletic training tended to produce a uniform standard of physical development, which was reflected in sculpture. At this date we do not find the divergence of style which we saw in our review of the “Apollo” type of the sixth century. Vase-paintings show the change better than sculpture. On black-figured vases of the sixth century B. C., we see a good deal of variety in groups of boxers and wrestlers, while on red-figured vases of the early fifth century the number of types is far less. In sculpture, however, differences in physical type did exist in the various schools at the beginning of the fifth century. We have, for example, the heavy, square-shouldered type in the _Apollo Choiseul-Gouffier_ (Pl. 7A), which we have classed as a victor statue, and the tall, rawboned type in the _Tyrannicides_ by Kritios and Nesiotes (Fig. 32, _Harmodios_).[1112] We have, on the other hand, a very different physical type in the short, stocky Aeginetan pedimental figures (Figs. 20 and 21). Between such extremes there are, of course, many gradations. We might instance the archaic bronze statuette of a diskobolos in the Metropolitan Museum (Fig. 46).[1113] However, notwithstanding the diversity in type, it is often difficult to distinguish runners from wrestlers, boxers from pentathletes. Thus few early fifth-century statues show the type of runner as well as the _Apollo of Tenea_ (Pl. 8A), or that of a boxer as well as the “_Apollo_” from Delphi (Pl. 8B). The reason for this is the ideal element, which entered into all these statues and which was a reflection of the uniform development of athletics long before specialization had set in. Out of this uniformity grew the canon of Polykleitos, developed from that of Hagelaïdas.

The sculptor of the sixth century B. C. was incapable of differentiating between god and mortal. This was especially the case, as we have seen, with Apollo, as the “Apollo” type was a model of manly vigor. In the early fifth century the sculptor had largely overcome this difficulty, but still showed little diversity of type in treating statues of different kinds of athletes. A method of differentiation which was essential to athlete sculptors of the sixth century was found convenient of retention by those of the fifth—_i. e._, characterizing the statue of the victor by some attribute, in order, on the one hand, to differentiate it from the nude god or hero, and on the other to distinguish between different types of victors.

PRIMARY ATTRIBUTES OF VICTOR STATUES.

THE VICTOR FILLET.

In the first place, the sculptor would characterize the victor statue as such. The easiest way to do this would be to represent it with a fillet or chaplet (ταινία)[1114] bound round the head, as we saw was the case in the statue of Milo. This fillet was merely a band or riband of wool which was given the Olympic victor in addition to the garland of olive leaves, or the palm-branch, as a symbol of victory. Waldstein has argued that this fillet originally was not an essential attribute of the victor, but that the crown and palm were the prizes, and the fillet merely a decoration used on various occasions, such as at symposia,[1115] which only later became a general athletic attribute.[1116] Though the presence of the fillet on statues should not, therefore, be proof that the given statue is that of a victor,[1117] there is no defense for the contention of Passow[1118] that the _tainia_ was in no sense a symbol of victory, but merely a toilet article among the gifts presented by the public to a victor at the ovation of the crowning. Pausanias says that the victor Lichas of Sparta was scourged by order of the umpires at Olympia for having set the _tainia_ on the head of his victorious charioteer.[1119] This is sufficient evidence that it was not a mere toilet article, but rather a part of the official prize of victory. Similarly the _tainia_ in the hand of Nike upon the right hand of the statue of Zeus by Pheidias at Olympia can not have been a toilet article.[1120]

We have many examples from athletic sculpture of the use of the fillet. Thus it appears on the bronze head of a boxer in the Glyptothek (Pl. 3)[1121] and on the bronze head from Herculaneum in Naples (Fig. 4),[1122] both of which have been discussed in Chapter II, as fragments of Greek original statues of Olympic victors. It also appears on the marble head of a youthful victor—not necessarily Olympic—from the Akropolis,[1123] which, because of the similarity in cheeks, mouth, and eyes to heads on the metopes of the Parthenon, should be dated somewhere between 450 and 440 B. C. It occurs on the Olympia marble head (Frontispiece and Fig. 69),[1124] which we ascribe in Chapter VI to Lysippos, and likewise on the statue of the pancratiast Agias in Delphi (Pl. 28, Fig. 68). In most athlete heads the fillet is twisted into a knot at the back of the head. In one case, on the Petworth head of a pentathlete already discussed,[1125] which, because of the curve of the neck, must come from a statue represented at rest, it is not so tied, but is wound round the head with the two ends tucked in and pushed through the fillet on either side over the temples.[1126] Though so practical an arrangement as the latter must have been common enough in real life, this seems to be the only example of its representation in sculpture.

The fillet, instead of encircling the head, was sometimes held in the hand, as in the case of the Spartan chariot victor Polykles at Olympia.[1127] A curious life-size statue of the Roman period, found in the Peiræus, represents a nude boy holding in his right hand over the breast a bundle of books and in the left an alabastron. The body is covered with fillets—fifteen in all—which appear to have been prizes won in gymnic contests, probably at the gymnasium or palæstra.[1128]

FILLET-BINDERS.

Statues representing victors binding fillets in their hair (_diadoumenoi_) are common to all periods of Greek art.[1129] We shall discuss only two—those of Pheidias and of Polykleitos.

[Illustration: PLATE 17

Statue known as the _Farnese Diadoumenos_. British Museum, London.]

Pausanias mentions a statue by Pheidias, representing a _Boy Binding on a Fillet_, as standing in the Altis at Olympia.[1130] Robert has argued that this figure was the one of similar motive mentioned by Pausanias as on the throne of Zeus there.[1131] However, the figure on the throne was very probably in relief and not in the round.[1132] The cicerones at Olympia seem to have been imposing on the periegete when they said that a likeness to Pantarkes, the boy favorite of Pheidias, was to be seen in the face of this figure on the throne. The mention of Pantarkes has given rise to the usual identification of the παῖς ἀναδούμενος with the victor statue of the Elean Pantarkes mentioned by Pausanias as standing in the Altis.[1133] However, the assumption[1134] is far-fetched and must be rejected, because Pausanias mentions the two statues in two different parts of his _periegesis_ of the Altis.[1135] Of the παῖς we know only the artist’s name. It was probably merely a votive gift,[1136] and the name of the person so honored was unknown to Pausanias. Of the statue of the victor Pantarkes we know only the name, and neither the artist nor the motive of the statue. It seems clear, therefore, that we have to do with three distinct monuments: the boy with the fillet, the throne figure by Pheidias, and the victor by an unknown sculptor.[1137]

The small marble statue in the British Museum known as the _Diadoumenos Farnese_[1138] (Pl. 17), which is now almost universally regarded as an Attic work,[1139] has been assumed by many archæologists to be a copy of Pheidias’ statue.[1140] Since Pausanias tells us that a statue by Pheidias stood in Olympia, representing an unknown boy binding a fillet around his head, and since the style of the _Farnese_ statue shows great similarity in head and body forms and general bearing to certain figures on the Parthenon frieze,[1141] and its motive agrees with that of the Olympia statue, it seems reasonable to see in this little work a copy of the statue in the Altis by the great master. Furtwaengler and Bulle have shown that the motive of this work was initiated by Pheidias and not by Polykleitos, since the latter’s great statue was several years younger than the work of Pheidias at Olympia. That Pheidias was pleased with the motive is disclosed by the fact that he repeated it on the throne of Zeus.

[Illustration: PLATE 18

Statue of the _Diadoumenos_, from Delos, after Polykleitos. National Museum, Athens.]

[Illustration: FIG. 28.—Statue of the _Diadoumenos_, from Vaison, after Polykleitos. British Museum, London.]

The _Diadoumenos_ of Polykleitos was little less famous than his _Doryphoros_, if we may judge by the number of copies which have survived and from literary notices of it.[1142] In all the copies of this work we see the well-known Polykleitan characteristics—powerful build, heavy proportions, and fidelity to nature; but none of the ideal tendency prominent in the works of Pheidias and his school, nor of the violent energy characteristic of Myron’s art. In all of them the pose of the earlier _Doryphoros_ is retained, except that the arms are differently employed and the build of the body is more slender. Pliny, despite his statement—which is probably taken from some Greek authority—that monotony was the characteristic of Polykleitos’ works (_paene ad unum exemplum_),[1143] emphasizes this slenderness by calling the _Doryphoros_ _viriliter puer_—Lessing’s _Juengling wie ein Mann_—and the _Diadoumenos_ _molliter juvenis_—a youth of gentle form. This judgment of Pliny was difficult to understand so long as we had only the Vaison copy of the _Diadoumenos_ to study. The Delian copy showed that supple grace was characteristic of the original, even if modified to suit the taste of three centuries later. Although the body forms and the attitudes of the _Doryphoros_ and the _Diadoumenos_ are very similar, the head of the latter, usually assigned to Polykleitos, is of a different type from that of the _Doryphoros_. While the head of the _Doryphoros_ is square in profile, flat on top, and long from front to back, that of the _Diadoumenos_ is rounder and softer and can best be explained on the assumption that Polykleitos later in life came under Attic influence. The copies of this work are many and varied.[1144] For a long time the marble copy in the British Museum found in 1862, at Vaison, France,[1145] was, despite its poor workmanship, considered our best copy (Fig. 28). It was made perhaps five hundred years after the original, at a time when sculpture was in its decline, and consequently can give us merely a suggestion of the character of Polykleitos’ statue. As it is a direct marble translation of the bronze, the muscular treatment appears exaggerated. Another marble copy was found in 1894 by the French excavators on the island of Delos, and is now in Athens (Pl. 18).[1146] The Delian artist added a mantle and a quiver to the nearby tree-trunk and thus converted an original victor statue into one of a god.[1147] Though its hands are lost, it is easy to see that the athlete is pulling the ends of the fillet together so as to tighten the knot at the back of the head. As this is a Hellenistic Greek copy, it comes far nearer to the original than the imperial Roman one from Vaison. The lighter proportions and softer modeling show the Attic influence on Polykleitos’ later career, although the fleshy forms are out of harmony with his art and evidently introduced by the copyist. One of the best preserved and most beautiful copies is the one in the Prado at Madrid.[1148] Although a Roman copy, like the one in the British Museum, it comes very near the original because of the precision in its details. There are many good copies of the head alone.[1149] Marble heads in Kassel and Dresden, evidently the works of Attic sculptors, show the pure Polykleitan traits. The one in Dresden[1150] (Fig. 29) surpasses all others in the beauty of its finish, being a careful and exact copy. The proportions and structure of the head are those of the _Doryphoros_, although the surface is differently treated. The Kassel head[1151] is not so exact in its details, but has more expression. Furtwaengler rightly calls it the better of the two as a work of art, but inferior as a copy. A marble head in the British Museum[1152] is a direct copy from the original bronze, like the Vaison statue. The clear-cut eyelids and wiry hair reproduce the original material, and its resemblance to the head of the _Doryphoros_ is greater than that of any other copy.

[Illustration: FIG. 29.—Head of the _Diadoumenos_, after Polykleitos. Albertinum, Dresden.]

A later variant of the statue is seen in a small terra-cotta statuette from Smyrna in private possession in London.[1153] It shows the Polykleitan type so completely assimilated to the style of Praxiteles that its genuineness has been doubted. Perhaps, with its Attic softness, it gives us a better idea of the beauty of the original than many of the other copies. Finally, we must mention the original bronze head of the fifth century B. C. in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, recently published by Percy Gardner.[1154] This head, put together from nine fragments, and restored as that of a boy fillet-binder, and rivaling in delicacy and beauty such original bronzes as the Beneventum head (Fig. 3) and the _Idolino_ (Pl. 14), not only gives us the best idea of the technical ability attained by bronze workers in the middle of the fifth century B. C., but also helps us to understand the ancient repute of Polykleitos’ athletes. Here the headband and “starfish” arrangement of the hair have their close parallels in the Dresden, Kassel, and British Museum heads already discussed, which essentially reproduce the head of the Vaison statue (Fig. 28). As Gardner points out, it closely agrees with the type of the _Farnese Diadoumenos_ (Pl. 17) only in one particular, the mode of tying the knot. While the Vaison athlete is preparing to tie it, the Farnese one has just finished the operation, the boy still holding the ends of the fillet in his hands. But only the treatment of the hair, the eye, and the ear offers a contrast. Despite these differences Gardner follows the older view of Brunn in regarding the Vaison and Farnese types as two variants of Polykleitan originals; but the pose, style, and proportions of the latter seem to us to be too thoroughly Attic to warrant us in bringing it into relation with the work of Polykleitos. Though the heads of the two are not so dissimilar, the pose, as Gardner also points out, is quite different. The Vaison figure is represented as walking, _i. e._, in the very act of changing the weight of the body from one leg to the other, while the Farnese athlete stands at rest with both feet flat upon the ground. Gardner rightly regards this exquisite head not as the original of the statue mentioned by Pliny, since the Vaison and Delian copies show that the latter represented a fully developed man, somewhat over life-size, and not a boy, but rather as a work of the Polykleitan school, though he does not exclude the possibility that it may come from one of the many boy athletes of the master.

Furtwaengler connects with the _Diadoumenos_ the statue of a youthful boxer, slightly under life-size, which shows a similar motive. It is known to us in two copies, one in Kassel,[1155] the other in Lansdowne House, London.[1156] That it is a work of Polykleitos is shown by the correspondence of its body forms with those of both the _Diadoumenos_ and the _Doryphoros_. A bronze statuette, dating from about 400 B. C., in the Akropolis Museum, also repeats the motive without being an exact copy.[1157]

THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE.

The crown of wild olive[1158] in the hair is another general but not customary attribute of Olympic victor statues. Fewer sculptured heads show it than show the _tainia_, and in most of these the leaves have fallen off. Examples of its presence are afforded by the bronze head from Beneventum (Fig. 3) in the Louvre,[1159] and on the realistic bronze head of a boxer found at Olympia (Fig. 61 A and B).[1160] A good illustration of a boy victor crowning himself is on a fourth-century B. C. funerary relief, found in 1873 at the Dipylon gate, and now in the Athens Museum.[1161] The victor is holding or placing a crown of leaves on his head. In the Museo delle Terme, Rome, is a mediocre headless copy of an original statue of the end of the fifth century B. C., the work of an artist of the Polykleitan school, the restoration of which as a victor engaged in wreathing his head is probable.[1162] A protuberance on the right shoulder seems to have been left by the end of the _lemniskos_ or ribbon with which the wreath was adorned.[1163] The left hand carried an attribute, but probably not a palm-branch as Helbig assumed, since such a branch, if of metal, would have left traces on the shoulder. The same restoration has been proposed for another statue.[1164] A crown on the head, together with the remains of fingers near it, has been noticed on a bronze statue of Eros, of Hellenistic workmanship, found off Tunis in the sea,[1165] which shows Polykleitan influence.

[Illustration: PLATE 19

Statue known as the _Westmacott Athlete_. British Museum, London.]

The statue of a _Boy Crowning Himself_, which has survived in many Roman copies and variant Greek originals, notably in the so-called _Westmacott Athlete_ of the British Museum (Pl. 19),[1166] a fragmentary statue of poorer workmanship in the Barracco collection in Rome,[1167] and a Greek copy from Eleusis now in the National Museum in Athens,[1168] and identified by many archæologists with the statue of the boy boxer Kyniskos by Polykleitos at Olympia, should be discussed here. While the _Westmacott Athlete_ appears to be a copy from the original bronze, the Barracco statue, though showing the same pose, is unlike it in the treatment of hair and muscles, and with its Attic head, seems to be a carelessly executed variant, more or less Myronian in style, of the Polykleitan original. While its original may be assigned to the end of the fifth century B. C., the Eleusis variant, with its head differently placed, is not a Roman copy, but a Greek original statue showing the Polykleitan motive carried into the soft Attic style of the fourth century B. C.[1169] A fine copy of the head alone is in the possession of Sir Edgar Vincent, in his Constantinople collection.[1170] This should be associated with another head in Dresden, both being closely related to that of the _Westmacott Athlete_.[1171] The best copy of the head is in the Hermitage, in which the treatment of the hair approaches nearest to that of the bronze original.[1172] A marble head from Apollonia in Epeiros, now in the British Museum, which so closely resembles the head of the _Westmacott Athlete_ that the missing sections of the neck and shoulders were restored by a cast from the latter, is somewhat different in style. For while the Westmacott head is a mechanical copy, this Greek head is full of vigor, disclosing Attic characteristics of the early fourth century B. C., and obviously is an Athenian imitation of the original, like the statue from Eleusis.[1173] A more remote variant is the beautiful marble head formerly in the possession of Dr. Philip Nelson in Liverpool, but now in America, which is not an exact copy of any of the known variants, but so closely resembles the Capitoline type of _Wounded Amazon_, assigned first by Otto Jahn and later by Furtwaengler to Kresilas, that it must be by the same hand.[1174] This head also reminds us of that of the Kresilæan _Diomedes_ of the Munich Glyptothek (Pl. 21),[1175] though the hair-treatment is Polykleitan.[1176] Both show a modification of Polykleitan forms under Attic influence. The numerous fine copies indicate that the original was a well-known work. That it was Polykleitan is clear from a study of the heads, which show a great resemblance to that of the _Doryphoros_, and of the body forms, which resemble those of both the _Doryphoros_ and the _Diadoumenos_. While some believe this original a work of Polykleitos himself,[1177] others think that it was by one of his pupils or successors, who imitated the master’s early style. If the original, however, was not the statue of Kyniskos, there is little evidence that it was by Polykleitos himself.

The palm-trunk in the Westmacott copy certainly argues that the original was an athlete statue. The gesture of the right hand has given rise to different interpretations. The Barracco copy furnishes the best evidence, as on it the right arm is preserved to the wrist, the hand only being lost. Helbig at first (in the Barracco Catalogue) expressed the opinion that the right hand might have held an oil-flask, from which oil was being poured into the left. However, the position of the left hand, as shown by the _puntello_ on the left hip, must have been the same as that on the Westmacott copy, _i. e._, hanging close to the left side. Helbig later (in the _Fuehrer_) explained the motive as that of a boy setting a crown on his head, as in the bronze _Eros_ already mentioned. This interpretation, first suggested by Winnefeld,[1178] has been the favorite one among archæologists. But all sorts of other explanations of the motive of the original have been offered, as that the athlete was scraping his forehead or shoulders with the strigil,[1179] that the statue represented Narkissos looking into the pool and shading his eyes with his right hand,[1180] that it was an athlete standing at rest and holding an akontion in his right hand—a theory harmonizing with the poise of the head, but not with the turn of the wrist, which shows that the hand was held downwards[1181]—and that it was, in fact, the _nudus talo incessens_ of Pliny.[1182] On the head of the Eleusis statue there is a mass of marble left over the right ear just opposite the place where the hand would be, if it were setting a wreath on the head. The fact that no marks are visible where the crown was attached is explained by the assumption that the wreath was of metal even in the marble copies. That this motive, moreover, was known to both Attic and Peloponnesian art in the second half of the fifth century B. C. is well attested. Thus we see on the Parthenon frieze a youth crowning himself with one hand, while holding the horse’s bridle with the other.[1183] The pose of this figure—especially the legs—recalls the Myronian _Oil-pourer_ already discussed (Pl. 11). On the other hand, one of the figures of the Ildefonso group in Madrid, which is Polykleitan in style, represents a boy wearing a wreath, a figure closely akin to the _Westmacott Athlete_, the leg position being the same in both and the poise of the head nearly so, although the arms are different, the left one being raised and the right hanging down.[1184] It is probable that the raised right hand of the original of the Westmacott and other replicas touched the wreath and the lowered left held a fillet. The best explanation, then, of the _Westmacott Athlete_ and kindred works is that the motive of the original was allied to that of the _Diadoumenos_ of Polykleitos, though the modeling is too soft for Polykleitos, showing that the copyists changed the original of the Argive master to suit a later and different taste. Whereas the _Diadoumenos_ is tying on a victor’s fillet, the other is presumably placing a victor’s wreath on his head. Certainly no better restoration can be made for the Barracco copy. Furthermore, many other monuments, which show a similar attitude, and which must be regarded as very free imitations of the original, seem to show that the boy was represented as placing a wreath on his head.[1185]

Whether the original of the series was an actual victor statue at Olympia or not is an interesting question. It has been repeatedly suggested that it was the very statue of the boy boxer Kyniskos there, mentioned by Pausanias, the base of which has been recovered.[1186] The external evidence for the identity consists altogether in the similarity in the position of the feet on this base and in the series of copies, which argues a similar pose. The base shows that the left leg bore the weight of the statue; it was slightly advanced and rested on the sole, while the right leg was set back and rested on the ball only. Thus the statue of Kyniskos was represented in the characteristic Polykleitan schema of rest, except that the position of the legs is reversed from that of the _Doryphoros_, _Diadoumenos_, _Amazon_, and other works of the master. We might add that this same reversal appears on two other bases found at Olympia, which held victor statues by the elder Polykleitos[1187] and one by the younger.[1188] Moreover, the leg position of the canon does not occur in the works of the master’s pupils Naukydes and Daidalos, and only in one work of Kleon.[1189] This shows that teacher and pupils also used another motive, _i. e._, the old canon of Hagelaïdas, besides the one associated with the _Doryphoros_. The similarity in the position of the feet on the Olympia base and in the series of statues discussed has led some scholars, _e. g._, Petersen and Collignon, to accept the proposed identity. This similarity in foot position, the probability that the statue on the basis was life-size, like those of the Westmacott series, and the palm-tree support in the British Museum replica, all pointing to a victor statue, make the identity well within the range of possibility, but by no means certain. It is necessary only to rehearse the objections to this view. In the first place the length of the foot on the Olympia basis can not be accurately measured for purposes of comparison. In the next place Polykleitos, as we have just seen, made other statues of victors at Olympia with almost the identical foot position of that of Kyniskos. Furthermore, it seems very unlikely that so celebrated an original as that of these many replicas could have been standing in the Altis so late as the time of Pausanias.[1190] It is difficult, also, to understand why an imitative Attic sculptor of the fourth century B. C., should make a copy of an Arkadian boy victor statue for Eleusis. And lastly we must not forget that up to the present time not a single Roman copy has been conclusively identified with that of a victor statue at Olympia. If the date of the victory of Kyniskos were definitely fixed, the question of identity would be better substantiated. By a process of exclusion, to be sure, Robert reached the date Ol. 80 (= 460 B. C.),[1191] but other dates are possible. Under these circumstances there seems to be little more than the possibility that we have recovered an actual victor statue at Olympia in these copies.[1192]

THE PALM-BRANCH.

The palm-branch, either woven into a wreath or held in the hand, was a victor attribute. Pausanias says that a crown of palm leaves was common to many contests, and that the victor everywhere in Greece carried a palm-branch in his right hand.[1193] He refers the custom to mythical times, tracing it back to the contest held by Theseus on Delos in honor of Apollo.[1194] Pliny mentions a painting by the Sikyonian Eupompos, which represented a _victor certamine gymnico palmam tenens_.[1195] While Milchhoefer[1196] believed that the motive of an athlete setting a crown on his head with his right hand and holding a palm in his left, which is repeated frequently and with variation in many works of art, went back to this painting of Eupompos, Furtwaengler[1197] goes further in assuming that the painter derived the motive from the statue of Polykleitos represented by the _Westmacott Athlete_ and kindred works just discussed. The pupils of the great sculptor appear to have transferred his school from Argos to Sikyon, and were, therefore, associated with Eupompos. This attribute of the palm, permanent in bronze statues, has been broken off for the most part in marble ones. We see it in an unfinished statue of a young athlete in the National Museum, Athens, who holds the palm-branch in his hand. Here it has survived, since the statue was only blocked out.[1198] It is prominent in the funerary stele from the Dipylon representing a victor, which has been mentioned in a preceding section;[1199] here the palm extends from the left hand, which is held down close to the side, up to the shoulder. We have already noted that the copyist added a palm-branch to the stump placed beside the Vatican girl runner (Pl. 2). In the _Choiseul-Gouffier Apollo_ (Pl. 7A) the left hand should doubtless be restored with the palm-branch, because of the projecting notch of marble on the side of the left leg near the knee.[1200] A similar notch appears also on the _Apollo-on-the-Omphalos_ in Athens (Pl. 7B), which shows that the left hand held a long attribute, which was doubtless a palm-branch. This attribute occurs frequently on vases.[1201] We see it on a marble statue found at Formiae and now in the Glyptothek Ny-Carlsberg in Copenhagen, which shows the same motive as that of the statue by Stephanos (Pl. 9), though in a freer style of execution. Here the lowered right hand holds a palm-branch, which is shown in low relief against the right arm.[1202]

SECONDARY ATTRIBUTES OF VICTOR STATUES.

In course of time the sculptor was not content to represent victor statues merely as victors, but differentiated the various kinds of victors by special attributes.

HOPLITODROMOI.

[Illustration: FIG. 30.—Marble heads of two Hoplitodromoi, from Olympia. Museum of Olympia.]

Thus a hoplite victor would be represented with his usual weapons. Pausanias, in mentioning the statue at Olympia of the hoplite runner Damaretos of Heraia by the Argive sculptors Eutelidas and Chrysothemis, says that it “has not only a shield, as the armed runners still have, but also a helmet on his head and greaves on his legs.”[1203] He adds that the helmet and greaves were gradually abolished at Olympia and elsewhere. We have seen that the statue of Damaretos was set up at the beginning of the fifth century B. C., when his son Theopompos, the pentathlete, won his second victory, the monuments of the two being in common.[1204] Toward the middle of the fifth century the hoplite victor Mnaseas of Kyrene had a statue at Olympia, the work of Pythagoras of Rhegion, which represented him as an armed man.[1205] A Pythian victor, Telesikrates, of the fifth century B. C., had a statue at Delphi, which represented him with a helmet.[1206] We have actual remnants of two hoplite victor statues of the sixth century B. C., in the two bearded and helmeted life-size heads of Parian marble found at Olympia (Fig. 30, a, b = A; c, d = B).[1207] The younger of these heads (A), to which probably belong either an arm and the remnants of a shield attached with a ram and a representation of Phrixos upon it in relief,[1208] or a shield fragment with a siren’s wing upon it[1209] and the fragment of a shield edge[1210] and right foot of fine workmanship,[1211] I assigned long ago to the statue of the Thessalian hoplitodrome Phrikias of Pelinna, who won two victories in Ols. 68 and 69 (= 508 and 504 B. C.).[1212] R. Foerster had referred this head to the statue of the hoplite runner Damaretos of Heraia, whose monument, in common with that of his son, the pentathlete Theopompos, was the work of the early Argive sculptors Chrysothemis and Eutelidas.[1213] But this fresh and vigorous head is not Peloponnesian, but shows strongly marked Attic traits in its round face, full cheeks, and soft lips, and in the rows of regularly wound locks of hair. The arm and foot similarly disclose Attic softness and grace. Because of its Attic character, Treu and Overbeck,[1214] in opposition to Foerster, ascribed it to the statue of the Elean hoplite victor Eperastos mentioned by Pausanias.[1215] Though the date of his victory is unknown, it certainly fell some time after Ol. 111 (= 336 B. C.)—a date far too late for so archaic a sculpture. Furtwaengler[1216] referred this and the more archaic head B to the group of Phormis at Olympia, mentioned by Pausanias.[1217] However, Treu[1218] showed that there was no stylistic connection between the two heads. The slightly more archaic head B, badly injured from weathering, I have referred to the Achaian hoplitodrome Phanas of Pellene, who won Ol. 67 (= 512 B. C.).[1219] In this carefully executed head the hair and beard are arranged in small locks and the archaic smile is prominent. While the younger head is Attic, this one is unmistakably Peloponnesian; and while the former comes from a statue represented at rest, the latter, because of the twist of the neck, seems to have come from one represented in violent motion. For this reason Wolters believed that it came from the statue of a warrior represented as thrown to the ground and defending himself.

The Myronic statue in the Palazzo Valentini, Rome, known as _Diomedes_,[1220] whose pose recalls the _Diskobolos_, may represent a hoplitodrome, because of its marked resemblance in attitude to the Tuebingen bronze to be discussed in the next chapter (Fig. 42), and because of the helmet on its head.[1221]

PENTATHLETES.

Pentathletes were represented by attributes taken from three of the five contests—jumping, and throwing the diskos and the javelin. All these attributes appear in gymnasium scenes pictured on red-figured vases. Thus a kylix of the severe style in Munich[1222] gives us a general picture of the exercises of the gymnasium. On the walls hang diskoi in slings, strigils, leaping-weights, oil-flasks, sponges, and javelins. Archaic leaping-weights (ἁλτῆρες) appeared in the hands of the statue of the Elean Hysmon at Olympia by the Sikyonian sculptor Kleon.[1223] Similarly, a figure of _Contest_ (Ἀγών) in the group set up there by Mikythos had weights.[1224] The offering of the people of Mende at Olympia very nearly deceived Pausanias into thinking it the statue of a pentathlete, because of its ancient _halteres_.[1225] This shows that these weights formed a regular attribute of pentathlete statues there. A relief from Sparta[1226] represents an athlete leaning on his spear and holding a pair of leaping-weights in his right hand. There is a bronze statue of such a victor in the Berlin Antiquarium.[1227] _Halteres_ hang on a tree-trunk to the right of the statue of an athlete in the Pitti palace in Florence.[1228] The breast of a marble torso, less than life-size, of a boy statue found at Olympia, shows that the hands were stretched forward, and very possibly the objects which they held were leaping-weights.[1229]

We have no direct literary reference to a victor statue at Olympia of a pentathlete with the attributes of the diskos or javelin. That they existed there, however, seems probable enough. Such a work as the _Diskobolos_ of Myron, which displays the youthful victor in its every line, other statues, statuettes, reliefs, and vase-paintings, show us how the artist represented the different steps in the casting of the quoit. Similarly, the famous _Doryphoros_ of Polykleitos, copies of which have been identified in many museums (Pl. 4 and Fig. 48), will give us an idea how a javelin thrower might have been represented at rest. The akontion or victor’s casting-spear, was, as we see from the Spartan relief of a pentathlete just mentioned, about the height of a man. The attitude of the diskobolos and doryphoros will be discussed at length in the next chapter.

BOXERS.

The statue of a boxer would be sufficiently characterized by thongs, which he might carry in his hand, as in the statue of the Rhodian Akousilaos at Olympia,[1230] or wound round his forearm, as in the statue of a boxer in the Palazzo Albani, Rome,[1231] or on a near-by prop, as on the tree-stump beside the _Choiseul-Gouffier Apollo_ in the British Museum (Pl. 7A).[1232]

WRESTLERS.

Long ago Scherer tried to show that the aryballos was a wrestler-attribute, since oil was so important in wrestling.[1233] He interpreted as _aryballoi_ the pomegranates mentioned by Pausanias as held in the hands of the statues of the wrestlers Milo[1234] and Theognetos[1235] at Olympia, assuming that the Periegete mistook oil-flasks for pomegranates (ῥοιαί). But it hardly seems reasonable that such a small utensil, which was used by athletes in general, could ever have been regarded as a peculiar attribute of the wrestler. A similar attribute may have been held in the outstretched hand of the half life-size archaic bronze “Apollo” of the Sciarra Palace in Rome,[1236] and it occurs on other statues.[1237]

CAPS FOR BOXERS, PANCRATIASTS, AND WRESTLERS.

Often the boxer and pancratiast (and even wrestler)[1238] are represented as wearing close-fitting caps, made up of thongs of leather or of solid leather. This, however, can scarcely be called a determining attribute. Our best example of such a cap is afforded by an athlete head dating from the first half of the fifth century B. C., in the Capitoline Museum, Rome,[1239] formerly called a portrait of Juba II, who was the king of Numidia and Mauretania from 25 B. C. to 23 A. D. This ascription was based on the barbarous look of the head and the fact that another head, discovered in the Gymnasion of Ptolemy in Athens and thought to resemble it, was assumed to be that of Juba, since Pausanias mentions one of that prince there.[1240] It is rather the head of an athlete engaged in putting on a cap. This cap consists of three transverse leather pieces crossing the head from side to side, one over the forehead, one over the crown, and the third over the occiput, all three converging above the ears. A fourth strap fastens them together and is drawn over the crown from forehead to occiput. In the complete statue doubtless the hands were raised to the head, grasping the straps near the ears to fasten them. This is, therefore, an anticipation of the later _Diadoumenos_ motive. We see it in a statuette formerly in the Stroganoff collection in Rome, but now in private possession in England,[1241] which represents an athlete putting on a similar head-dress. Though the arms of the statuette are gone, remains of the two hands are seen touching the left ear and tying the straps, one of which runs around the cranium above the swollen right ear. With this complicated head-dress we may compare the close-fitting cap—evidently of leather—pictured on an archaistic Greek votive relief-in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, in Rome, which represents an athlete washing his hands in a basin, which stands on a tripod.[1242] Here the cap is fastened by two bands, one around and the other under the chin. An object in the upper left corner of the relief, enclosed in a frame, appears to be a victor crown adorned with bow-knots. Such caps, used in wrestling, would make it impossible for an opponent to grasp the hair; in boxing and the pankration it would protect the head from injury. We saw that such a cap was pictured on a Munich kylix of the early fifth century B. C. It is probable that such caps were customary at a period before athletes lost their long hair and that it was continued afterwards for various reasons. The little statuette from Autun now in the Louvre (Fig. 60), representing a pancratiast, has a close-fitting cap. The ring at the top shows that this statuette was hung up—perhaps being used as a weight in a Roman scale, or perhaps for adornment. In later days boys while practising in the palæstra, but never at the public games, wore ear-lappets (ἀμφωτίδες or ἐπωτίδες) to protect their ears, not dissimilar to those worn in our day for protection against the cold. We see them on a marble head, formerly in the possession of Fabretti.[1243]

THE SWOLLEN EAR.

We have lastly to speak of the swollen ear, which was an attribute of victor statues, both primary and secondary, since it characterized victors as such, and also early differentiated victors in various contests. Swollen ears may have played a role as a characteristic attribute of pugilists in early times.[1244] We found them on the Rayet head in the Jacobsen collection (Fig. 22), which belongs to the last quarter of the sixth century B. C. and comes from the funerary statue of an athlete, probably a boxer. In course of time, however, they came to characterize pancratiasts, wrestlers,[1245] and athletes in general. The assumption, then, that heads with swollen ears come from statues of boxers,[1246] and that the boxer was known throughout Greek history as the “man with the crushed ear” is erroneous.[1247] The earliest literary reference to the bruised ear is in Plato.[1248] The philosopher used the term slightingly of those who imitated Spartan customs, especially Spartan boxing. The Lacedæmonians never boxed scientifically, but fought with bare fists and without rules. Literary evidence, furthermore, shows that bruised ears did not play the part in boxing matches which other bruised features of the face did—the eyes, nose, mouth, teeth, and chin. Vase-paintings sustain this evidence, for we often see bloody noses and cuts on the cheeks and chin, but no crushed ears.[1249] In short, the crushed ear was merely a professional characteristic, a realistic detail, common to athletes of various sorts, and, as we shall see, to warriors, gods, and heroes. To quote Homolle: “_La bouffissure des oreilles ellemême n’est pas un trait personnel, mais un caractère professionnel; elle ne désigne pas Agias, mais en général le lutteur. Cette déformation peut atteindre même un dieu, s’il a pratiqué les exercices gymnastiques et passé sa vie dans les luttes_”.[1250] It is found constantly on athletic types of heads in sculpture, whether these represent gods or mortals. A few examples will make this clear. The following heads of athletes show the swollen ears: the bronze portrait head of a boxer or pancratiast from Olympia, dating from the end of the fourth century B. C. or the beginning of the third (Fig. 61 A and B);[1251] the marble head from the statue of the boxer Philandridas set up among the victor statues at Olympia, the work of Lysippos (Frontispiece and Fig. 69);[1252] the head of the statue of the pancratiast Agias at Delphi (Pl. 28 and Fig. 68) ;[1253] that of the _Seated Boxer_ in the Museo delle Terme in Rome (Pl. 16 and Fig. 27);[1254] that of the _Apoxyomenos_ of the Uffizi in Florence (Pl. 12);[1255] the bronze head from an athlete statue found at Tarsos and now in Constantinople, an Attic work of the end of the fifth century B. C.;[1256] the beautiful bronze head of a boxer in the Glyptothek (Pl. 3);[1257] the head of the so-called _Apollo-on-the-Omphalos_ in Athens (Pl. 7B);[1258] the athlete head from Perinthos (Fig. 33);[1259] the bronze copy of the head of the _Doryphoros_, found in Herculaneum and now in Naples, by the Attic artist Apollonios (Fig. 47);[1260] the Ince-Blundell head in England, to be discussed; four heads in Copenhagen;[1261] the remarkably beautiful bust of an athlete in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (Pl. 20), whose rounded skull, oval face, projecting lower forehead, and dreamy, half-closed eyes place it in the fourth century B. C., a work influenced by the art of Praxiteles.[1262]

[Illustration: PLATE 20

Head of an Athlete, School of Praxiteles. Metropolitan Museum, New York.]

When we consider heads of gods and heroes we find the swollen ears on a variety of types. We see them on the so-called _Borghese Warrior_ of the Louvre (Fig. 43),[1263] formerly called a _Gladiator_, and on the marble statue of Kresilæan style in Munich, which has been known since Brunn’s interpretation as _Diomedes_ (carrying off the Palladion from Troy) (Pl. 21).[1264] This latter statue is a careful, though inexact, Hadrianic copy of a famous work and is shown to represent the hero, and not an athlete, by the mantle thrown over the arm. Skill in the boxing match, the roughest and most dangerous of sports, is as appropriate to _Diomedes_ as to Herakles himself. The crushed ears appear on the Dresden replica of this statue, a cast from the Mengs collection, the original of which was once probably in England,[1265] but do not appear on the poor copy in the Louvre.[1266] They also appear on the Myronian bust in the Riccardi Palace, Florence, which is a copy of an original that was, perhaps, the forerunner of the Kresilæan _Diomedes_.[1267] Here again the garment thrown over the left shoulder shows that a youthful hero, and not an athlete, is intended.

On heads of Herakles the swollen ears are very common. The first dated representation of the hero with battered ears appears to be on coins of Euagoras I, the king of Salamis in Cyprus during the years 410-374 B. C.[1268] We have several examples in sculpture from the fourth century B. C. Thus swollen ears and the victor fillet appear on the Skopaic head in the Capitoline Museum.[1269] Another example is the terminal bust of the youthful hero found in 1777 at Genzano, and now in the British Museum (Fig. 31).[1270] This head wreathed with poplar leaves, is probably a Græco-Roman copy of an original of the fourth century B. C., by an artist of the school of Lysippos. In the group representing Herakles and his son Telephos, a Roman copy in the Museo Chiaramonti of the Vatican, the hero is represented with fillet and battered ears.[1271] A Parian marble head, encircled by a crown, in the Glyptothek, going back to a Lysippan bronze original, seems to come from the statue of the hero represented as a victor.[1272] Another life-size head, of poor workmanship, in the Chiaramonti collection of the Vatican, sometimes confused with the _Doryphoros_ head-type, seems to come from a statue of Herakles, as shown by the broken ears and rolled fillet, the latter a well-known attribute of the hero taken from the symposium.[1273] A much finer replica is the bust from Herculaneum now in Naples.[1274] Swollen ears appear also on heads of Ares. We may instance the helmeted one in the Louvre,[1275] and especially the replica in the Palazzo Torlonia in Rome.[1276] They are less prominent on a Parian marble head of the god in the Glyptothek, which appears to be a copy of an original of which the _Ares Ludovisi_ is a more complete one.[1277]

[Illustration: FIG. 31.—Head of Herakles, from Genzano. British Museum London.]

[Illustration: PLATE 21

Statue of _Diomedes with the Palladion_. Glyptothek, Munich.]

So far as we know, the statues of wrestlers, runners (except hoplitodromes), and probably pancratiasts were not distinguished by special attributes. In these cases the sculptor was obliged to express the type of contest in the figure itself. His problem, therefore, was to represent the victor in the characteristic pose of the contest in which he had won his victory, that is, by representing the statue as if in movement. This brings us to the second division of our treatment of victor statues, those which represented the victor not at rest, but in motion, a scheme which, in course of time, was extended not only to victors in wrestling and running, but to those in all contests, by representing them in the very act of contending. The treatment of this class of monuments will occupy the chief portion of Chapter IV.

CHAPTER IV.

VICTOR STATUES REPRESENTED IN MOTION.

PLATES 22-25 AND FIGURES 32-62.

Just when the important step of representing the victor in motion instead of at rest was taken in Greek athletic sculpture we can not definitely say. The statement of Cornelius Nepos that the statues of athletes were first represented in movement in the fourth century B. C., after the time of the Athenian general Chabrias—whose image he describes as representing Chabrias in his favorite posture with his spear pointed at the enemy and his shield on his knee—has long since been shown to be worthless.[1278] Nor is the assumption of many archæologists[1279] that this advance in the plastic art was taken over into athletic sculpture soon after the statues of the _Tyrannicides_ were set up at Athens, which represented them in the midst of their impetuous onslaught on Hipparchos, to be relied upon. These statues, however, occupy so important a place in the history of Greek sculpture that we shall consider them briefly in this connection.

THE TYRANNICIDES.

The bronze statues of the popular heroes Harmodios and Aristogeiton, by the sculptor Antenor, were, in all probability, set up in the Athenian agora in 506-5 B. C.[1280] The group was carried off to Susa by Xerxes in 480 B. C., and to replace it a new group, doubtless a free imitation of the older one, and probably also of bronze, was set up in 477 B. C., the work of the sculptors Kritios and Nesiotes.[1281] Nearly a century and a half later the stolen group was restored to Athens by Alexander the Great[1282] and the two continued to stand side by side in Athens down to the time of Pausanias. Neither of these groups has survived to our time, but a late Roman marble copy of one, somewhat over lifesize, found in the ruins of Hadrian’s villa and now in Naples, gives us a good idea of the original, despite restorations (Fig. 32, _Harmodios_).[1283]

[Illustration: FIG. 32.—Statue of _Harmodios_. Museum of Naples.]

The reconstruction of this group is aided by several minor works of art, reliefs, vase-paintings, coins, lead marks, etc., the number of which shows that it was a common subject for Athenian artists. Botho Graef, by a careful study of the female statue found on the Akropolis in 1886 and inscribed as the work of Antenor, has shown that the stylistic contrast between it and the Naples group is too great for the latter to be assigned to Antenor.[1284] It is now, therefore, the prevailing view that the Naples group reproduces the later statues of Kritios and his associate.[1285] We do not know, then, how the older group looked, but we are certain that it was different from the later one, for, in the years elapsing between the dates of the two, Attic sculptors had become entirely free from the Ionic influence which we discussed in the preceding chapter and which characterizes the female statue of Antenor. Archaic stiffness, however, is still traceable in the later group, for in the copy we see a work which is “concise, sinewy, hard, and with strained lines,” in harmony with Lucian’s characterization of the works of Hegias, Kritios, and Nesiotes.[1286]

The restorations of the Naples group, though right in the main, make us doubtful as to the exact pose of the original figures.[1287] Harmodios has new arms, new right leg, and left leg below the knee, while Aristogeiton has a Lysippan head in place of the original bearded one, to correspond better with that of his companion. His left arm, with the drapery hanging down, has been put on at a wrong angle, as he should be represented holding a scabbard in the left hand and a sword in the right. On a vase fragment (oinochoe) in Boston[1288] both heroes are making the onset, the younger one (Harmodios) in front of the other, but in the original statues, they were probably making the onset abreast, something that the vase-painter could not represent.[1289]

While the Akropolis ephebe, already discussed as showing Argive influence (Fig. 17), still shows but little break with the law of “frontality” formulated by J. Lange,[1290] whereby an “imaginary line passing through the skull, nose, backbone, and navel, dividing the body into two symmetrical halves, is invariably straight, never bending to either side,” the _Tyrannicides_ have broken it completely. The ephebe has his head slightly turned to one side, and, because of resemblances in head and body to the figure of Harmodios, has been assigned to Kritios or his school.[1291] Another statue at rest ascribed to the same school is the athlete in the Somzée collection, which reminds us of the Pelops of the East Gable at Olympia.[1292] We have record of one more statue by Kritios himself, which was represented in motion only less violent than that of the _Tyrannicides_. Pausanias saw on the Akropolis of Athens a statue by him of the hoplite runner Epicharinos, which represented the athlete in the attitude of one practicing starts, perhaps in the very pose of the Tuebingen statuette (Fig. 42).[1293]

In the statues of the _Tyrannicides_, then, which might pass equally well for typical athletes of the time, we have examples of statues in motion at the end of the sixth century B. C.; for the same violent action must have characterized the earlier group of Antenor as the later one. We have seen that the Aeginetan sculptors not only made pediment groups in action at a date not later than that of the group by Kritios and Nesiotes, but single figures still earlier. Thus the sculptor Glaukias represented the Karystian boy boxer Glaukos in the act of sparring with an imaginary opponent.[1294] Though Glaukos won in Ol. 65 (= 520 B. C.), his statue was set up later by his son, perhaps as late as the end of the sixth century B. C., or the beginning of the fifth, as the _floruit_ of the sculptor would show.[1295] This is the oldest example attested by literary evidence of an athlete statue in motion at Olympia. Whether Glaukias got his motive from Antenor’s _Tyrannicides_, or whether his work was the older, we can not determine, but it is safe to say that this _genre_ of statuary must have existed at Olympia long before, as we know it did elsewhere. The Rampin head, already discussed as a fragment of a victor statue, shows by the turn of its neck that athlete statues represented in motion existed at least as far back as the first half of the sixth century B. C.[1296]

ANTIQUITY OF MOTION STATUES IN GREECE.