Chapter III: Victor Statues Represented at Rest (2)

The victor represented as standing at rest was often characterized by general motives, such as praying, anointing or scraping himself, offering libations, and the like. We shall now consider such motives in detail.

ADORATION AND PRAYER.

Prayer was a common motive represented in votive monuments. Pliny mentions many such works by Greek sculptors.[996] The custom of raising the arms in prayer is found all through Greek literature, from Homer down.[997] Pausanias says that the people of Akragas made an offering in the form of bronze statues of boys placed on the walls of the Altis, προτείνοντάς τε τὰς δεξιὰς καὶ εἰκασμένους εὐχομένοις τῷ θεῷ, these statues being the work of Kalamis.[998] In the Athenian Asklepieion there were many τύποι καταμακτοὶ πρὸς πινακίῳ, among which were representations of men and women in the praying attitude.[999] The motive was used at Olympia in victor statues, representing the victor as raising the hand in prayer to invoke victory.[1000] The statue of the wrestler Milo, already discussed at length, shows that this motive was employed at Olympia in the improved “Apollo” type in the second half of the sixth century B. C.[1001] From the next century we may cite the statue of the Spartan chariot victor Anaxandros, which was represented as “praying to the god,”[1002] and the statues of the Rhodian boxers Diagoras and Akousilaos, as we learn from a scholion on Pindar,[1003] which is based on a fragment of Aristotle[1004] and on one of Apollas.[1005] Of the statue of Diagoras it says: τὴν δεξιὰν ἀνατείνων χεῖρα, τὴν δὲ ἀριστερὰν εἰς ἑαυτὸν ἐπικλίνων; of that of Akousilaos: τῇ μὲν ἀριστερᾷ ἱμάντα ἔχων πυκτινόν, τὴν δὲ δεξιὰν ὡς πρὸς προσευχὴν ἀνατείνων.[1006] The bronze statue from Athens, now in the Antiquarium, Berlin,[1007] which represents a nude boy with the right hand raised as if in prayer and the left lowered and holding a leaping-weight—therefore a pentathlete—seems to correspond with this description of the statue of Akousilaos. The same motive may have been used in the statue of the chariot victress Kyniska, a princess of Sparta, whose statue along with that of her charioteer and the chariot was the work of the sculptor Apellas.[1008] This is the interpretation of Furtwaengler,[1009] based on a passage in Pliny, which mentions statues of _adornantes se feminas_[1010] by Apellas, which he reads _adorantes feminas_. However, _adornantes_ may be right, for in another passage, Pliny speaks of Praxiteles’ statue of a ψελιουμένη, _i. e._, of a woman clasping a bracelet on her arm.[1011] Two notable bronze statues will illustrate this motive of Olympic victor statues. The statue found in 1502 at Zellfeld in Carinthia, now in Vienna,[1012] has been interpreted both as a Hermes Logios and a votive statue in the attitude of prayer,[1013] which latter interpretation the inscription on the leg, giving a list of dedications,[1014] favors. However, Furtwaengler believes it a free imitation of an Argive victor statue, though not in the Polykleitan style. Because of its similarity to the _Idolino_ (Pl. 14), he has ascribed its original to the sculptor Patrokles. From technical considerations he believes it is not a Greek original dedicated by Romans of a later period, but a Roman work (after Patrokles) of the period of the inscription.[1015] The bronze statue of the _Praying Boy_ in Berlin[1016] (Pl. 10) is one of our most beautiful Greek bronzes and comes from the circle of Lysippos.[1017] We now know that the uplifted arms of this statue, in which most scholars saw the Greek attitude of prayer, are restorations which were probably made in the time of Louis XIV, when the statue was in France. Of the original motive we only can say that the action of the shoulders shows that both arms were raised, but we do not know how far, or the position of the hands. Monumental evidence shows that the hands in prayer should have the palms turned away from the face instead of upwards, as in the present statue, since the Greek position was the outgrowth of an old apotropaic gesture, _i. e._, one directed against an evil spirit. Mau’s idea[1018] that the figure represented a player catching a ball is certainly inconsistent with the calm attitude of the statue. Furtwaengler rejected it,[1019] and he has restored the arms and hands on the basis of a Berlin gem[1020] and an _ex voto_ relief found by the French excavators at Nemea in 1884.[1021] On this relief a youth crowned with a woolen fillet is represented. On both relief and gem the figures are in the same attitude, the arms raised over the head _manibus supinis_, which confirms the restoration of the Berlin statue. Many other monuments give the more usual attitude of prayer, not as in the relief and gem discussed, but with only one hand extended as high as the breast. Older writers thought that such monuments did not represent the gesture of adoration, but one of _adlocutio_,[1022] an opinion disproved by Pausanias’ statement about the bronze statues of the Akragantines at Olympia, already mentioned. We may cite a relief from Kleitor, now in Berlin,[1023] and a fine one of the fourth century B. C. from Lamia (?),[1024] as well as a red-figured Etruscan stamnos in Vienna representing, probably, Ajax praying before committing suicide.[1025] We shall mention also two little statuettes in New York which represent youths in the praying attitude.[1026] The first, dating from the second half of the fifth century B. C., and showing Polykleitan influence, represents a nude youth standing erect with the forearms bent, showing that the two hands were extended in prayer. The second, which dates from the first half of the fifth century B. C. (after the date of the Myronian _Diskobolos_), represents a nude youth standing with the right hand raised to the lips in an attitude usual in saluting a divinity, while the left is by the side, with the palm to the front.

Bronze Statue of the _Praying Boy_. Museum of Berlin.]

ANOINTING.

Various familiar motives from the everyday life of the gymnasium and palæstra were reproduced in the statues of athletes. One of the commonest methods was to represent the victor anointing his body with oil. The use of oil was indispensable in all athletic exercises, in order to make the body and limbs more supple, and especially in wrestling and the pankration, to make it difficult for one’s antagonist to get a grip.[1027] Pliny mentions a painting by Theoros, representing a man _se inunguentem_,[1028] which appears to have been a votive portrait of an athlete. The motive was common in vase-paintings and statuary. Several red-figured vases of the severe style, antedating the statues to be considered, show from realistic representations of palæstra scenes that it was customary for athletes to hold a round aryballos high in the right hand and pour oil from it into the left, which was placed across the body horizontally.[1029] The same motive appears with variations in statues.[1030] Thus the statue of an ephebe in Petworth House, Sussex, England,[1031] a statue, as Furtwaengler says, to be praised more for its excellent preservation than for its workmanship, represents an athlete, who holds a globular aryballos in his right hand raised over the shoulder, while the left arm is held across the abdomen. On the nearby tree-trunk are small cylindrical objects which seem to be boxing pads. This statue, and especially its head, have been regarded by Michaelis and Furtwaengler as unmistakably Polykleitan in style.[1032] Several other copies of original statues representing athletes pouring oil have been wrongly classed as replicas of one original,[1033] though they merely have essential features alike, due chiefly to the subject. First is the famous statue in the Glyptothek known as the _Oelgiesser_ (_Oil-pourer_), a Roman copy of an Attic bronze of about the middle of the fifth century B. C. (Pl. 11).[1034] Though the right arm and left hand are lost, it is clear that the athlete held in his raised right hand an oil flask, as in the Petworth statue.[1035] Notwithstanding that the head resembles the Praxitelian _Hermes_,[1036] this does not show that the statue is of fourth-century origin, for its original is older; it merely shows that the art of Praxiteles was deeply rooted in that of his fifth-century predecessors. Because of its Attic affiliations, Klein tried to identify it with the Ἐγκρινόμενος of Alkamenes mentioned by Pliny,[1037] by amending that title to Ἐγχριόμενος, the “Anointer.” Brunn, however, rightly saw the analogy of the body forms to Myron’s _Marsyas_,[1038] and Furtwaengler and Bulle have ascribed it to Lykios, the son and pupil of that master, who worked about 440 B. C., the approximate date of the original of the statue. A fragmentary head in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (Fig. 23),[1039] formerly in private possession in England, is a copy of the same original as the Munich statue. Its special interest is that it is not an exact copy of the original, as the Munich statue is, but a freer one, showing a fuller mouth, fleshier cheeks, and deeper-set eyes. While the Munich statue is the dry work of a Roman copyist of Augustus’ time, this head is by a far abler Greek copyist of the second century B. C. A torso in the Albertinum in Dresden, without a head,[1040] is similar to the Munich statue, but hardly a replica. It probably goes back to an original by an Attic master of the end of the fifth or beginning of the fourth century B. C. Other under life-size statues related to this torso show the same motive.[1041] A black-marble statue found at Porto d’Anzio in 1758, and now in the Glyptothek,[1042] has the Polykleitan standing motive. The left arm, which is stretched out, holds an oil flask in the hand, while the right arm is lowered. The band, which the position of the fingers shows that the right hand probably held, indicates it is the statue of a victor. A bronze statuette from South Italy, now in the British Museum,[1043] represents a nude youth holding an alabastron in his right hand, while the left has the palm open to receive the oil. The hair fashion (κρωβύλος) seems to point to an Attic sculptor of about 470 B. C.[1044] The same motive is found on terra-cotta statuettes from Myrina,[1045] on reliefs,[1046] and on gems.[1047]

Statue of the so-called _Oil-pourer_. Glyptothek, Munich.]

OIL-SCRAPING.

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]

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.