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. Apart from specifically athletic types, we know that statues in motion, especially those representing winged figures, antedated the sixth century B. C. in Greece, and were, perhaps, coeval with the very origin of Greek art.[1297] We know that the oldest Egyptian art attempted to render the human body in motion. We may instance the limestone funerary statuette dating from the Old Kingdom, which represents a slave woman grinding corn,[1298] and similar figures found in the graves of Memphis. In fact, the making of such statues ceased in Egyptian art after the end of the Old Kingdom. While Assyro-Babylonian art represented figures in motion only on reliefs, Cretan art, as we have seen in the first chapter, showed the utmost skill in representing movement in figures in the round. It used to be assumed that in Greek art motion statues developed out of the archaic “Apollo” type through the gradual freeing of legs and arms. Any such assumption is easily disproved by the fact that figures in motion exist, which date back almost as far as figures at rest. It is equally fallacious to argue that slight movement was easier for the early artist to represent than violent movement, for just the contrary was the case, so that in general the greater the movement represented, the greater is the age of the given monument. Early vase-paintings show that the early painter delighted in portraying free movement.[1299] It may be that the vase-painter preceded the sculptor in portraying movement, for it was easier to effect this in two dimensions than in three. But that statues in motion were already known at the beginning of the sixth century B. C., at least, is shown by the winged flying figure known as the _Nike_ of Archermos,[1300] unearthed on the island of Delos by the French in 1877, which is a masterpiece of early Chian sculpture, perhaps coeval with the statue dedicated to Artemis by Nikandre of Naxos, found a year later on Delos,[1301] even though the latter appears more archaic. This earliest example of treating a flying figure in Greek sculpture we find repeated almost unchanged for a long time after, especially for _akroteria_ figures on temples and in the minor arts. We might mention the bronze statuette of the end of the sixth century B. C., found on the Akropolis, which comes from the edge of a vessel and represents a winged _Nike_ springing through the air, the legs in profile and the head and upper body turned to the front, just as in the figure of Archermos.[1302] Such figures completely disprove the contention of Sikes that the Greek idea of a winged _Nike_ did not antedate the fifth century B. C.[1303] The early date of statues represented in a lunging attitude, like the _Tyrannicides_, is also shown by the story that Herakles destroyed his own statue by Daidalos in the agora of Elis, because in the night he mistook it for an enemy lunging at him. The scheme of combatants fighting with lances seems to have been native to Rhodian art at the end of the seventh century B. C., for we see it first on a painted terra-cotta plate in the British Museum, which represents Hektor and Menelaos fighting for the body of Euphorbos.[1304] This pose was taken over into other arts, as we see it in the bronze statuette of a warrior found in Dodona in 1880, now in the Antiquarium in Berlin, which dates from the end of the sixth century B. C., or the beginning of the fifth.[1305] All these examples are sufficient to show that representing the human figure in motion was an ancient motive in Greek art. PYTHAGORAS AND MYRON. Besides Kritios, two other sculptors of the transitional period—Pythagoras and Myron—gave a great impetus to the type of statue in motion in the first half of the fifth century B. C. Before proceeding further we shall briefly consider their artistic activity. The attempt to ascribe something tangible to Pythagoras of Rhegion has often been made.[1306] Practically all we really know about him is that he was celebrated for his statues of athletes. Pausanias mentions seven statues at Olympia of victors who won in many different events, in running (including the hoplite-race), wrestling, boxing, and the chariot-race; and Pliny, in giving a list of his works, praises the statue of a pancratiast at Delphi.[1307] Thus Pausanias records the statues of the Sicilian wrestler Leontiskos, who won two victories in Ols. 81 and 82 (= 456 and 452 B. C.);[1308] of the boy boxer Protolaos of Mantinea, who won in Ol. (?) 74 (= 484 B. C.);[1309] of the boxer Euthymos of Lokroi, who won three times in Ols. 74, 76, 77 (= 484, 476, 472 B. C.);[1310] of Dromeus of Stymphalos, who won the long foot-race (δόλιχος) twice in Ols. (?) 80 and 81 (= 460 and 456 B. C.);[1311] of Astylos of Kroton, who won the stade-race, the double foot-race (δίαυλος) three times, and the hoplite-race twice in Ols. 73, 74, 75, 76 (= 488-476 B. C.);[1312] of the hoplite victor Mnaseas of Kyrene, victor in Ol. 81 (= 456 B. C.);[1313] and of the latter’s son Kratisthenes, who won the chariot-race in Ol. (?) 83 (= 448 B. C.).[1314] Some of these statues at Olympia must have been represented at rest, while others appear to have been represented in motion. Thus the statue of Mnaseas—though it is possible that it was represented in motion like that of Epicharinos by Kritios already mentioned—was probably represented at rest, since Pausanias described it simply as that of an ὁπλίτης ἀνήρ.[1315] When we inquire into the style of Pythagoras we do not find much that is definite to guide us. Besides the bare list of his works, we have little except the statement of Diogenes Laertios that he was the first to aim at rhythm and symmetry.[1316] Nevertheless many attempts have been made to identify his athlete statues with existing copies. Waldstein’s interpretation of the _Choiseul-Gouffier_ statue in the British Museum (Pl. 7A), and of the so-called _Apollo-on-the-Omphalos_ in Athens (Pl. 7B), as copies of an original athlete statue, is, as we have shown in the second chapter, well-founded, since the muscular build and the coiffure of these statues betoken the athlete. But his further attempt to show that the original was by Pythagoras, and his identifying it with the statue of the boxer Euthymos at Olympia, is not so reasonable.[1317] [Illustration: FIG. 33.—Head of an Athlete, from Perinthos. Albertinum, Dresden.] The attempt to ascribe the head of a pancratiast from Perinthos in Dresden (Fig. 33)[1318] to Pythagoras is not convincing, though Furtwaengler has included it in his provisional Pythagorean group,[1319] as he does the boxer in the Louvre known as _Pollux_ (Fig. 58),[1320] the athlete of the Boboli Gardens in Florence formerly called _Harmodios_ by Benndorf,[1321] and the statue of an athlete of later style in Lansdowne House, London.[1322] Other scholars have also connected the Perinthos head with Pythagoras.[1323] Hermann brought it into relation with the bust in the Riccardi Palace in Florence, which, despite its swollen ears, we have already classed as representing a hero and not an athlete, because of the garment thrown over the shoulder.[1324] Furtwaengler tried to show that this bust was Myronian in style, classing it and the head of an athlete in Ince Blundell Hall, Lancashire, England,[1325] along with that of the earlier _Diskobolos_, explaining the acknowledged differences in the three by Pliny’s statement that Myron _primus multiplicasse veritatem videtur_.[1326] Arndt lists the Perinthos, Riccardi, and Ince Blundell heads, together with two others in the Jakobsen collection in Copenhagen,[1327] the head of the so-called Pollux of the Louvre, a bearded head in Petrograd,[1328] and the so-called head of _Peisistratos_ in the Villa Albani, Rome,[1329] as works emanating from one school of sculptors—the differences being explained by the many copyists. But to attempt to differentiate within the group two different sculptors, Myron or Pythagoras, he finds impossible, chiefly because we are dealing in every case with copies and not with originals, and because in no case are we certain that the head belongs to the torso on which it is set.[1330] Still another critic, A. Schober, classes together as more or less related works the Riccardi, Ince Blundell, Perinthos, and Ny-Carlsberg heads, the Louvre boxer (_Pollux_), Chinnery _Hermes_ in the British Museum,[1331] the Boboli athlete, the athlete metamorphosed into a _Hermes_ in the Loggia Scoperta of the Vatican, and the Lansdowne athlete, and finds them all Myronian. He believes the Perinthos head to be the prototype of the Riccardi and Ince Blundell heads.[1332] In all this confusion of opinion as to the style of Pythagoras, and in the absence of any fixed criterion of judgment furnished by an original authenticated work, it seems hazardous to ascribe this or that sculpture to this little-known artist. The difficulty of separating Myron and Pythagoras is even greater than that which confronts us in trying to distinguish works of Lysippos and Skopas in the next century. We may some day recover a genuine Pythagorean athlete statue, though this is extremely improbable now that we have no more to expect from Olympia and Delphi, where most of his statues appear to have stood. But despite the difficulty, many identifications of his Olympia statues have been suggested, some of which we shall now mention. As Pausanias says that the victor Mnaseas was surnamed _Libys_, the Libyan, and that his statue was by Pythagoras, it may be that this is the statue mentioned by Pliny in the words: _[Pythagoras] fecit ... et Libyn, puerum tenentem tabellam eodem loco (= Olympiae) et mala ferentem nudum._[1333] However, in that case we can not connect the words _Libyn_ and _puerum_, since one represented a man and the other a boy.[1334] Consequently, Pliny is speaking of three different statues, and not two, by this artist. Reisch believes that the statues of the boy and the nude man were represented at rest,[1335] the boy bearing a tablet (_i. e._, an iconic πινάκιον) in his hand, like the Athenian youth appearing on a vase-painting in Munich.[1336] Another scholar, L. von Urlichs, formerly identified the boy carrying the tablet with the statue of Protolaos at Olympia,[1337] explaining the tablet as a means of characterizing the young learner. He changed his theory later,[1338] when, in consequence of the discovery of the Corinthian tablets, he called it a votive tablet. His son, H. L. von Urlichs, agreed with him because of a passage in the collection of _Proverbs_ by Zenobios, the sophist of Hadrian’s age,[1339] according to which the marble statue of _Nemesis_ at Rhamnous by Pheidias’ favorite pupil, the Parian sculptor Agorakritos,[1340] held an apple-branch in her left hand, from which a small tablet containing the artist’s name was suspended, and also because certain coins of Syracuse and Catania represent Nike as carrying a tablet hung by a ribbon, on which the coin-striker’s name was engraved.[1341] The same scholar further identified the nude man carrying the apples with the statue of Dromeus at Olympia. Since Pliny does not expressly say that the statue of the nude man was at Olympia, even though the sense of the passage inclines us to think it was, L. von Urlichs interprets the apples in the hand as an additional prize at Delphi, and so makes the statue that of a Pythian victor.[1342] All such identifications are based on too uncertain premises. That Pythagoras did make statues in motion is proved by his statue of a limping man at Syracuse mentioned by Pliny[1343] in very realistic terms. We know of other statues by him representing athletes in motion only by inference. Thus, in the passage just quoted, Pliny says that he surpassed Myron with his Delphian pancratiast, which appears, inasmuch as Pliny merely calls the statue a pancratiast without mentioning any attribute, to have been represented in the characteristic lunging pose.[1344] However, we can not say definitely, since the contemporary statue of the pancratiast Kallias, by Mikon of Athens, was represented in the attitude of rest, as we learn from the footprints on its recovered base.[1345] Pliny also says that Pythagoras surpassed with his Delphian pancratiast his own statue of Leontiskos,[1346] a statement which similarly appears to mark the latter as a statue in motion. Reisch assumes that the statue of Euthymos was in motion, since Pausanias says it was an ἀνδριὰς θέας ἐς τὰ μάλιστα ἄξιος.[1347] On the whole, then, we may assume that Pythagoras was a sculptor who represented many of his victors in the attitude of motion. Love of movement also characterized the artistic temperament of Myron, even though we know that he represented gods, heroes, and even athletes, at rest. Thus coins show that Athena in his _Marsyas_ group was represented as standing in a tranquil pose.[1348] Similarly the Riccardi bust in Florence, already discussed, which may be Myronian, comes from a statue of a hero shown in an attitude of rest. Myron was the first Greek sculptor to make his statues and groups self-sufficient,[1349] that is, he gave to them a concentration which does not allow the spectator’s attention to wander. We readily see this new principle in art when we compare the _Diskobolos_ and the group of the _Tyrannicides_. In the latter our attention is not concentrated, for a third figure, that of the tyrant on whom the onset is being made, is required in imagination to complete the group. We have no originals from Myron’s hand, but we are in far better case in regard to his work than in regard to that of Pythagoras, since we have unmistakable copies of two of his greatest works, the _Marsyas_ and the _Diskobolos_. In them there is little trace of the archaic stiffness that is still visible in the _Tyrannicides_. Both of these works are represented in violent action, and in both there is complete concentration. While the _Diskobolos_ represents a trained palæstra athlete executing a graceful movement, the _Marsyas_ represents a wild Satyr of the woods, wholly untrained and controlled by savage passions, in the moment of fear.[1350] In the _Diskobolos_ the face is impassive, being little affected by the violent movement of the body—a contrast only partly to be explained as due to the copyist; in the _Marsyas_, on the contrary, there is complete harmony between the facial expression and the violent action of the body. [Illustration: PLATE 22 Statue of the _Diskobolos_, from Castel Porziano, after Myron. Museo delle Terme, Rome.] [Illustration: FIG. 34.—Statue of the _Diskobolos_, after Myron. Vatican Museum, Rome.] Since we are chiefly dependent for our knowledge of Myron’s athletic work on the marble copies of the _Diskobolos_, which represents a new era in athletic art, and since this statue is perhaps the most famous athletic statue of all times, it will be well to speak of it here at some length. It is not, so far as we know, the statue of any particular victor, but rather a study in athletic sculpture.[1351] Of this work there are twelve full size replicas and several statuettes. We shall discuss only those which give us the best idea of the lost original. The most faithful copy is the superb marble statue in the Palazzo Lancellotti, Rome, discovered on the Esquiline in 1781 (head seen in Pl. 23).[1352] As the head has never been broken away from the body, this copy preserves the original pose, whereas all other copies have the head turned in the wrong direction.[1353] The head and face preserve Attic proportions and the treatment of the hair and muscles differs from that of the other copies, which disclose later elements. The hair, in particular, shows signs of archaism, just as it must have been treated in the original, as evinced by Pliny’s criticism.[1354] The most carefully worked copy, however, is the Parian marble torso, which was found in 1906 at Castel Porziano, the site of the ancient Laurentum, and is now in the Museo delle Terme, Rome (Pl. 22).[1355] This torso was already restored in antiquity. Since the villa in which it was found was built in Augustus’ day and was restored in the second century A. D., we have the approximate dates both of the origin and restoration of the statue. A weak copy, discovered in Tivoli in 1791, is in the Sala della Biga of the Vatican; the head, left arm, and right leg below the knee have been restored, the head wrongly (Fig. 34).[1356] A Græco-Roman copy discovered also in 1791, in Hadrian’s villa, is in the British Museum (Fig. 35).[1357] Here the head, although antique, belongs to another copy, and has been set upon the torso wrongly, in such a way that the throat has two Adam’s apples. It looks straight to the ground and not upward as in the Lancellotti copy. There is a better replica of the torso in the Capitoline Museum, which formerly belonged to the French sculptor Étienne Mounot (1658-1733), who wrongly restored it as a falling warrior. It agrees in accuracy with the Lancellotti copy, though it is dry and lifeless, and is a better guide to the original than either the Vatican or British Museum replicas.[1358] A combination of these and other copies gives us an excellent idea of the original bronze. In Pl. 23 we give a combination of the Vatican torso and the Lancellotti head from a cast in Munich.[1359] Perhaps a better combination is that given by Bulle[1360] from a cast made up of the delle Terme body, the Lancellotti head, the right arm and the diskos from the Casa Buonarroti in Florence, the feet from the British Museum copy and the fingers of the left hand being freely restored. [Illustration: FIG. 35.—Statue of the _Diskobolos_, after Myron. British Museum, London.] [Illustration: PLATE 23 Statue of the _Diskobolos_, after Myron. A bronzed Cast from the Statue in the Vatican and Head from the Statue in the Palazzo Lancellotti, Rome.] The pose of the Lancellotti copy agrees with Lucian’s description of the original: “Surely, said I, you do not speak of the quoit-thrower who stoops in the attitude of one who is making his cast, turning round toward the hand that holds the quoit, and bending the other knee gently beneath him, like one who will rise erect as he hurls the quoit?”[1361] That the head of the original was turned back as in the Lancellotti copy, and not downwards, as in the Vatican, British Museum and other replicas, is shown by this description, which is corroborated by two bronze statuettes in Munich and Arolsen[1362] and by a gem in the British Museum.[1363] Myron chose the most difficult, but at the same time the most characteristic, moment in swinging the diskos, the moment which combines the idea of rest and motion. The quoit has been swung back as far as it will go. The momentary pause before it is hurled forward suggests rest and at the same time implies motion, both that which has preceded and that which is to follow. It is this short pause at the end of the backward swing which the sculptor has fixed in the bronze. The right arm is stretched backwards as far as possible and draws with it the body with the left arm and head; in another instant the diskos will be hurled and the tension on the right leg relaxed. The original statue rested upon the right foot; the tree trunk is a necessary addition to the marble copies. As Greek art was mostly characterized by repose, we are not surprised that such a daring effect received the censure of the ancient critics. Quintilian says that if any one blames the statue for its labored effect, he is wrong, since the novelty and the difficulty of the work are its chief merits.[1364] For a statue of the transitional stage of Greek sculpture it is remarkably bold; only in imagination can we see the action by which the body has got into this position and by which it will recover its equilibrium. It illustrates a principle laid down by Lessing in the _Laokoön_: “Of ever changing nature the artist can use only a single moment and this from a single point of view. And as his work is meant to be looked at not for an instant, but with long consideration, he must choose the most fruitful moment, and the most fruitful point of view, that, to wit, which leaves the power of imagination free.”[1365] Myron was the sculptor of five statues for four victors at Olympia, one of a pancratiast, another of a boxer, a third of a runner, and two of a victor in the hoplite-race and the chariot-race.[1366] Pliny also says that Myron made statues of pentathletes and pancratiasts at Delphi.[1367] Thus he showed as much versatility as Pythagoras in the representation of victors in different contests. None of these statues has survived and the identification of existing Roman copies with any of them is, of course, highly problematical. Thus, a little further on we make the suggestion that the statue of the boxer in the Louvre, commonly known as _Pollux_ (Fig. 58), may be, because of its Myronian character, the statue of the unknown Arkadian boxer at Olympia mentioned by Pausanias (in connection with the boy boxer Philippos) as the work of Myron.[1368] Pliny, in the passage just cited, also mentions statues of _pristae_ by Myron, a word which has given rise to many interpretations: _e. g._, sea-monsters (_pristes_ or _pistres_), men working with a cross-cut saw (_pristae_), players at see-saw (_pristae_?),[1369] and boxers (_pyctae_).[1370] The manuscripts are unanimous for _pristae_, and hence it is probable that a realistic group by Myron is meant, since Myron is often classed as a realist in opposition to Polykleitos, the idealist. Long ago Dalecampius, followed in recent years by Furtwaengler,[1371] believed that these _pristae_ formed a votive offering, and H. L. von Urlichs has shown that a group of sawyers as the dedication of some master-builder is quite in harmony with fifth-century traditions.[1372] H. Stuart Jones[1373] connects the words _Perseum et pristas_ of Pliny’s text, and follows the theory of Mayer[1374] that the carpenters or sawyers were a part of a group, which represented the inclosure of Danaë and Perseus in the chest. While the athletic statues in motion by Pythagoras and Myron became models for later sculptors, especially in the following century,[1375] the rest statues of Polykleitos still remained in vogue in works by members of his family and school down through the fourth century, as we have seen in our treatment of the Argive-Sikyonian sculptors at Olympia. MOTION STATUES REPRESENTING VICTORS IN VARIOUS CONTESTS. We shall now review the types of victor statues, which reproduced in their pose the various contests, _i. e._, statues in motion. We shall find it convenient to follow in the main the order of contests as they appear on the Oxyrhynchus Papyrus[1376]—the stade-race (στάδιον), double race (δίαυλος), long race (δόλιχος), pentathlon (πένταθλον), wrestling, (πάλη), boxing (πύξ), pankration (παγκράτιον), hoplite-race (ὁπλίτης), chariot-race (τέθριππον), and horse-race (κέλης)—except that we shall class the four running races (nos. 1, 2, 3, and 11) together and include the three boys’ contests (παίδων στάδιον, πάλη, πύξ, nos. 8, 9, 10) under the corresponding men’s events. The classification of competitors by ages (ἡλικίαι), which varied at different festivals, will need a word of explanation. While athletes at Nemea, the Isthmus, and Delphi were divided into three classes, παῖδες, ἀγένειοι, and ἄνδρες,[1377] at Olympia they were divided into two, παῖδες and ἄνδρες.[1378] At local competitions there was a more elaborate classification. Thus at the Bœotian _Erotidia_, boys were divided into younger and older;[1379] at the games held on the island of Chios there were five divisions, boys, younger, middle, and older ephebes, and men;[1380] and at the Athenian _Theseia_, the boys were divided into first, second, and third classes, while an open contest also existed for boys of any age.[1381] Girls at the _Heraia_ at Olympia were similarly divided into three classes.[1382] Plato proposed three classes of athletes in his _Laws_—παιδικοί, ἄνδρες, and a third class, ἀγένειοι, between boys and men.[1383] The classification of athletes at Athens into παῖδες and ἄνδρες, adopted by Boeckh, Dittenberger, and Dumont,[1384] is now the one generally followed. According to it the παῖδες were subdivided into three classes, those τῆς πρώτης ἡλικίας, τῆς δευτέρας, and τῆς τρίτης; and so the ἀγένειοι were merely the παῖδες τῆς τρίτης ἡλικίας. The boys, including the ἀγένειοι, ranged from 12 to 18 years old; at 18 they became ἔφηβοι or ἄνδρες.[1385] We have already seen that the age of boy victors at Olympia was over 17 and under 20.[1386] As we have already remarked in an earlier chapter, we are mostly indebted to Pausanias for our knowledge of the victor statues at Olympia.[1387] He mentions in his _periegesis_ of the Altis 192 monuments, which were erected to 187 victors.[1388] Some of these victors won in more than one contest, so that there are 258 different victories recorded in all. In the following sections we shall see how these were distributed among the various contests. RUNNERS: STADIODROMOI, DIAULODROMOI, DOLICHODROMOI. Running races formed at all times a part of the Greek games and of the exercises of the youth in the gymnasia and palæstræ. A scholiast on Pindar[1389] says that the running race had its origin in the first celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries. It figures largely in mythology, especially at Olympia, which also shows its antiquity.[1390] In historic times many varieties of running developed, but four chief ones were practised at the great games.[1391] First there was the simple stade-race (στάδιον, δρόμος), which was merely the length of the stadion or 600 Greek feet, corresponding with the running race of Homer.[1392] Then there was the double race (δίαυλος), twice as long as the preceding, to the end of the course and back again.[1393] The long race (δόλιχος, ὁ μακρὸς δρόμος), which Philostratos derives from the institution of messenger runners (_hemerodromoi_),[1394] is variously given as seven, twelve, fourteen, twenty, and twenty-four stades in length, _i. e._, from about four-fifths of a mile to nearly three miles.[1395] Lastly there was the race in armor (ὁπλιτοδρόμος,[1396] ὁπλίτης,[1397] ἀσπίς.[1398]) The long race was instituted not so much as a contest of fleetness as of endurance. At Olympia only men were admitted, though there was such a race for boys at Delphi.[1399] The Cretans were famed in this style of running.[1400] The race in armor, which was a double race or two stades at Olympia, we shall discuss further on. Probably the boys’ stade-race at Olympia was shorter than that of the men. Plato, who gives the historic division of running races outlined above, has the boys run one-half of the men’s course and the ephebes (ἀγένειοι) two-thirds.[1401] Just so Pausanias has the girl runners at the Olympia _Heraia_ run one-sixth of the men’s stadion.[1402] At Olympia, as at the _Panathenaia_ in Athens and probably elsewhere, the first event preceding all others was the stade-race. Pausanias says that it was the oldest event at Olympia,[1403] and it existed there all through antiquity from the first recorded Olympiad (= 776 B. C.), when Koroibos of Elis won.[1404] But the notion generally held[1405] that the stade-race for men was honored above all other events at Olympia, because the winner became ἐπώνυμος for the Olympiad and because his name occurs in the lists of Africanus for every Olympiad, is incorrect. In two passages Thukydides cites Olympic pancratiasts for dates,[1406] and in the earliest inscription which makes use of Olympiads for chronology the later introduced pankration is the event used.[1407] The literary supremacy of Athens, where, at the _Panathenaia_, the stade-race was the most important event, doubtless helped later in making the stade runner at Olympia eponymous. This custom, however, was not generally employed before the third century B. C. [Illustration: FIG. 36.—Athletic Scenes from a Bacchic Amphora in Rome. A. Stadiodromoi and Leaper. B. Diskobolos and Akontistai.] [Illustration: FIG. 37.—Athletic Scenes from a Sixth-century B. C. Panathenaic Amphora. Stadiodromoi (left) and Dolichodromoi (right).] Pausanias dates the introduction of the double foot-race at Olympia in Ol. 14 (= 724 B. C.).[1408] He does not say when the long race was instituted, but Eusebios says that it was in Ol. 15 (= 720 B. C.).[1409] The boys’ stade-race was introduced there in Ol. 37 (= 632 B. C.).[1410] The hoplite-race was inaugurated at the end of the sixth century B. C., in Ol. 65 (= 520 B. C.).[1411] Pausanias mentions 24 _stadiodromoi_ at Olympia, who won 32 victories, which makes this event third in importance, next after boxing and wrestling. He mentions 7 victors in the double race with 11 victories, and 5 victors in the long race with 8 victories. He also mentions 12 hoplite victors with 14 victories. Consequently, in all four running events there, he records 48 victors with 65 victories, which brings the running races only to second place in importance at Olympia, ranking next after boxing.[1412] The ordinary sprinter or _stadiodromos_, and the double sprinter, _diaulodromos_ or _hoplitodromos_, naturally ran differently from the endurance runner or _dolichodromos_. Panathenaic vases clearly show this difference. Thus while the sprinter swung his arms violently, spreading the fingers apart and touching the ground only with his toes[1413] (Figs. 36A and 37, left), the endurance runner, who had to conserve his strength to the last, ran with a long stride, holding his arms bent at the elbow and close to the body, his fists doubled and his body slightly bent forward, its weight resting on the ball of the foot, the heel being raised only a little. Thus Philostratos says that the _dolichodromoi_ ran with their hands extended and with their fists balled, but that at the finish they also swung their arms violently like wings.[1414] The race (showing balled fists) is seen on a Panathenaic amphora dating from the archonship of Nikeratos (333 B. C.), now in the British Museum, and on another of the sixth century B. C., pictured in Fig. 37 (right).[1415] In the _diaulos_ the movement was less violent. Thus on an Athens vase inscribed, “I am a diaulos runner,”[1416] the movement is between that of a sprinter and an endurance runner. It seems probable that this difference in the style of running was similarly shown in sculpture.[1417] We shall next consider certain sculptural monuments which represent runners. The typical scheme for archaic and archaistic art was to represent the runner with one knee nearly touching the ground, the upper log forming a right angle with the lower, the other leg being perpendicular to the upper. This scheme appears on many vases and reliefs and in statuettes and statues.[1418] This old method of depicting runners was kept up by vase-painters down to the time of the red-figured masters.[1419] We see them on many reliefs, _e. g._, on the Ionic-Greek reliefs on the three archaic bronze tripods of the middle of the sixth century B. C. in the possession of Mr. James Loeb;[1420] on a small bronze relief in the Metropolitan Museum in New York which represents a winged Boreas;[1421] and on the marble funerary stele of the so-called dying hoplite runner found in 1902 near the Theseion, and now in the National Museum in Athens.[1422] Almost the same position as that of the figure on this Athenian relief is seen in a small bronze in the Metropolitan Museum, whose primitive features and solidly massed hair date it in the early part of the sixth century B. C.[1423] Another slightly larger bronze in the same museum represents Herakles running in a kneeling posture.[1424] Because a spearman is incongruous behind a bowman, Kalkmann[1425] and Furtwaengler[1426] have interpreted the two kneeling figures near either end of the West gable of the temple on Aegina as archaic runners (see Fig. 21, left). We may further compare with these figures the positions, though not the motives, of two others from the West gable at Olympia,[1427] as well as that of the kneeling bowman _Herakles_ from the East gable of the temple on Aegina.[1428] In this connection we shall also mention the life-size marble torso of a kneeling youth found in Nero’s villa at Subiaco in 1884 and now in the Museo delle Terme, Rome (Pl. 24).[1429] This statue, representing a boy of delicate build apparently striding forward with the right leg and bending the left so that the knee nearly touches the ground, has been regarded by some scholars[1430] as a runner, whose pose copies the archaic manner, being historically the last example known of its use in sculpture. The right shoulder is turned backward and the head, now missing, was turned back and upwards; the right arm is raised high and twisted about with the palm of the hand facing backward, the left arm extended with its hand in some way related to the right knee. The impression made on the spectator is that of a boy bending aside as if to ward off some danger. It is an excellent piece of work, evidently the marble copy of an original bronze. This has been variously assigned to the fifth, fourth, and even later centuries B. C.,[1431] and interpreted in various ways[1432]—as a Niobid,[1433] as Ganymedes swooped down upon by the eagle,[1434] as Hylas drawn into the water by nymphs when he was filling his pitcher,[1435] as a ball-player,[1436] as a boy throwing a lasso,[1437] as a gable figure,[1438] as a runner at the games, etc. Many of these interpretations are purely fanciful; the last is, perhaps, as good as any, though the strongly turned upper body seems not quite fitted to it. If it represents a runner, the sculptor has reproduced the well-known archaic pose. THE STATUE OF THE RUNNER LADAS. We shall next consider the famous statue of the runner Ladas by Myron, which is unfortunately known to us only from literary evidence, but which attained in antiquity an even greater fame than his nameless _Diskobolos_, since it portrayed even more tension than that wonderful work. Its fame was partly due to the picturesque story how the victory cost the runner his life, for he died of strain while on his way home to Sparta; it was also due in no less degree to the striking way in which the victor was depicted.[1439] Two fourth-century epigrams tell us of the statue. The first of these runs: Λάδας τὸ στάδιον εἴθ’ ἥλατο, εἴτε διέπτη, οὐδὲ φράσαι δυνατόν· δαιμόνιον τὸ τάχος. [ὁ ψόφος ἦν ὕσπληγγος ἐν οὔασι, καὶ στεφανοῦτο Λάδας καὶ κάμνων δάκτυλον οὐ προέβη.][1440] The second epigram, naming Myron as the sculptor, runs: Οἷος ἔης φεύγων τὸν ὑπήνεμον, ἔμπνοε Λάδα, Θῦμον, ἐπ’ ἀκροτάτῳ πνεύματι θεὶς ὄνυχα, τοῖον ἐχάλκευσέν σε Μύρων, ἐπὶ παντὶ χαράξας σώματι Πισαίου προσδοκίην στεφάνου. [Illustration: PLATE 24 Statue of a Kneeling Youth, from Subiaco. Museo delle Terme, Rome.] To these verses are added the following, which Benndorf thinks belonged to another epigram on the same statue: πλήρης ἐλπίδος ἐστίν, ἄκροις δ’ ἐπὶ χείλεσιν ἆσθμα ἐμφαίνει κοίλων ἔνδοθεν ἐκ λαγόνων. πηδήσει τάχα χαλκὸς ἐπὶ στέφος, οὐδὲ καθέξει ἁ βάσις· ὢ τέχνη πνεύματος ὠκυτέρα.[1441] Professor Ernest Gardner translates the two parts of the second epigram as follows: “Like as thou wast in life, Ladas, breathing forth thy panting soul,[1442] on tip-toe, with every sinew at full strain, such hath Myron wrought thee in bronze, stamping on thy whole body thy eagerness for the victor’s crown of Pisa.” “He is filled with hope, and you may see the breath caught on his lips from deep within his flanks; surely the bronze will leave its pedestal and leap to the crown. Such art is swifter than the wind.”[1443] Even if part of the epigram is rhetorical, we can not doubt that Ladas was represented in the final spurt just before he arrived at the goal. His eagerness was not confined to the face—though the panting breath could have been indicated by half opened lips, but was visible in the whole body.[1444] Whereas the girl runner of the Vatican (Pl. 2) is represented at the beginning of the race, Myron’s statue represented Ladas at the end of it. Probably the victor was represented with his weight thrown on the advanced foot and with the arms close to the sides and bent at the elbows—a treatment which would have been easy for the sculptor of the _Diskobolos_. Mahler tried to identify the statue with one of the Naples group of so-called runners (Fig. 51).[1445] However, as we shall see, these probably represent wrestlers, and not runners, and neither of them shows any such tension as we should expect from the description of the statue of Ladas. Though Foerster believes that the statue of Ladas stood in Olympia, in honor of his victory in the long race there,[1446] we can not say definitely where it was.[1447] [Illustration: FIG. 38.—Statue of a Runner. Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome.] [Illustration: FIG. 39.—Statue of a Runner. Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome.] Perhaps our best representation of runners is to be seen in the two marble statues discovered near Velletri and now in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome (Figs. 38 and 39).[1448] The hair and the sharp edges of the modeling of the flesh, as well as the tree-stumps near the right legs, show that these statues are copies of bronze originals. They were at first interpreted as runners, but later were regarded as forming a group of wrestlers, who were standing opposite one another and holding their hands out for an opening. However, there is nothing in the pose or the expression of these statues to show the tension of two opponents. Moreover, they certainly never formed a group, for stylistic differences reveal that they are copies of statues by different artists who lived at different times; one belongs to the severe style of the last quarter of the fifth century,[1449] while the other, with its softer forms, smaller head, and deeper-set eyes, is a product of the fourth century B. C.[1450] The prominent edge of the chest is doubtless meant to indicate the hard breathing of a runner.[1451] Just in front of the tree-stump on the older statue is to be seen a round hole in the plinth, which may have been made for the end of a club held in the right hand, as such an object is found in other works of art, notably in a statuette from Palermo, which is the copy of a fifth-century B. C. original, and on a second-century B. C. grave-stele from Crete.[1452] Its use, however, is not certainly known. Furtwaengler, by an ingenious process of reasoning, argued that he had recovered an actual statue of an Olympic runner in the so-called _Alkibiades_, formerly in the Villa Mattei, but now in the Sala della Biga of the Vatican.[1453] This torso he ascribed to the sculptor Kresilas, because of its likeness to the _Perikles_ of that master, which once stood on the Akropolis,[1454] and to a marble torso in Naples representing a wounded man ready to fall, which he thinks is a copy of the _Volneratus deficiens_ of Kresilas mentioned by Pliny.[1455] The _Alkibiades_ is very similar to the Naples gladiator, though later in date; the bearded head, drawn-in stomach, and muscular chest, and the veins in the upper arm are common to both. The restorer of the Vatican statue has placed a helmet under the right foot. But the deep-breathing chest may indicate a runner, as we saw in the case of the statues of the Conservatori just discussed. Furtwaengler has the body bend further forward, so that the right foot may rest upon the ground and the glance be fixed upon the goal, with the arms extended at the elbows, a position proved for the right arm, at least, by the _puntello_ above the hip. As the head shows portrait-like features and only those athletes who had won three victories had portrait statues, he has identified the original of the _Alkibiades_ with the statue of the famous stade-runner Krison of Himera, who won his victories at Olympia just after the middle of the fifth century B. C., the approximate date of the Vatican copy.[1456] Such an identification appears, however, to be too far-fetched to be convincing. STATUES OF BOY RUNNERS. [Illustration: FIG. 40.—Statue of the _Thorn-puller_ (_Spinario_). Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome.] Probably the statues of boy runners did not differ essentially from those of men. That they were sometimes represented in motion is shown by the footprints on the recovered base of the statue of Sosikrates by an unknown artist. Here the right foot touched the ground only with the front portion.[1457] The view has often been expressed that the bronze statue in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome, known as the _Spinario_ (_Thorn-puller_) portrays a runner (Fig. 40).[1458] It represents a boy, from twelve to fifteen years old, seated upon a rock bending over and engrossed in extracting a thorn from his left foot, which rests upon the right knee. The severe hair treatment, low forehead, full cheeks, and strong chin appear to show the ideal beauty of a boy of the period of about 460 B. C. The motive seems to have been inspired directly by nature—witness the supple bend of the back, the delicate arms, the naïve, though not too realistic, concentration of interest in the act portrayed. Few pieces of ancient sculpture have given rise to more discussion and extraordinary difference of opinion than this popular work. One school of archæologists[1459] believes it a late adaptation of a Hellenistic original, a more accurate copy being the one in the British Museum, and consequently views it as a purely _genre_ statue impossible of conception before Alexander’s time. According to this view the London copy was an archaistic work of the time of Pasiteles. Another school, however, including Helbig, Wolters, Kekulé, and many others, sees in the Roman statue an original work of 460 to 450 B. C., chiefly because the face shows great similarity to those of the statues of the Olympia gables (especially to that of Apollo)[1460]. According to this view the statue can not have been a _genre_ work, as such works of decorative character were of later origin, but the motive must be sought in some definite incident—in some myth or historical event. Thus it has been referred to the colonization of the Ozolian Lokroi, whose ancestor Lokros is said to have got a thorn in his foot and to have founded cities near where this occurred in fulfilment of an oracle. Many others, on the other hand, have seen in its motive that of a boy victor in running, who has gained his victory despite a thorn, which he is now pulling out, and who has dedicated his statue to commemorate both the victory and the untoward circumstances under which it was won. It has been assigned to various sculptors and schools—to Myron, Pythagoras, and Kalamis, and to Peloponnesian, Bœotian, and even Sicilian art.[1461] The boy’s absorption in his task certainly reminds us of the concentration so characteristic of the _Diskobolos_ of Myron. In determining its age and artistic affiliations several things must be considered. In the first place, the Roman statue is a copy, as the rock on which the boy sits is cast with the figure, which would have been impossible in the fifth century B. C. The long hair on this copy, which is short on the one in the British Museum, falls down the neck, but not over the cheeks, as it should on a head which is thus bent downwards. Pasiteles almost certainly would have tied it with a ribbon. This shows that the original was the work of an artist who was used to making standing statues, and was not aware of the change in the representation of the hair brought about by drooping ones. Such considerations, in conjunction with the archaic facial characteristics, almost certainly refer the original work to the fifth century B. C., a date when _genre_ statues, produced for adornment, did not exist. Consequently a definite incident must be represented by it, and it is quite possible that this incident should be sought in athletic sculpture in the representation of a boy runner. The _Thorn-puller_ became a model for many imitations from the beginning of Hellenistic times on. These imitations tended to greater realism and consequently to the debasement of the original conception, for they were made to represent peasants, shepherds, satyrs, and even negroes. The _motif_ was also transferred to figures of girls, as, _e. g._, in the fragment of a terra-cotta statuette found in 1912 at Nida-Haddernheim.[1462] In the early Empire it was frequently copied in marble, and again, during the Renaissance, the motive was used for small bronzes.[1463] Of Hellenistic copies, showing how the motive deteriorated, we shall mention only two: the marble one found on the Esquiline, in 1874, and known as the Castellani copy, now in the British Museum,[1464] the sculptor of which has made it into a truly _genre_ fountain figure by transforming the noble features of the beautiful Greek runner into the snub nose and thick lips of a street Arab, and the still later bronze statuette found near Sparta and now in the Paris collection of Baron Edmund de Rothschild,[1465] which represents the boy extracting the thorn in anger. Similarly the so-called _Sandal-binder_—with replicas in Paris (Fig. 8), London, Athens, Munich, and elsewhere, has been looked upon, without decisive grounds, to be sure, as a runner who is tying on his sandals after the race.[1466] We have already discussed this statue in