Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art by Walter Woodburn Hyde
CHAPTER VIII.
1318 words | Chapter 132
POSITIONS OF VICTOR STATUES IN THE ALTIS; OLYMPIC VICTOR MONUMENTS
ERECTED OUTSIDE OLYMPIA; STATISTICS OF OLYMPIC VICTOR STATUARIES.[2293]
PLANS A AND B.
The first part of this final chapter is a special study in the
topography of the Altis at Olympia. It is an attempt to fix, more or
less exactly, the positions of victor statues erected there, so far as
these can be determined from the data furnished by Pausanias, and from
the locations of the inscribed fragmentary bases of the statues which
have been recovered during the excavations at Olympia.
STATUES MENTIONED BY PAUSANIAS.
We shall first attempt to give the positions of the statues mentioned
by Pausanias, who is our chief source of information. After describing
the votive offerings (ἀναθήματα) at the end of Book V, he begins
the enumeration of the monuments of “race-horses ... and athletes
and private individuals” at the beginning of Book VI.[2294] This
description falls into two routes (ἔφοδοι), the first of which is
concerned with the statues of 168 victors,[2295] and the second with
those of 19.[2296] Both accounts also include many “honor” monuments
erected to private persons. The first route begins at the Heraion
in the northwestern part of the sacred enclosure, while the second
begins—manifestly where the first ends—at the Leonidaion at its
southwestern corner, and extends to a point near the so-called Great
Altar of Zeus near the centre of the Altis (see Plans A and B).[2297]
Besides these meagre indications of his two routes furnished by
Pausanias himself, we are fortunate in knowing exactly the position of
one statue, that of Telemachos, the 122d victor mentioned, the base of
which still stands _in situ_ near the South wall of the Altis, a little
southeast of the temple of Zeus, showing that the route passed before
the eastern front of this temple and thence westward to the Leonidaion.
With these data and with the help of some forty inscribed bases of
statues and other monuments mentioned by Pausanias, many of which were
found in or near their original positions, it is possible to trace yet
more definitely his routes. Several attempts have been made, since the
German excavations, to define topographically the positions of these
statues, especially by Hirschfeld,[2298] Scherer,[2299] Flasch,[2300]
Doerpfeld,[2301] and the present writer.[2302]
The position of several inscribed base-fragments of statues,
corresponding with Pausanias’ order of presentation, should alone
be sufficient to confute the doubts raised by some scholars that
these routes through the Altis were not topographical.[2303] But in
any attempt to reconstruct them we must constantly be on our guard
against assuming that Pausanias describes a continuous line or row
of monuments, as both Hirschfeld and Scherer have done. Though here
and there this may have been true, still, generally speaking, we
must conceive of these statues as being strewn about the Altis in no
other order than that they stood in groups, and that these groups had
only a general direction; for we shall see that Pausanias sometimes
returns to the same spot without mentioning it and often leaves long
spaces unnoticed. Apart from the indication of such groups in the
description itself, as attested by the use of such words as παρά,
ἐφεξῆς, μετά, πλησίον, ἀνάκειται ἐπί, ἐγγύτατα, ὄπισθεν, μεταξύ, οὐ
πόρρω, οὐ πρόσω, κ. τ .λ., I have already shown in my previous work that
it is possible to reconstruct many other groups, for abundant proof
is there given that statues of nearly contemporaneous victors were
often grouped together, as were those of the same family or state, or
those victorious in the same contest, or those whose statues were made
by the same artist.[2304] So, in general, we can group only certain
statues in belts or “zones” around some building or monument which
is still _in situ_. Further than this we can seldom go. W. Gurlitt
has thus well expressed the difficulty of following these routes
of Pausanias: “_Jede folgende Statue ist nach der vorhergehenden
orientirt zu denken ... Beziehungen auf frueher oder spaeter erwaehnte
Monumente waren ueberfluessig ... wir sind ... auf wenige Fixpunkte
angewiesen und verfallen daher leicht in den Fehler, die Wegrichtungen
in den Plan zu schematisch einzuzeichnen.... Das Hin und Her auf
den viel verschlungenen Wegen der Altis koennen wir nicht mehr
controllieren_”.[2305] In his description of the scattered altars (V,
14.4-15.12), Pausanias had not the same problem to meet as in that of
the victor statues. As there was so little continuity in describing
the altars, which were strewn all over the Altis, he had to introduce
many other monuments to make their locations known; but in the case
of the victor statues there was great continuity, and consequently
such indications would have been superfluous.[2306] And, in general,
owing to the number and variety of monuments crowded together in the
circumscribed area of the Altis, he was not compelled to describe
Olympia with such definite detail as Athens. That these victor statues,
however, are described in topographical order is not only attested
by the internal evidence of Pausanias’ words,[2307] but also by the
finding of many of their bases in the order of his presentation. With
this introductory warning, let us take up the routes of Pausanias in
detail.
THE FIRST EPHODOS OF PAUSANIAS.
Pausanias begins his enumeration in the northeastern part of the Altis:
ἐν δεξιᾷ τοῦ ναοῦ τῆς Ἥρας[2308]—words which have been the subject of
much discussion as to whether they are to be understood of the temple
_pro persona_, _i. e._, the southern side,[2309] or of the viewpoint of
one facing it, _i. e.,_ the space (especially the northern or right hand
half) before the eastern front.[2310] From the immediate whereabouts of
Pausanias we get no clue; for at the end of Book V (27.11) he says that
he is in the middle of the Altis, and yet in the following paragraph
(27.12)—evidently added as a transition from the account of the altars
to that of the victors—he mentions the trophy of the people of Mende,
in Thrace, which he says he nearly mistook for the statue of the
pancratiast Anauchidas (131), and this, as we shall see, stood near the
South wall of the Altis far from the centre. Doerpfeld’s contention,
therefore, that Pausanias approached the Heraion from this point, and
that consequently the words ἐν δεξιᾷ must refer to its eastern front,
is untenable, and we are left dependent on the meaning of these words
as gathered from other passages in Pausanias’ work. An examination of
several such passages seems to be convincing that they are used here
of the Heraion _pro persona_.[2311] Furthermore, the finding of the
inscribed tablet from the base of the statue of Troilos (6) and the
pedestal of that of Kyniska (7) in the ruins of the Prytaneion, _i.
e._, not far from the western end of the Heraion, and the base of that
of Sophios (22) in the bed of the Kladeos still further west,[2312]
makes it reasonable to conclude that the first statues mentioned (VI,
1.3-3.7), those of the Spartan group (Kyniska-Lichas, 7-14), all of the
fifth century, B. C., flanked on either side by statues of the fourth,
mostly of Eleans (Symmachos-Troilos, 1-6, and Timosthenes-Eupolemos,
15-28), originally stood in the order named by Pausanias along the
southern front of the temple.[2313]
Leaving the Heraion, we get no further fixed point until we arrive
opposite the eastern front of the temple of Zeus. For here around the
foundation of the statue of the _Eretrian Bull_—still _in situ_ 32
meters east of the northeastern corner of the temple (see Plans A and
B)[2314]—have been found fragments of the pedestals of the statues of
Narykidas (49) and Hellanikos (65) to the south, of Kallias (50) and
Eukles (52), beneath that of Kallias, to the north, of Euthymos (56)
and Charmides (58) close together to the east.[2315] So it is clear
that the series of statues from Narykidas to Charmides (49-58, P., VI,
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