Since the discovery of these groups by an international party of Englishmen and Germans in 1811, and their restoration soon after their arrival in Munich by the sculptor Thorwaldsen, many new fragments have been discovered by Furtwaengler during his excavations of the temple site in 1901, and have been incorporated into the existing figures in the Glyptothek. His reconstruction, though not definitive, is more in accord with artistic probability than any that preceded.962 As we should expect from the athletic tradition of the Aeginetan school of sculpture just outlined, these sculptures represent finely trained nude athletes, whose modeling shows great observation of nature, especially in the treatment of muscles and veins. In fact it has been truly said that anatomical knowledge was never expressed again in Greek art so simply and naturally. The figures, without any excess of flesh, are slightly under life-size, short and stocky—shoulders square, but the waists slender and the legs long in proportion to the bodies—and withal are very compact and full of strength. The figures of the two pediments differ slightly, the eastern being more developed than the western. Brunn, long ago, arguing from the stele of Aristion, which then was the best example extant of archaic Attic art, showed how that art was characterized by grace and dignity of effect, while Aeginetan art was characterized by a finer study of nature. This generalization is no longer a matter of inference, but of knowledge.
These groups represent the highest period of Aeginetan art. They have been dated anywhere from the end of the sixth century B. C. down to a period after the battle of Salamis.963 Probably a date just after that battle is correct, as Aeginetans won prizes of valor there.964 Any attempt to assign them to this or that artist is merely conjectural. The general similarity in subject to that of the Delphi group by Onatas, which represented the death in battle of Opis, the king of the barbarian Iapygians, at the hands of the Tarentines,965 and the group at Olympia already mentioned as representing a Trojan subject, led earlier scholars to assign the slightly more advanced statues of the East Pediment to Onatas and the more archaic ones of the West Pediment to Kallon. But we know both these sculptors only as bronze workers. The violent action of some of the figures reminds us at once of Pausanias’ description of the statue of the boxer Glaukos by the sculptor Glaukias, which we have already mentioned. But on the whole, though they are violent, the slight proportions of these athletic figures do not fit the appearance of boxers and pancratiasts, which, as we have seen, formed the staple of Aeginetan sculptors, but rather those of runners. We see a good wrestler in the Snatcher of the East Gable (Fig. 20),966 and the corresponding figure in the right half of the same gable.967 The Champion of the West gable (Fig. 21, left),968 of the finest Parian marble, represented as lunging forward, pressing on the enemy armed with helm, spear, and shield, would pass as a good example of a hoplitodrome, far freer and more individual than the warrior from Dodona.
ATTIC SCULPTORS.
Owing to the Persian sack of the Athenian Akropolis in 480 and 479 B. C., and the subsequent burial of works of art there and their rediscovery by the excavations of 1885–1889, we know more of archaic Attic sculpture (600–480 B. C.) than of any other early school.969 We have already mentioned certain Attic works which show the influence of the severer Argive school—la petite boudeuse, the head of the yellow-haired ephebe (Fig. 18), the Akropolis athlete statue (Fig. 17), etc.—which was prominent at the beginning of the fifth century B. C., works which can be attributed to Hegias, Kritios, and their associates. They illustrate the reaction against Ionic taste, an influence which came from Asia Minor and the islands, especially after the fall of the Lydian Empire of Crœsus, and which for a time submerged native Attic art. This Ionic art was characterized by great technical ability, and by rich draperies and decorative effect. The archaic smile was its special feature. Ionism is best represented by some of the Akropolis Korai.970 In athletic art we see Ionism at its flood tide in the Rampin head found in Athens in 1877, now in the Louvre, which corresponds in style with some of the earlier female statues of the Akropolis.971 This head has a more elaborate frisure than any of the female heads and, in fact, the elaborate treatment of the hair of the crown and forehead is more suitable to a female than a male statue. The beard is carefully plaited, while traces of red seem to show that the mustache was painted on. Similar traces of color appear on the beard and hair. The smiling mouth, high ears, and almond eyes recall many archaic works, but especially the Apollo of Tenea (Pl. 8A). The garland of oak leaves above the frisure of the forehead may suggest a victor,972 or perhaps a priest or assistant on some religious embassy.973 The turning of the neck—as in the ephebe statue of the Akropolis (Fig. 17)—shows a break at this early time with archaism. Another work illustrating Ionism is the fragment of a grave-stele found near the Dipylon gate in 1873 and dating from the second half of the sixth century B. C.974 It represents the head of an athlete in profile, the youth holding a diskos in his left hand, so placed that his head is projected upon it in relief as on a nimbus. The top of the head is broken off, but we see the usual archaic features in the face—the almond-shaped eye (in profile), big nose with knob-like nostrils, thick lips with the archaic smile, retreating chin and forehead, and high ear with a huge lobe. The neck and chin, however, are full of grace and strength, as is also the slender thumb outlined against the diskos. As the stele broadens downward,975 the figure appears to have been represented with the feet apart, and so may have represented a palæstra diskobolos on parade,976 and is, therefore, our earliest representation of such an athlete. A similar dress-parade pose is seen on the stele of Aristion in the National Museum at Athens, the work of the sculptor Aristokles, which represents a warrior with a spear in the left hand.977 Another torso of an ephebe in the Akropolis Museum represents Ionic work from Paros.978 Another head, the so-called Rayet head in the Jakobsen collection in Copenhagen, one of the most remarkable specimens of Greek archaic art979 (Fig. 22), somewhat later in date than the Rampin head, represents quite a different tendency in Attic art. While the Rampin head represents Ionic influence, this head represents pure Attic work untrammeled by foreign influence, a true development of the old Attic sculpture in poros, Fig. 22.—Archaic Marble Head of a Youth. Jakobsen Collection, Ny-Carlsberg Museum, Copenhagen. the best examples of which are to be found in the decorative sculptures of the Old Temple of Athena on the Akropolis, enlarged by the Peisistratidai. Comparing it with the head of the Athena of the gable of that temple,980 we see great similarity in the simple execution and reserve in the treatment of details—characteristics of pure Attic sculpture—especially in the deep lines on either side of the mouth in the Jakobsen head. The hair is pictorially treated like a cap, traces of red appearing on it as well as on the lips and eyes. The Copenhagen and Rampin heads, together with the famous portrait head in the old Sabouroff collection,981 and the head of a woman in the Louvre,982 form our best examples of old Attic art outside of the museums of Athens.983 The swollen ears of the Jakobsen head show that it is from the funerary statue of a victor, perhaps a boxer. Furtwaengler wrongly classed it as a portrait head.984 A much discussed Attic work is the archaic relief of a charioteer in the Akropolis Museum (Fig. 63).985 This was formerly thought (e. g., by Schrader) to be a block from the later Ionic frieze of the old Hekatompedon which many believe survived the Persian sack, but it is more likely a part of a frieze belonging to a small shrine or altar. It represents a draped person entering a two-horse chariot with the left foot, the hands outstretched to hold the reins, the head and body leaning forward. Because of the krobylos treatment of the hair, fitted for both sexes, and the long flowing robe, the sex has been needlessly doubted, some calling it an Apollo or a mortal charioteer, others an Athena or a Nike, even though the line of the breast, so far as it is visible, shows no fullness, and the long chiton is common in representations of male charioteers.986 However, for the appreciation of the relief it is of no consequence whether the figure is male or female. It may be merely a dedicatory offering of a Panathenaic victor in chariot racing, very possibly assimilated to the type of Apollo,987 as the god often appears in vase-paintings of the same period in similar costume mounting a chariot.988 We shall discuss its interpretation more fully later on.989 While Ionism was prone to represent richly draped figures which concealed the form of the body, we see in this relief, with its fine modeling, a suggestion of the form beneath the folds of the garment, and so, perhaps, only another example of an Attic master rebelling against alien influence.990
At Olympia we have no names of Athenian sculptors prior to the Persian war period. Kalamis helped Onatas with the monument of King Hiero already mentioned. Mikon made a statue of a pancratiast, Kallias of Athens, who won in Ol. 77 ( = 472 B. C.).991 The great Myron, of whom we shall speak at length in the next chapter, made five statues of victors, which were erected between Ols. 77 and 84 ( = 472 and 444 B. C.).992 Only four later Athenian artists are mentioned: Silanion of the fourth century, who made statues for three victors, whose victories ranged from Ols. 102 to 114 ( = 372 to 324 B. C.);993 Polykles the Elder, who made the statue of the boy pancratiast Amyntas of Eresos, who won in Ol. (?) 146 ( = 196 B. C.);994 Timarchides and Timokles, the sons of Polykles, who in common made the statue of the boxer Agesarchos of Tritaia in Achaia, who won in Ol. (?) 143 ( = 208 B. C.)995
GENERAL MOTIVES OF STATUES AT REST.
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 Aristotle1004 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 feminas1010 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 Berlin1016 (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 idea1018 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 gem1020 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.
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 Fig. 23.—Head of so-called Oil-pourer. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 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
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 Vatican1054 (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
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 gem1058 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.
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. Fig. 24.—Bronze Statuette of an Athlete. Louvre, Paris. 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.