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

CHAPTER IV.
VICTOR STATUES REPRESENTED IN MOTION.

Plates 22–25 and Figures 32–62.

Just when the important step of representing the victor in motion instead of at rest was taken in Greek athletic sculpture we can not definitely say. The statement of Cornelius Nepos that the statues of athletes were first represented in movement in the fourth century B. C., after the time of the Athenian general Chabrias—whose image he describes as representing Chabrias in his favorite posture with his spear pointed at the enemy and his shield on his knee—has long since been shown to be worthless.1278 Nor is the assumption of many archæologists1279 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 Great1282 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

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 Boston1288 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

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 Head of an Athlete. Fig. 33.—Head of an Athlete, from Perinthos. Albertinum, Dresden. 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 Pliny1343 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.

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 Bulle1360 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.

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 Arolsen1362 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 Jones1373 connects the words Perseum et pristas of Pliny’s text, and follows the theory of Mayer1374 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 Papyrus1376—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 της 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 Pindar1389 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 held1405 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.