We have but few representations of pancratiasts in sculpture. The preliminary sparring—known as ἀκροχειρισμός1760—must have characterized the statue of the Sikyonian pancratiast Sostratos at Olympia by an unknown sculptor, since Pausanias says that this victor was known as ὁ ἀκροχερσίτης, explaining the epithet as that of one who gained his victories by seizing and bending his adversaries’ fingers, holding them fast till he yielded.1761 Since a Delphian inscribed base1762 gives the same number of victories as Pausanias, we infer that they were given also on the Olympia base, the source of Pausanias’ information. Since nothing is said, however, of Sostratos’ mode of fighting in the Delphi inscription, Pausanias must have argued it from the pose of the statue. The Sicilian wrestler Leontiskos of a century earlier, whose statue was by Pythagoras, had, according to Pausanias, used similar tactics, for “he vanquished his adversaries by bending back their fingers.”1763 These cases show that statues of pancratiasts and wrestlers were frequently represented in vigorous lunging attitudes as well as in groups. The epigram on the base of the monument of the pancratiast Teisikrates at Delphi shows that the statue was represented in a similar way.1764 The same lunging attitude is also shown on the Halimous grave-relief.1765 Sometimes the contest ended with the preliminary sparring, though usually it developed into wrestling and boxing.
A good representation of a pancratiast trying to kick his antagonist seems to be furnished by the small bronze statuette from Autun, South France, now in the Louvre (Fig. 60).1766 This statuette is of mediocre workmanship, its hard muscles, imperfect proportions, and realism showing that it comes from the Hellenistic period of Greek art. It represents a bearded athlete, who holds his hands ready to strike and his left foot raised apparently to kick his adversary’s leg. The foot is just ready to return to its original position, so that the motive of this poor little statuette discloses a transient period of time between two movements, just as the Diskobolos and Marsyas of Myron did. We have already noted1767 that on the head is a cap with a ring in the top, by which it could be suspended as a decorative piece, or perhaps as part of a steelyard. Hauser believes that this motive was known to the elder Polykleitos and that this is the interpretation of that sculptor’s statue of a nudus talo incessens mentioned by Pliny, a statue which has formed the basis for much discussion among archæologists.1768 The Plinian passage, therefore, is to be translated as “the nude man attacking with his heel (talo)”—in other words, it describes a statue represented as kicking, which was allowable in the pankration. The manuscripts of Pliny all read talo, which Benndorf1769 thought could be retained only by assuming that the naturalist mistranslated his Greek source γυμνὸς ἀστραγάλῳ ἐπικείμενος, translating the word ἐπικείμενος “standing upon,” as incessens “pursuing.” He therefore assumed that Polykleitos’ statue stood upon an astragalos (talus) basis, which he believed was the forerunner of the statue of Opportunity (Καιρός) by Lysippos,1770 and he referred it to the knuckle-bone basis found at Olympia.1771 Woelfflin,1772 however, has shown that talo incessens can only mean “mit einem Knochel nach Jemand einwerfen.” Following this, Furtwaengler showed1773 how impossible on grammatical and other grounds it was to read talo in Benndorf’s sense, since the passage then would mean “advancing towards” or “pursuing,” by means of a knuckle-bone, which is manifestly nonsense. The word could be only instrumental in use, as Woefflin said, i. e., the weapon by means of which the man was attacking. Furtwaengler, therefore, followed Benndorf’s earlier alternative reading telo, assuming that Pliny mistakenly wrote talo because he was influenced by the presence of the same word in the passage immediately following: duosque pueros item nudos talis ludentes qui vocantur astragalizontes.1774 But Hauser’s interpretation of talo meets all the conditions better, since it keeps the manuscript readings, makes grammatical Latin, and seems to be illustrated by the statuette in question.
Sometimes the statues of Olympic pancratiasts were represented at rest with the weight of the body equally on both legs, as we see from the recovered basis of the statue of the Athenian Kallias by the Athenian sculptor Mikon.1775 Furtwaengler has identified a statue in the Somzée Collection as a copy of this work.1776 The footprints on the recovered base of the statue of the Rhodian Dorieus show that it was represented at rest with one leg slightly advanced.1777 We have actual remnants of statues of Olympic pancratiasts in the marble head found at Olympia, which we are to assign to the statue of the Akarnanian Philandridas by Lysippos, mentioned by Pausanias (Frontispiece and Fig. 69),1778 and the beautiful statue of Agias discovered by the French at Delphi in 1894, a work by the same sculptor (Pl. 28 and Fig. 68).1779
The struggle on the ground implies groups and not single statues. Our best representation of such a group is furnished by the famous marble one in the Uffizi, Florence (Pl. 25).1780 Though having no pretensions to be a victor monument, this group is the most important monument extant connected with the pankration, a fine anatomical study from Hellenistic times, evincing the direct influence of Lysippos in its proportions.1781 It shows affinity of design to certain sculptures from the frieze of the Great Altar at Pergamon.1782 Pliny speaks of a symplegma by Kephisodotos, the son of Praxiteles, at Pergamon, but that group was of an erotic character and can not have had anything to do with the Florentine one.1783 Unfortunately the group in question has been much restored, though the restoration in the main is right. The heads, though probably antique, do not seem to belong to the statues, but both appear to be copies of the head of one of the Niobids, with which group the pancratiasts were discovered in 1583. The right arm of the uppermost athlete seems to have been wrongly restored; in any case this athlete is not strangling his opponent. One youth has thrown the other down on to his knee, and his left leg is intertwined with the left leg of the other, and he is drawing back his arm to aim a blow. The wrestler underneath supports himself upon his left arm, and the intention of his opponent is to destroy this support by a blow of the fist, which would bring the contest to a sudden conclusion, since the right arm of the under youth is fast and he must defend himself with the left. As Gardiner points out, such a situation is illustrated by Heliodoros’ description of the match between Theagenes and an Aethiopian champion.1784 The under man’s position, however, may suddenly change and the issue yet be in his favor. Many writers have explained the group as ordinary wrestlers,1785 but Gardiner has conclusively shown that it belongs to the pankration, since in wrestling the contest is ended when one of the contestants has been thrown, while here the struggle is continuing on the ground.1786
Kapros of Elis was the first of seven Olympic victors to emulate the fabled feat of Herakles by winning the pankration and wrestling matches on the same day—that is, he was the first professional strong man.1787 The other six all came from the East. It has been suggested1788 that the colossal Farnese Herakles found in Rome in the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla in 1540 and now in Naples, inscribed as the work of the Athenian Glykon, which represents the hero leaning wearily on his club against a rock,1789 may represent the type of these professional strong men, who called themselves the successors of Herakles. But such a suggestion is as unfounded as the one already examined, which identifies the original of the Seated Boxer of the Museo delle Terme (Pl. 16 and Fig. 27) with Kleitomachos of Thebes, the redoubtable opponent of Kapros, since the dates in both cases are against such identifications. The Farnese statue and other replicas of the same original1790 obviously revert to a Lysippan original, though they are considerably metamorphosed by the taste of a later age. Such big swollen muscles at first sight appear to be alien to the sculptor of the graceful Agias, but that the Naples copy by Glykon—who, from the inscription on the base, must be referred to the first century B. C.1791—really represents the work of Lysippos seems well established by the fact that a smaller copy, though still over life-size, of poorer workmanship, in the Pitti Gallery in Florence, is inscribed as Λυσίππου ἔργον.1792 This type of weary hero appears in the Telephos group on the small Pergamene frieze, but is even earlier, since the latter seems to have been borrowed from a statue which is reproduced on a coin of Alexander, which was struck at least as early as 300 B. C.1793 The type of Herakles wearied by his superhuman labors was inaugurated still earlier by Lysippos, who was fond of representing the hero in many poses, seated and standing, resting and laboring. We might mention his colossal bronze statue of Herakles, which was set up in Tarentum and then carried to Rome and placed on the Capitol by Q. Fabius Maximus, when Tarentum was captured in 209 B. C., and was later transferred to the Hippodrome at Constantinople, where it remained until the sack of that city by the Franks in 1202.1794 It is hazardous, therefore, to reject the evidence, and it will be best to see in the original a genuine Lysippan work, as do Bulle, Overbeck, von Mach, Schnaase,1795 and others, and so to make Glykon responsible only for the exaggerations of his own copy. Thus we have to face the fact of divergent styles in the great bronze founder of the fourth century B. C., even if we admit with Richardson that “for our peace of mind this statue might well have been sunk in the sea.”1796
Long ago, I referred the life-size bronze portrait-like head of a boxer or pancratiast found at Olympia, now in the Athens Museum (Figs. 61A and B),1797 to one of two statues of the pancratiast Kapros mentioned by Pausanias.1798 The remnant of a wild-olive crown in the hair proves that it comes from the statue of an Olympic victor. Its bruised appearance may, however, betoken the punishment administered by the gloves of a boxer rather than by the bare fists of a pancratiast. That Greek sculpture was not always ideal we have seen from the description of the Seated Boxer of the Museo delle Terme (Pl. 16 and Fig. 27). This peculiarly life-like head is another example of the same realism; it would be hard to name a more brutal and repellent piece from the whole range of Greek sculpture. The profession of this bruiser is evident in every feature, for the sculptor has betrayed it by the swollen ears, flat nose, thick neck, swollen cheeks, projecting under lip, frowning brows, and unkempt hair and beard. All these traits—especially the treatment of the eyes—give to it the sullen gloomy look so characteristic of boxers and pancratiasts.1799 The man appears to be awaiting the attack, his contracted brows showing alert expectation, and his closed lips great determination. Furtwaengler, Bulle, Flasch, and others have dated it in the fourth century B. C., and are fain to see in it the work of an artist of the immediate circle of Lysippos or Lysistratos;1800 but its exaggerated realism seems rather to point to a later period, not earlier than the third century B. C.1801 The bronze foot of a victor statue also found at Olympia (Fig. 62)1802 has been assigned by Furtwaengler to one of the statues of Kapros, an ascription which we also have followed.1803 The position of this foot shows—as an experiment with a living model has disclosed—great movement, which makes it obvious that it comes from a statue in lively motion, probably of a boxer or pancratiast. It belongs to the statue of a strong man of coarse build; there is not the slightest trace of unnecessary flesh on it, but the whole is vigorous muscle, even the swollen veins being clearly visible in the photograph. While Furtwaengler finds its stylistic parallels in the copies of the Pergamene works of the third century B. C., e. g., the Dying Gaul statues, the material and form of the base fitting that period, Wolters emphasizes its stylistic analogy to the bronze head just discussed.
The monuments which represent equestrian victors will be left for another chapter.
Plates 26–27 and Figures 63–67.
In the preceding chapters we have considered the monuments of victors in various gymnic contests, in which the victor won by his own strength and skill. In the present chapter we shall be concerned chiefly with the monuments set up by victors at Olympia in chariot- and horse-races, in which the victory did not depend upon the athletic prowess of the victor, but upon the skill of his charioteer or jockey and the endurance of his horses.1804 Though such events were not in the strict sense a part of Greek athletics, they formed a very important feature of the festival at Olympia as elsewhere.1805 Indeed the four-horse chariot-race was the most spectacular and brilliant event at Olympia. Chariot-races, and to a less extent horse-races, were the sport only of the rich—kings, princes, and nobles.1806 Thus victories were won in these events at Olympia in the fifth century B. C. by Hiero and Gelo, kings of Syracuse, and Arkesilas IV of Kyrene; in the fourth, by Philip II of Macedonia, and in Roman days by Tiberius, Germanicus, Nero, and many others. Alkibiades in Ol. 91 ( = 416 B. C.), i. e., in the midst of the great Peloponnesian war, entered seven chariots at Olympia and won three prizes.1807 Sometimes a city entered a chariot or horse. Thus in Ol. 77 ( = 472 B. C.) the public chariot of Argos, and in Ol. 75 ( = 480 B. C.) the public horse of the same city, won at Olympia.1808 Such entries show not only the expense attending these contests, but also their importance in the eyes of the Greeks.
Hippodromes, chariot-races, and horse-races were very common in Greece. A votive inscription in the museum at Sparta, dating from near the middle of the fifth century B. C., enumerates sixty victories by Damonon and his son Enymakratidas in both chariot- and horse-races at eight different meets in or near Lakonia, and Damonon was merely a local victor, unknown at Olympia.1809 Greeks of Sicily and Magna Græcia were especially fond of such contests, as we see these constantly represented on coins of different cities there from the beginning of the fifth century B. C. on.1810 However, only a few of the sites of these many hippodromes are now known, and only one can be positively identified, that mentioned by Pausanias on Mount Lykaios in Arkadia.1811 The others are known from literary sources.1812 The one at Olympia was destroyed in the course of centuries by the floods of the Alpheios, and its exact location can not be determined, though we know in general that it lay somewhere southeast of the Altis, between the river and the Stadion, and surmise that it ran somewhat parallel to the latter.1813
Its measurements, however, are known to us from a Greek metrological parchment manuscript in the old Seraglio, Constantinople, which dates from the eleventh century A. D.1814 According to it the length of the course, i. e., from the starting-point to turning-post and return, was about 8 stades (1538 meters, 16 centimeters) or nearly 1 mile. One of the two sides—which Pausanias says were of unequal length1815—was 3 stades and 1 plethron long. The breadth of the course at the starting-point was 1 stade and 4 plethra. We are told, however, that only a portion of the entire course, six stades, or about two-thirds of a mile, was traversed in the various races.
The oldest literary account of a Greek chariot-race is found in Homer in the description of the games of Patroklos—the longest and finest episode there described.1816 But the first trace of such a contest goes back to mythology, to the story of Pelops and Oinomaos contending for the hand of the latter’s daughter Hippodameia.1817 This mythical race began at the village of Pisa in Elis and ended at the altar of Poseidon on the Isthmus of Corinth.1818 The chariot-race was the chief if not the only event at the oldest funeral games in Greece, those mentioned by Pausanias as held in honor of Azan, the son of Arkas, in Arkadia.1819 It figured largely in mythology1820 and was represented in many works of art.1821 At Olympia it was one of the earliest, and perhaps the earliest, of the events. Pausanias says that the four-horse chariot-race was introduced there in Ol. 25 ( = 680 B. C.),1822 but this may merely mean, as Gardiner points out, the date of exchanging the older prehistoric two-horse chariot for the one drawn by four horses. In any case the antiquity of the race at Olympia is shown by the great number of early votive offerings in the form of models of chariots and horses, which have been found there in a stratum extending below the foundations of the Heraion.
By the middle of the third century B. C. the fully developed programme of equestrian events at Olympia and elsewhere consisted of six races, three for full-grown horses (τέλειοι), and three for colts (πῶλοι); for each of these two classes there were a four-horse chariot-race (ἅρμα, τέθριππον), a two-horse chariot-race (συνωρίς), and a horse-race (κέλης), thus:
ἅρματι τελείῳ, συνωρίδι τελείᾳ, κέλητι τελείῳ.
ἅρματι πωλικῷ, συνωρίδι πωλικῇ, κέλητι πωλικῷ.
These six events comprised the ἀγὼν ἱππικός at Olympia, Delphi, Nemea, Corinth, Athens, and elsewhere, as opposed to the ἀγὼν γυμνικός.1823 The distinction between horses and colts was apparently a matter which was decided by the Hellanodikai at Olympia. Thus, Pausanias recounts how the Spartan victor Lykidas entered a pair of colts for the chariot-race, and that one of them was rejected by the judges; he thereupon entered both for the race with full-grown horses and won it.1824 Though such a story does not fit the date of Lykidas, who won before the colt-race was introduced at Olympia, it shows the method of selection.1825 The race in which the chariot was drawn by four full-grown horses (ἵππων τελείων δρόμος) was introduced, as we have seen, in Ol. 25. The contestants drove twelve times round the course, a distance of seventy-two stades or over eight miles.1826 Pausanias mentions the monuments of eighteen such victors at Olympia for nineteen victories. The race in which the chariot was drawn by four colts (πώλων ἅρμα) was introduced in Ol. 99 ( = 384 B. C.),1827 and extended eight times round the course, or about 5.5 miles.1828 Pausanias mentions the monuments of only two such victors at Olympia.1829 The race in which the chariot was drawn by pairs of full-grown horses (συνωρίς) was introduced in Ol. 93 (408 B. C.) and extended eight times round the course.1830 Pausanias mentions but one victor in this event at Olympia1831 and an Olympic victress who had a statue erected to her in Sparta for such a victory.1832 This was probably the original chariot-race at Olympia revived in Ol. 93, since the two-horse chariot was the historical descendant of the Homeric war-chariot.1833 Panathenaic vases show that this race existed at Athens in the sixth century B. C., side by side with the four-horse chariot-race and horseback-race. The earliest of these vases, the so-called Burgon vase in the British Museum,1834 was a prize there for this event. The race in which the chariot was drawn by a pair of colts (συνωρὶς πώλων) was introduced at Olympia in the third century B. C., in Ol. 129 ( = 264 B. C.),1835 and extended three times around the course. Pausanias mentions no monument erected to a victor in this race. The horse-race (ἵππος κέλης) was instituted in Ol. 33 ( = 648 B. C.)1836, and the foal-race (πῶλος κέλης) nearly four centuries later, in Ol. 131 (256 B. C.).1837 Neither of these races was known to Homer, for κελετίζειν in the Iliad,1838 as we saw in Chapter I, refers only to the acrobatic feat of vaulting from the back of one horse to that of another. Pausanias mentions monuments erected to eight victors (for nine victories) in the regular horse-race at Olympia. We conclude from a passage of his work1839 that the riding-race consisted of one lap only or six stades, about two-thirds of a mile. A mule chariot-race (ἀπήνη) was introduced in Ol. 70 ( = 500 B. C.), and a trotting-race with mares (κάλπη) in Ol. 71 ( = 496 B. C.), but both were abolished in Ol. 84 ( = 444 B. C.).1840 Pausanias mentions one monument erected to an anonymous victor in κάλπη, who won some time between Ols. 72 and 84 ( = 492 and 444 B. C.).1841 He mentions the first victor in the mule-race, Thersias of Thessaly, but this does not occur in his periegesis of the Altis.1842 Only three other victors in this event are known to us, and they came from Sicilian towns.1843
Equestrian events were discontinued at Olympia in the first century B. C., owing to the waning of interest in athletics in consequence of the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 B. C. They were revived thereafter under the Empire only spasmodically and were destined finally to be replaced by the amusements of the Roman circus. Thus we learn from the Armenian version of Africanus that the chariot-race ceased at Olympia in Ol. 178 ( = 68 B. C.). It must, however, have been reinstated toward the end of the century, since Tiberius Claudius Nero—afterwards the Emperor Tiberius—won in Ol. 194 ( = 4 B. C.).1844 It again went into disuse, since Africanus says that it, πάλαι κωλυθείς, was reintroduced in Ol. 199 ( = 17 A. D., when Germanicus, the adopted son of Tiberius, won.1845 Once more it was discontinued, and again renewed in Ol. 222 ( = 109 A. D.), according to the same authority, who, however, does not name any victor for that date. Just when this discontinuance took place, we can not say, but it was certainly after Ol. 211 ( = 65 A. D.), when the emperor Nero is known to have won victories in various kinds of chariot-races.1846 Three Olympiads before, an Elean, Tiberios Klaudios Aphrodeisios, had also won the horse-race.1847
PLATE 26
Racing Chariot and Horses.Representations of the various chariot-races are commoner than those of any other Olympic contest, appearing on vases, reliefs, coins, and gems.1848 There seem to have been two distinct types of racing-chariot in Greece.1849 The four-horse chariot was a modification of the heroic two-horse war-chariot, which was a low car on two wheels, surmounted by a box consisting of a high framework, open only at the rear, and large enough to contain the chieftain and the charioteer. The war-chariot was known to both Mycenæan Greece and Crete. There is a relief of uncertain date in the Museum of Candia, which represents a chariot and charioteer.1850 It is far superior to the type of chariots appearing in relief on the gravestones found at Mycenæ,1851 though the type on both is of the same general pattern, having the same box and four-spoked wheels. On the Mycenæan reliefs the box seems to rest directly upon the rim of the wheel, and the portrayal of a single horse is very inartistic. On the Candia relief, however, there are at least two horses discernible, and both the horses and the warrior, who is about to mount the car, are lifelike. The Greek racing-car was much lighter than the Homeric and Mycenæan war-chariot, and the box had room only for the charioteer. It was drawn usually by four horses. The Athenian type appears on Panathenaic vases throughout the whole history of the manufacture of these vases,1852 and also on Macedonian and Sicilian coins. On certain vases of later date the car is still lighter and has larger wheels. One of the earliest racing-cars is seen on a vase in the British Museum,1853 dating from the eighth century B. C. It seems to be a two-horse car, as we should expect at this early date, though the artist has drawn but one horse. The charioteer is clothed in a long chiton, a custom which was generally kept throughout the history of the chariot-race. The regular two-horse type of chariot appears on vases as a cart, the body of the old war-chariot being so diminished that nothing is left but the driver’s seat with a square open framework on the sides. The driver rests his feet on a footboard suspended from the pole.1854 Perhaps this represents a peculiarly Athenian type of chariot, since the two-horse chariot on coins of Philip II, son of Amyntas and father of Alexander the Great, a victor at Olympia in both horse-racing and charioteering, resembles the ordinary four-horse car, and the driver stands instead of sits.1855 The mule-car was like the two-horse chariot, as we see in representations of it on coins of Rhegion and Messana.1856 The best illustrations of racing with four-horse cars are afforded by coins of Sicilian cities.1857 We see an excellent representation of such a race on a sixth-century B. C. Panathenaic vase recently found at Sparta, on which a chariot driven by a standing charioteer is represented as passing a pillar on the right, and therefore perhaps near the end of the race.1858 The harnessing of two horses to a racing-car is seen on an archaic b.-f. hydria in Berlin (Pl. 26).1859 Here a third horse appears, led by a nude youth, who is crowned, and who therefore probably represents a victorious horse-racer. Several other b.-f. vase-paintings showing four-horse chariots have been collected by Gerhard.1860 However, we are not dependent upon vase-paintings and coins to judge of the magnificence of Greek chariots of the historical period, for we have actual remains of them—war-chariots, to be sure, but not very unlike the ones used at the corresponding dates in Olympia. Among these is the fine bronze biga found in the grave of an Italian prince at Monteleone, Etruria, in 1902, and now one of the chief treasures of the Metropolitan Museum in New York.1861 This is a war-chariot of the beginning of the sixth century B. C., the only complete ancient bronze chariot now known. The restored frame of wood is sheathed with thin bronze plates richly ornamented with reliefs in repoussé. Because of its form and its relationship to chariots appearing on archaic Ionic monuments of Asia Minor, for example, on the reliefs of sarcophagi from Klazomenai, and because of the strong resemblance between its decorative designs and those of archaic Italian monuments of Ionicizing style, Furtwaengler has classed it as the product of Ionic Greek art. Professor Chase, on the other hand, finds these decorations pure Etruscan in character, comparing them with the reliefs on three bronze tripods in the possession of Mr. James Loeb, which are dated some half a century later.1862 In any case this chariot is “das glaenzendste, vollstaendigste” archaic metal work yet recovered. In the British Museum there are considerable remnants of the chariot-group of King Mausolos and his wife Artemisia, which once stood on the apex of the Mausoleion at Halikarnassos, the work, according to Pliny,1863 of Pythis (or Pytheos), the architect and historian of the tomb.1864 Besides the figures of the royal pair, we have the head of one horse, the hinder half of another, fragments of still others, and one wheel of the chariot.1865
Great artists were engaged to set up chariot-groups at Olympia and elsewhere. Many of the quadrigae and bigae mentioned by Pliny as the works of sculptors and painters must have been agonistic offerings.1866 Aeginetan sculptors were especially in favor at Olympia. Thus Onatas, in conjunction with the Athenian Kalamis, made a group for King Hiero,1867 and Glaukias made another for Hiero’s brother Gelo;1868 Simon made an equestrian group for Phormis,1869 and Philotimos made a statue for the horse-racer Xenombrotos of Kos.1870 The oldest dedication by a chariot victor at Olympia was the votive offering of Miltiades, the son of Kypselos, of Athens, which consisted of an ivory horn of Amaltheia, inscribed with archaic letters and set up in the treasury of the Sikyonians. Miltiades won his victory in Ol. (?) 54 ( = 564 B. C.).1871 The next oldest dedication at Olympia was that of a chariot, without any human figure, by the Spartan Euagoras, who won three victories in Ols. (?) 58–60 ( = 548–540 B. C.).1872 This custom of dedicating merely the model of a chariot continued sporadically into the third century B. C. Thus Polypeithes of Sparta, who won a victory near the end of the sixth century B. C.,1873 dedicated a chariot, while a figure of his father, the wrestler Kalliteles, stood beside it.1874 A Pythian victor, Arkesilas IV, son of Battos IV, king of Kyrene, who won a victory in the 31st Pythiad ( = 462 B. C.), dedicated a chariot at Delphi.1875 At the beginning of the fourth century B. C. the Spartan princess Kyniska set up “bronze horses less than life-size” in the pronaos of the temple of Zeus at Olympia. The recovered base shows that Pausanias was right about the size of this votive offering.1876 Theochrestos of Kyrene, who won some time between Ols. (?) 100 and 122 ( = 380 and 292 B. C.),1877 and Glaukon of Athens, who won in the third century B. C.,1878 also set up votive chariots. The recovered base of Glaukon’s chariot shows that it was small. Sometimes a chariot victor, for economy’s sake, contented himself with dedicating merely a statue of himself in honor of his victory—a custom which continued from the sixth to the third centuries B. C. Perhaps one of the oldest examples of such a dedication of which we have record is that of the Elean Archidamas, who won a victory at an unknown date, but certainly some time after Ol. 66 ( = 515 B. C.).1879 In the fifth century B. C., the Spartans Anaxandros1880 and Lykinos1881 dedicated merely statues of themselves. In the fourth century B. C. the Elean victors Timon,1882 whose monument was by Daidalos, Troilos, whose monument was by Lysippos,1883 and Telemachos, whose statue was by Philonides,1884 set up statues in honor of their victories. The footprints on the inscribed base of the statue of Telemachos show that he was represented standing at rest with both feet flat on the ground. This was probably the position of the statues of the other two victors mentioned. The statue of the Spartan victor Polykles, surnamed Polychalkos, stood in a singular group. He was represented as being greeted on his return home by his children, one of whom held a small grace-hoop in his hand, while the other was trying to snatch the victor ribbon from his father’s hand.1885 We learn from Diogenes Laertios that the tyrant Periandros of Corinth vowed to set up a golden statue of himself if he won the chariot-race.1886
The first instance chronologically recorded by Pausanias of a chariot victor dedicating his statue along with chariot and horses is that of king Gelo of Syracuse, the group being the work of the Aeginetan Glaukias.1887 The first instance of a victor dedicating his statue in a group with chariot, horses, and charioteer, is that of Kleosthenes of Epidamnos, the group being the work of the Argive Hagelaïdas.1888 Even the names of the horses were inscribed on this monument.1889 The owner of the chariot, to be sure, took the prize, but he felt that the victory was due to the horses and driver, and so he associated them with himself in the monument. Sometimes the victor acted as his own charioteer. Thus the Spartan Damonon, already mentioned as the hero of many chariot victories in and near Sparta, tells in the inscription appearing on his votive relief that he was his own charioteer.1890 In the first Isthmian Ode Pindar congratulates Herodotos of Thebes, who won the chariot-race (?) in 458 B. C., on not entrusting his chariot to strangers, but driving it himself.1891 Thrasyboulos seems to have driven his father’s car at the victory commemorated by the sixth Pythian Ode, sung in honor of the chariot victory of Xenokrates of Akragas in 490 B. C. at Delphi. Karrhotos, the charioteer of Arkesilas of Kyrene already mentioned, was the latter’s brother-in-law.1892 Similarly Aigyptos appears to have ridden his own horse at Olympia instead of entrusting it to a jockey.1893 Sophokles, in the Electra, has the hero Orestes drive his own chariot at the Pythia. Kyniska, the daughter of king Archidamas of Sparta, was the first woman to enter the contests at the race-course and the first to win an Olympic victory with her chariot.1894 Apart from the small votive offering, already mentioned as standing in the temple of Zeus, she had also a victor-group at Olympia, by the sculptor Apellas, consisting of chariot, horses, charioteer, and herself. The rounded form of the recovered base,1895 in connection with the description of Pausanias, permits us to assume that the statue of the princess stood in front on the projecting rounded portion of the pedestal. This is the contention of Loewy, who opposes the theory of Furtwaengler1896 that the statue stood away from the rest of the group, since Pausanias makes no mention of such an arrangement. In any case, the charioteer in the group can not have been separated from the car.
In an unpublished paper by my former teacher, Dr. Alfred Emerson, which was read by Professor D. M. Robinson before the Archæological Institute of America at its Christmas meeting in Providence in 1910, and entitled The Case of Kyniska,1897 the argument was made that the chariot was in miniature; that the statue of Kyniska was a portrait, because of the wording of the recovered epigram; and, lastly that the smallest of the so-called bronze dancers from the villa of the Pisos in Herculaneum, now in Naples, is a late reproduction of the statue at Olympia by Apellas. Emerson thinks that Pliny no doubt often visited the villa and may well have had these statues in mind when he mentioned Apellas as the author of several statues of women adorning themselves.1898
The monument erected by Hiero, son of Deinomenes and brother and successor of king Gelo at Syracuse, who won two horse-races and a four-horse chariot victory at Olympia in Ols. 76, 77, 78 ( = 476–468 B. C.),1899 consisted of a bronze chariot, on which the charioteer was mounted, and on either side a race-horse with a jockey on each. Onatas made the chariot (and possibly the statue of the driver), while Kalamis sculptured the horses and jockeys. Such a division among sculptors was not uncommon at Olympia. Thus the Aeginetan artist Simon and the Argive Dionysios made a group in common for Phormis, which we have already mentioned, consisting of two horses and two charioteers.1900 The Chian Pantias and the Aeginetan Philotimos made a group in common for Xenombrotos of Kos, victor in horse-racing, and for his son, the boy boxer Xenodikos, which consisted of statues of the man and the boy on horseback.1901 Pliny mentions a four-horse chariot-group for which the elder Praxiteles made the charioteer and Kalamis the chariot, adding that Praxiteles did this out of kindness, not wishing it to be thought that Kalamis had failed in representing the man after succeeding in representing the horses.1902
In some of the Olympic chariot-groups doubtless the charioteer was represented at the moment of entering the chariot or already in it. Sometimes a figure of Nike took the place of the charioteer, in order that the victor’s exploit might be more exalted. Thus Pausanias, in mentioning the bronze chariot of Kratisthenes of Kyrene by Pythagoras of Rhegion,1903 says that statues of Nike and Kratisthenes himself are mounted upon the car. The Nike in some cases was replaced by the figure of a young maiden, who stood beside the victor, as in the cases of the Elean Timon1904 and the Macedonian Lampos.1905 Pliny notes a similar example in reference to the chariot of Teisikrates, a Delphian victor in the two-horse chariot-race.1906 The maiden in all these cases may have been merely a Nike personified or a mortal.1907 Pliny records that the painter Nikomachos, son and pupil of Aristeides, painted a Victoria quadrigam in sublime rapiens.1908 The figure of Nike appears often on reliefs. Thus on a terra-cotta sarcophagus from Klazomenai we see a two-horse chariot driven by a boy, while alongside is a winged female figure—Iris or Nike—mounting it.1909 The moment of victory is shown on an Attic marble votive relief representing a four-horse chariot, now in the British Museum. Here a figure of Nike is represented as floating in the air and extending a wreath (now wanting) towards the head of the charioteer, who is draped with a tunic girdled at the waist, as he mounts the car. If the charioteer in this relief is a female (which is doubtful), it may he the personification of the city to which the winner belongs.1910 On a votive relief in Athens a horse is represented as being crowned by Nike.1911 On a relief in Madrid Nike is represented as driving a chariot.1912 A quadriga with a female figure, apparently Nike, appears on a relief dedicated to Hermes and the Nymphs, which was found in Phaleron.1913 Doubtless some of the chariot-groups at Olympia represented movement—the start, the course, or the end of the race—as do these and similar reliefs.1914 We should add that the figure of Nike was not confined to equestrian monuments. On the Ficoroni cista in Rome is represented the boxing match between Polydeukes and Amykos among the Bebrykes. In the centre we see Amykos hanged to a tree by the hands, while to the right stands Athena, and above her Nike is flying with a crown and fillet of victory for Polydeukes.1915
From this discussion of the literary evidence about the monuments of chariot victors at Olympia and elsewhere, we shall turn to a brief consideration of certain existing works of sculpture, reliefs and statues, which will serve to illustrate the manner in which the sculptor represented this class of victor monuments.