The motive of representing a figure in the act of mounting a chariot is old. Amphiaraos was thus represented on the chest of Kypselos at Olympia1916 and appears in a similar pose on the b.-f. Corinthian vase from Cerveteri, now in Berlin, which we have already mentioned.1917 Among reliefs we shall first discuss the Parian (?) marble one found in 1822 near the Propylaia at Athens and now in the Akropolis Museum (Fig. 63).1918 Here we see represented a robed figure stepping into a chariot, holding the reins in the extended hands. This Attic work, perhaps dating from the very beginning of the fifth century B. C., has long been admired for its vigor and grace. Whether the figure is male or female, human or divine, is still a matter of debate. The head is too badly weathered to make the decision final. The upper part of the figure of Hermes (?) on another fragment, which appears to come from the same relief and which was found near the south wall of the Akropolis in 1859,1919 has made it seem reasonable to call the charioteer a god, perhaps Apollo.1920 The hair of Hermes and of the charioteer is arranged in the old Attic krobylos fashion. This also makes it natural to interpret the charioteer as male, despite the slender and delicate arms and hands, which appear to be female.1921 But such effeminate male figures are not unknown to Attic art, which was characterized by grace and softness.1922 The line of the breast, however, shows no such fulness as archaic masters were wont to give to female forms, and hence this figure may very well be that of a male. Schrader has tried to refer the slab to the frieze of the Old Temple of Athena, which, he believes, survived the sack of the Akropolis by Xerxes,1923 thus assuming a chariot-frieze similar to the later one appearing on the Mausoleion at Halikarnassos, which antedated similar scenes on the Parthenon frieze by nearly a century. As the Parthenon slabs represent mortal charioteers, who are doubtless males, the relief may also represent a mortal. However, the Akropolis relief may have had nothing to do with any temple frieze nor with the adornment of a great altar of Athena, as Furtwaengler contended,1924 but may be from a votive monument set up by a chariot victor.1925
We see a good representation in relief of a chariot-group on one side of the arched roof of the so-called Chimæra tomb discovered by Sir Charles Fellows at Xanthos in Lykia. Here is represented a chariot drawn by four horses, in which stands a charioteer, with sleeved tunic and Phrygian cap, and an armed figure. Because of the figure of the Chimæra in the lower right-hand corner, the charioteer, despite the absence of Pegasos, has been called Bellerophon.1926
On the north frieze of the Parthenon there were originally at least 9 four-horse chariot groups,1927 while on the south frieze there were 10 such groups.1928 These various groups represent a ceremonial chariot-race called the apobates, known at Athens and in Bœotia and a favorite contest at the Panathenaic games.1929 This race preserved the tradition of Homeric warfare, when the chieftain was driven to battle in his chariot, but dismounted to fight, remounting only to pursue or avoid his enemy. During the race, while the charioteer kept the horses at full speed, the apobates dismounted, ran alongside the chariot, and mounted again. In the last lap he dismounted and ran beside the chariot to the goal.1930 In the North frieze we see the charioteer in the chariot, and the apobates, armed with shield and helmet, either stepping down from the chariot or standing beside it; while a third figure, a marshal, stands nearby. Thus on slab XIV we see the apobates about to step down; on slab XV he is standing up in the chariot; on slab XVII (Fig. 64) he is leaning back, supporting himself by means of his right hand, which grasps the chariot rail, and is just ready to step down; on slab XXII he is remounting the chariot. In the scenes on the South frieze, on the other hand, the apobates is not represented as dismounting, but is standing either inside the chariot or by its side. The South frieze, therefore, represents preparation or the beginning of the race, while the North one represents the actual course. There is, therefore, as Gardiner points out, no need to accept Michaelis’ theory that the two friezes portray different motives, the North one representing the apobates at the games and the South one representing war-chariots. The double character of the race is shown by inscriptions which make both charioteer and apobates equally victors. Many other reliefs show the apobates dismounting. Thus, on a fragmentary relief found in 1886 at the Amphiareion at Oropos and now in Athens,1931 we see a nude and beardless youth standing in a chariot, which is moving rapidly to the left. He has a helmet on his head and a shield in his left hand and holds on to the rim of the chariot, as in the Parthenon frieze slab just mentioned. To his right is a charioteer with his arms outstretched to hold the reins. As this relief is obviously influenced by the Parthenon frieze, it must stand midway between that frieze and the Hellenistic relief to be described below. Another relief, found at Oropos in 18351932 and dating from the first half of the fourth century B. C., represents a four-horse chariot moving to the left and containing two persons. One is the charioteer, who has long waving hair and a short beard and is clothed in the usual long tunic; the other is a nude apobates, who is armed with helmet and shield and holds on to the rim of the chariot with his right hand, the upper part of his body being inclined backwards, the knees bent, and the shield held away from the body.1933 We can not say whether these two reliefs from the Amphiareion represent offerings of apobatai, who were victorious at races held in Oropos or elsewhere in Bœotia, or represent the victorious Panathenaic apobatai. They may well be ex votos to the hero Amphiaraos at the games held in Oropos. We see an excellent illustration of an apobates in the very act of dismounting on a Hellenistic votive relief discovered in 1880 on the Akropolis, which dates from the end of the fourth century B. C.1934 A marble relief, supposably from Herculaneum, but now in Portugal,1935 represents a figure dressed in a long chiton. Wolters suggests that it may represent an apobates, but the absence of the usual armor makes it probable that a charioteer is intended. In a future section we shall discuss the apobates in the horse-race at Olympia known as κάλπη.
The best-preserved slab from the small Parian marble chariot-frieze from the Mausoleion of Halikarnassos, now in the British Museum, represents a male figure standing in a chariot (Fig. 65).1936 This long-haired charioteer, dressed in a tunic which extends to the feet and is girded at the waist, is leaning forward in an eager attitude. The folds of his garment curved to the wind show the speed of his horses, and the mutilated face discloses a look of intense excitement. The deep-set eyes and overhanging brows recall the Tegea heads of Skopas (Fig. 73) and the combatants pictured on the so-called Alexander Sarcophagus discovered near Sidon in 1887 and now in Constantinople.1937 The pose is so characteristic and spirited that it was copied by later artists on reliefs and gems.1938 The same pose, forward inclination of the body, half-opened mouth, and intense look seem to be reproduced in a statue of the fourth century B. C. now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (Pl. 27).1939 Robinson, because of the similarity of its head to certain heads of Apollo published by Overbeck,1940 interpreted this statue as Apollo starting to run. Von Mach, however, has pointed out that its head bears a more striking resemblance to that of a Kore in Vienna.1941 Klein interpreted it as a jumper, assuming that the two supports on the legs were for the wrists, indicating that the arms were held downwards, the hands, then, holding halteres. But von Mach makes it clear that these supports are not parallel, as Klein thought, but that they diverge outwards and consequently may have made the connection with the sides of a chariot rim. Furthermore, the likeness to the figure on the Mausoleion frieze (Fig. 65) makes it probable that we are here concerned with a charioteer. The objection to this theory on the ground of nudity is baseless. Though the conventional garb of the charioteer in Greek art from the eighth century B. C. onwards1942 was certainly a long, close-fitting chiton, there are several examples in existence of nude charioteers.1943 Similarly the objection that the artificial head-dress does not belong to a charioteer is equally erroneous. Klein has shown that it appears on several heads of boys, and, as von Mach says, it is certainly no better suited to Apollo or a jumper than to a boy driving colts in a chariot-race. The pose of the Boston statue also reminds us somewhat of that of the small bronze statue of a boy found in the Rhine near Xanten in 1858 and now in Berlin.1944 This is a Roman work seemingly inspired by a Greek prototype, and has been interpreted variously as the statue of Bonus Eventus, Novus Annus, and Dionysos. However, here again the forward inclination of the body points to the interpretation of a charioteer,1945 despite its nudity. The nude statue found on the Esquiline in 1874 and now in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome, which has already been mentioned,1946 has been shown to be that of a charioteer by a comparison with figures on Attic vases which represent mortals and gods entering chariots, and with a figure on the so-called Satrap Sarcophagus in Constantinople.1947 The youth is represented as standing on his left foot; he places his right on the chariot floor and extends his hands to hold the reins. The statue seems to be a mediocre Roman copy of a Greek original bronze of about the middle of the fifth century B. C., as it shows certain traces of archaism. Furtwaengler has assigned it to the sculptor Kalamis along with a closely connected group of monuments.1948
Finally, in this connection, even though it has nothing to do with monuments set up at Olympia, we shall discuss the life-size bronze statue of the Charioteer discovered by the French in 1896 in the excavations of Delphi, and now the cynosure of the village museum there. (Fig. 66.)1949 This example of ripe archaic art is one of the finest bronzes yet recovered in Greece. Its ancient fame is disclosed by the fact that it was copied in many monuments down to the end of antiquity.1950 The figure is clothed in a short-sleeved chiton, which reached nearly to the ground, and is girded above the waist. With the figure Bronze Statue of the Delphi Charioteer. Fig. 66.—Bronze Statue of the Delphi Charioteer. Museum of Delphi. were found also fragments of reins, which were held in the extended right hand, portions of three horses, a chariot pole, and the left arm and hand of a second figure, that of a boy or woman, showing that the Charioteer was part of a group. The group rested on a base on which was cut a two-line metrical inscription, the ends of which are preserved. The first line ends Πολύζαλός μ’ ἀνέθηκεν. A part of the inscription is lost and another part, including the above words, is written over the erased original, which is still partly legible. The original inscription gives the name of the first dedicator as ending in ιλας. From this ending Professor Washburn recovers the name Ἀρκεσίλας. He refers the original dedication to Arkesilas IV of Kyrene,1951 and identifies it with the group known from Pausanias to have been dedicated at Delphi by the people of Kyrene, representing Battos and the figure of Libya crowning him in a chariot and the charioteer personified as Kyrene outside, the whole being the work of the Knossian sculptor Amphion.1952 Svoronos1953 follows Washburn’s suggestion and identifies the Charioteer with Battos, believing that the fragment of the left arm found with the statue is from the statue of Kyrene represented as a charioteer.1954 Ingenious as the theory is, there are chronological difficulties in the way of accepting it unreservedly. Thus Amphion’s pupil Pison worked on the Spartan memorial of Aigospotamoi at Delphi in 404 B. C.1955 Furthermore, the ending ιλας may equally well refer to Anaxilas, the tyrant of Rhegion, as the original dedicator,1956 in which case it seems reasonable to assume that the group might have been the work of Pythagoras, the great sculptor of Rhegion.1957 A Greek scholar believes that the original dedicator was Gelo, and that his name was erased and replaced by that of his brother Polyzalos; he consequently dates the group shortly after Gelo’s death in 478 B. C.1958 He refers it to Glaukias of Aegina, while Joubin1959 classes the Charioteer as an Attic work. However, the whole subject of Greek sculpture in the years just after the Persian war period is too complicated to name definitely the artist of this simple and severe work. Its deficiencies are as apparent as its virtues. Thus the parallel folds of the chiton show little of the form beneath; the feet are too flatly placed on the ground, and the contour of the head and face is not altogether graceful.1960 Whatever the original purpose of the group was, it may well have been used by Polyzalos to honor the Pythian victory of his brother Hiero.1961 From it, then, we can get, perhaps, an idea of the magnificence of Hiero’s monument by Onatas and Kalamis at Olympia.
The hippic victor at Olympia frequently dedicated merely the model of his victorious horse without the jockey, just as the early chariot victor dedicated a chariot without the charioteer. We have evidence of several instances of this custom from the sixth century B. C. on. Krokon of Eretria dedicated a small horse of bronze in the Altis.1962 The Corinthian Pheidolas dedicated a model of his horse alone, but for a different reason.1963 The jockey who rode for him fell off at the start, but the mare, named Aura, continued the race and reached the goal as victor. The owner was allowed by the judges to set up a monument to her. The sons of Pheidolas were also victors in the horse-race1964 and set up a horse on a column with an epigram upon it—ἵππος ἐπὶ στήλῃ πεποιημένος καὶ ἐπίγραμμά ἐστιν ἐπ’ αὐτῷ. Just how this monument looked is doubtful. Pausanias may have seen the bronze horse of the father Pheidolas, and nearby a column with a bas-relief representing the horse of the sons;1965 or the horse may have stood on top of the column in the round, since the epigram was ἐπ’ αὐτῷ (on the horse) and not ἐπ’ αὐτῇ (on the stele).1966
More frequently a jockey was seated upon the model of the horse, just as we see frequently on vase-paintings. In the Olympic monument of King Hiero already mentioned, race-horses with boys seated upon them stood on either side of the chariot in honor of his two victories in the horse-race and one in the chariot-race.1967 Another Olympia group represented the boy horse-racer Aigyptos on horseback, and his father, the chariot victor Timon, standing beside him.1968 This is also a case in which the victor (Aigyptos) acted as his own jockey. In the group representing Xenombrotos of Kos, the horse-racer, and his son, the boy boxer Xenodikos, by the Aeginetan Philotimos and the Chian Pantias respectively, the boy was seated on a horse and the statue of the father stood nearby.1969 The base of this group has been recovered, large enough to have carried the two monuments.1970 Pliny says that the sculptors Kanachos and Hegias made groups of horse-racers.1971 We have seen that Pausanias mentions others by Kalamis and Daidalos. The work of Kalamis, the immediate predecessor of Pheidias, an artist noted for his grace and softness and as an unrivaled sculptor of horses,1972 must have been excellent.
When we turn to the monuments which illustrate the horse-race, we find as varied a number—vase-paintings, reliefs, coins, statuary, etc.—as in the case of chariot victors.
Vase-paintings show that the jockey was generally nude and rode without stirrups or saddle. We see nude long-haired jockeys on horseback with whips pictured on a sixth-century B. C. Panathenaic amphora in the British Museum.1973 One also appears on a silver tetradrachm in the same museum, which commemorates the Olympic victory of Philip II of Macedonia.1974 Here the victorious mounted jockey has a palm in his hand, the symbol of his victory. On the other hand, the jockey is sometimes represented as wearing a close-fitting short-sleeved chiton. We see such a one on an archaic b.-f. Panathenaic vase of the sixth century B. C. in the British Museum (Fig. 67).1975 In front of the mounted youth on this vase stands a herald in official robes, from whose mouth issue the words “the horse of Dyneiketos is victorious.” Behind the jockey is an attendant bearing a wreath in his left hand and holding a prize tripod over his head. The short chiton also appears on a horse-racer on the Amphiaraos vase.1976 We see racing boys on a proto-Corinthian lekythos in the museum at Taranto, with tripods as prizes.1977 A fine example of five nude horse-racers also appears on a vase pictured in the Daremberg-Saglio Dictionary.1978 Here one has fallen from his horse and is being dragged by the bridle.
A boy on a galloping horse is shown on a terra-cotta relief from Thera.1979 On a funerary marble relief from Sicily, now in the Museo Gregoriano, Rome, a rider is represented urging his horse on with a whip.1980 An Athenian relief shows victorious ephebes leading horses,1981 while another from Athens shows a mounted boy.1982 Horsemen representing Athenian knights appear on many slabs of the Parthenon frieze,1983 either mounted or standing by their horses.
The inscribed base of Onatas found on the Akropolis seems to have borne the statue of a horse-racer.1984 The bronze statue of Isokrates at Athens, which represented him as a παῖς κελητίζων, is mentioned by the pseudo-Plutarch.1985 A bronze statuette in Athens from Dodona represents an ephebe on a galloping horse.1986 A statue in the Palazzo Orlandi in Florence represents a horse-rider.1987 In the Akropolis Museum there are two monuments which we should mention in this connection. One is the lower part of the statue of a nude rider on horseback, the mutilated horse being represented as pawing the ground with its forefoot. Closely resembling it in scale and finish, though more developed in style, is another fragmentary statue of a horse without a rider, the latter probably to be understood as standing in front of the horse, as in some of the riders pictured on the Parthenon frieze. The two are good examples of pre-Persian Attic sculpture.1988 A later example is the small bronze statuette of an ephebe represented as a horseman (the horse is lacking) discovered recently at the French excavations at Volubilis in Morocco. This almost perfectly preserved work has been referred to the first half of the fifth century B. C.1989 The position of the hands holding the reins reminds us strongly of the Delphi Charioteer (Fig. 66). The diadem in the hair shows that a victor is represented. A small bronze statuette in the Loeb collection in Munich represents a boy riding a prancing horse, which is standing on its hind legs. This vigorous, but poorly finished, work is decorative in character and probably once belonged to the crown of a candelabrum. It appears to be either an Etruscan or early Roman work based on a Hellenistic original.1990
In a previous section we discussed the apobates chariot-race run at the Panathenaic games in Athens, in which the apobates leaped down and ran to the goal abreast of the chariot. We shall now briefly speak of a similar race at Olympia (the κάλπη) in which the rider leaped from his mare in the last lap and ran with her to the goal.1991 There is no certain illustration in sculpture or on vase-paintings of this race, but Gardiner believes that something like it appears on coins of Tarentum, on which a nude youth, armed with a small round shield, is represented in the act of jumping from his horse.1992 The military character of this race, like that of the apobates chariot-race discussed, is shown by the shield held in the left hand of the dismounting horseman. Helbig has shown that the Greek knight of the sixth century B. C. was merely a mounted infantryman, the successor of the Homeric warrior who used his chariot merely for pursuit or flight, while actually fighting from the ground.1993 Just so the knight rode to battle on his horse, but dismounted when near the enemy, leaving the horse in charge of his squire, as the Homeric chieftain left his chariot in charge of his charioteer. This old custom of the heroic age survived not only in the Panathenaic chariot-race, but also, for a few years in the fifth century B. C., in the Olympic mare-race known as the κάλπη. It seems to have been instituted there for military reasons in order to revive the old form of fighting that had gone out of use just at the close of the sixth century B. C., but it endured for only a half century, from Ols. 71 to 84 ( = 496 to 444 B. C.). The corresponding chariot-race at Athens and elsewhere continued at least to the end of the fourth century B. C.
In closing this chapter we shall say a few words about monuments erected to trumpeters, heralds, and musical victors at Olympia, though such contests had nothing to do with athletics.
Contests for trumpeters and heralds were held in many parts of Greece.1994 They were introduced at Olympia in Ol. 96 ( = 396 B. C.), when Timaios of Elis won as trumpeter and Krates of Elis as herald.1995 Pausanias mentions an altar, near the entrance to the stadion, upon which trumpeters and heralds stood when competing.1996 Such contests seem to have been mere displays of lung power. Herodoros, for example, who won as trumpeter at Olympia ten times in the last quarter of the fourth and beginning of the third century B. C.1997, could blow two trumpets at once so loud that no one could stand near him.1998 To perform such a feat he was said to be a very large man.1999 Diogenes, son of Dionysios of Ephesos, won five victories in trumpeting at Olympia. He was twice periodonikes and also won many other victories at the Isthmus, Nemea, and elsewhere—eighty in all.2000 We have an excellent bronze statuette of a trumpeter, which was found in the Hieron of Athena Chalkioikos at Sparta, dating from the middle of the fifth century B. C., about a century and a half before the event was introduced at Olympia.2001 This “little masterpiece of Spartan art,” whose style resembles that of the Olympia pediment sculptures, represents a nude man standing, the left arm hanging by his side, while the right is bent upwards to the mouth, where it held a tubular object pointing upwards. Since the lips are tightly compressed, Dickins has interpreted the object as a trumpet. A much damaged bronze statuette in the British Museum represents a man playing on a long trumpet-shaped instrument.2002 Trumpeters also appear now and then on r.-f. Attic vases of the middle of the fifth century B. C.
Music victors played a greater role at Delphi than elsewhere, since music from the first was the chief interest there. Monuments to such victors, though few in number, by little-known artists were set up there, but they seem to have enjoyed the same meagre honor at Delphi as the statues of athletic victors.2003 We have record of a statue of the Epizephyrian Locrian kitharoidos Eunomos, set up in his native town in honor of his Pythian victory over Ariston of Rhegion. Timaios says that this monument showed a cicada seated on the singer’s lyre.2004 Whether such monuments at Delphi or elsewhere were regarded as victor or votive in character, we can not say.2005 Pausanias mentions several statues of poets and musicians, mostly mythical, on Mount Helikon, which were set up partly in consequence of victories won there or elsewhere.2006 Of these the statue of the Thracian or Odrysian Thamyris was represented as a blind man holding a broken lyre;2007 that of Arion of Methymna as riding a dolphin;2008 that of Hesiod, seated, as holding a lute on his knees; and that of the Thracian Orpheus with Telete at his side and round about beasts in stone and bronze listening to his song. Of the statue of the Argive Sakadas, Pausanias says that the sculptor, not understanding Pindar’s poem on the victor, made the flutist no bigger than the flute.2009 The epigram on the statue of the Sikyonian flutist Bacchiadas, mentioned by Athenæus as standing on Mount Helikon,2010 was votive in character. The inscribed base of the statue of the kitharoidos Alkibios has been found on the Athenian Akropolis.2011 Musical contests are pictured on many imitation Panathenaic vases, and many Greek reliefs seem to have been set up in honor of such victors. Among the latter we might instance the one in the Louvre representing Apollo, Artemis, and Leto,2012 and another found in Sparta in 1885, which represents Artemis pouring a libation before Apollo.2013
At Olympia flute-playing accompanied certain of the events of the pentathlon. Pausanias says that the reason why the flute played a Pythian air while the athletes jumped was that this air was sacred to Apollo, who had beaten Hermes in running and Ares in boxing at Olympia.2014 Thus on the chest of Kypselos a flutist was represented as standing between Admetos and Mopsos at their boxing match.2015 But the explanation given by Philostratos seems more sensible, that leaping was a difficult contest, and that the flute stimulated the jumpers.2016 At Argos, at the games in honor of Zeus Σθένιος, wrestlers contended to the tune of the flute.2017 Many vase-paintings illustrate flute-playing at the pentathlon.2018 At Olympia only a few monuments were set up in honor of musical victors, and these seem to have been statues erected honoris causa, instead of primarily for victories. An example is that of the Sikyonian flutist Pythokritos, who won a victory as αὐλητής in the sixth century B. C.2019 Pausanias says that his monument was that of a small man with a flute wrought in relief on an inscribed slab. The explanation of such a description probably is that the size of the flute made the victor appear small, just as in the case of the monument of Sakadas just mentioned.2020 We know that artists, poets, prose writers, musicians, and actors all had an audience at Olympia, and that statues were often erected there in honor of such men, though these are not to be treated as victor monuments and do not properly fall within the scope of the present work.2021
Plates 28–30 and Figures 68–77.
If in these later years our knowledge of Skopas has been greatly augmented by the discovery of the Tegea heads (Fig. 73), that of Lysippos has been almost revolutionized. With the discovery in 1894 at Delphi of the group of statues dedicated by the Thessalian Daochos2023 in honor of various members of his house, whose dates covered nearly two centuries,2024 an entirely new impetus was given to the study of the last of the great Greek sculptors. Homolle immediately recognized the fourth-century origin of the group, and at first pronounced the statue of Agias Lysippan;2025 later he saw in the types, poses, and proportions of the group the mixed influences of Praxiteles, Skopas, and Lysippos, but referred the Agias to the school of Skopas,2026 while still later he again pronounced it Lysippan.2027 But its true character was not destined to be long in doubt. When Erich Preuner2028 found almost the same metrical inscription, which was on the base of the best preserved statue of the group, that of Agias (Pl. 28 and Fig. 68),2029 in the traveling journal of Stackelberg,2030 copied from a base in Pharsalos, the Thessalian home of Daochos, with the additional information that Lysippos of Sikyon made the statue, our views of the work of that artist had to undergo a thorough revision. For this discovery brought the Agias—if not the others of the group—into direct relation to Lysippos by documentary evidence, while the easily recognized Lysippan characteristics of the statue—the slender body and limbs, the small head, the proportions and pose—confirmed this connection on stylistic grounds. It became clear that Daochos had set up a series of statues in honor of his ancestors both at Pharsalos and Delphi. Whether the Thessalian group was of bronze, as is generally held, owing to the widespread belief that Lysippos worked only in metal, and the Delphian group was composed of contemporary marble copies of those originals, will be discussed further on. If the marble group was a copy, we may infer that it reproduced the original statues, not mechanically and laboriously as was often the case in Roman days, but accurately; for having employed a noted artist in the one case, the dedicator would have desired an accurate reproduction of the work in the other.