DEDICATIONS OF VICTORS IN THE HORSE-RACE AT OLYMPIA AND ELSEWHERE.
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-race[1964] 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.