Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art

by Walter Woodburn Hyde

GENERAL MOTIVES OF STATUES AT REST.

The victor represented as standing at rest was often characterized by general motives, such as praying, anointing or scraping himself, offering libations, and the like. We shall now consider such motives in detail.

Adoration and Prayer.

Prayer was a common motive represented in votive monuments. Pliny mentions many such works by Greek sculptors.[996] The custom of raising the arms in prayer is found all through Greek literature, from Homer down.[997] Pausanias says that the people of Akragas made an offering in the form of bronze statues of boys placed on the walls of the Altis, προτείνοντάς τε τὰς δεξιὰς καὶ εἰκασμένους εὐχομένοις τῷ θεῷ, these statues being the work of Kalamis.[998] In the Athenian Asklepieion there were many τύποι καταμακτοὶ πρὸς πινακίῳ, among which were representations of men and women in the praying attitude.[999] The motive was used at Olympia in victor statues, representing the victor as raising the hand in prayer to invoke victory.[1000] The statue of the wrestler Milo, already discussed at length, shows that this motive was employed at Olympia in the improved “Apollo” type in the second half of the sixth century B. C.[1001] From the next century we may cite the statue of the Spartan chariot victor Anaxandros, which was represented as “praying to the god,”[1002] and the statues of the Rhodian boxers Diagoras and Akousilaos, as we learn from a scholion on Pindar,[1003] which is based on a fragment of Aristotle[1004] and on one of Apollas.[1005] Of the statue of Diagoras it says: τὴν δεξιὰν ἀνατείνων χεῖρα, τὴν δὲ ἀριστερὰν εἰς ἑαυτὸν ἐπικλίνων; of that of Akousilaos: τῇ μὲν ἀριστερᾷ ἱμάντα ἔχων πυκτινόν, τὴν δὲ δεξιὰν ὡς πρὸς προσευχὴν ἀνατείνων.[1006] The bronze statue from Athens, now in the Antiquarium, Berlin,[1007] which represents a nude boy with the right hand raised as if in prayer and the left lowered and holding a leaping-weight—therefore a pentathlete—seems to correspond with this description of the statue of Akousilaos. The same motive may have been used in the statue of the chariot victress Kyniska, a princess of Sparta, whose statue along with that of her charioteer and the chariot was the work of the sculptor Apellas.[1008] This is the interpretation of Furtwaengler,[1009] based on a passage in Pliny, which mentions statues of adornantes se feminas[1010] by Apellas, which he reads adorantes feminas. However, adornantes may be right, for in another passage, Pliny speaks of Praxiteles’ statue of a ψελιουμένη, i. e., of a woman clasping a bracelet on her arm.[1011] Two notable bronze statues will illustrate this motive of Olympic victor statues. The statue found in 1502 at Zellfeld in Carinthia, now in Vienna,[1012] has been interpreted both as a Hermes Logios and a votive statue in the attitude of prayer,[1013] which latter interpretation the inscription on the leg, giving a list of dedications,[1014] favors. However, Furtwaengler believes it a free imitation of an Argive victor statue, though not in the Polykleitan style. Because of its similarity to the Idolino (Pl. [14]), he has ascribed its original to the sculptor Patrokles. From technical considerations he believes it is not a Greek original dedicated by Romans of a later period, but a Roman work (after Patrokles) of the period of the inscription.[1015] The bronze statue of the Praying Boy in Berlin[1016] (Pl. [10]) is one of our most beautiful Greek bronzes and comes from the circle of Lysippos.[1017] We now know that the uplifted arms of this statue, in which most scholars saw the Greek attitude of prayer, are restorations which were probably made in the time of Louis XIV, when the statue was in France. Of the original motive we only can say that the action of the shoulders shows that both arms were raised, but we do not know how far, or the position of the hands. Monumental evidence shows that the hands in prayer should have the palms turned away from the face instead of upwards, as in the present statue, since the Greek position was the outgrowth of an old apotropaic gesture, i. e., one directed against an evil spirit. Mau’s idea[1018] that the figure represented a player catching a ball is certainly inconsistent with the calm attitude of the statue. Furtwaengler rejected it,[1019] and he has restored the arms and hands on the basis of a Berlin gem[1020] and an ex voto relief found by the French excavators at Nemea in 1884.[1021] On this relief a youth crowned with a woolen fillet is represented. On both relief and gem the figures are in the same attitude, the arms raised over the head manibus supinis, which confirms the restoration of the Berlin statue. Many other monuments give the more usual attitude of prayer, not as in the relief and gem discussed, but with only one hand extended as high as the breast. Older writers thought that such monuments did not represent the gesture of adoration, but one of adlocutio,[1022] an opinion disproved by Pausanias’ statement about the bronze statues of the Akragantines at Olympia, already mentioned. We may cite a relief from Kleitor, now in Berlin,[1023] and a fine one of the fourth century B. C. from Lamia (?),[1024] as well as a red-figured Etruscan stamnos in Vienna representing, probably, Ajax praying before committing suicide.[1025] We shall mention also two little statuettes in New York which represent youths in the praying attitude.[1026] The first, dating from the second half of the fifth century B. C., and showing Polykleitan influence, represents a nude youth standing erect with the forearms bent, showing that the two hands were extended in prayer. The second, which dates from the first half of the fifth century B. C. (after the date of the Myronian Diskobolos), represents a nude youth standing with the right hand raised to the lips in an attitude usual in saluting a divinity, while the left is by the side, with the palm to the front.

PLATE 10

Bronze Statue of the Praying Boy. Museum of Berlin.

Anointing.

Various familiar motives from the everyday life of the gymnasium and palæstra were reproduced in the statues of athletes. One of the commonest methods was to represent the victor anointing his body with oil. The use of oil was indispensable in all athletic exercises, in order to make the body and limbs more supple, and especially in wrestling and the pankration, to make it difficult for one’s antagonist to get a grip.[1027] Pliny mentions a painting by Theoros, representing a man se inunguentem,[1028] which appears to have been a votive portrait of an athlete. The motive was common in vase-paintings and statuary. Several red-figured vases of the severe style, antedating the statues to be considered, show from realistic representations of palæstra scenes that it was customary for athletes to hold a round aryballos high in the right hand and pour oil from it into the left, which was placed across the body horizontally.[1029] The same motive appears with variations in statues.[1030] Thus the statue of an ephebe in Petworth House, Sussex, England,[1031] a statue, as Furtwaengler says, to be praised more for its excellent preservation than for its workmanship, represents an athlete, who holds a globular aryballos in his right hand raised over the shoulder, while the left arm is held across the abdomen. On the nearby tree-trunk are small cylindrical objects which seem to be boxing pads. This statue, and especially its head, have been regarded by Michaelis and Furtwaengler as unmistakably Polykleitan in style.[1032] Several other copies of original statues representing athletes pouring oil have been wrongly classed as replicas of one original,[1033] though they merely have essential features alike, due chiefly to the subject. First is the famous statue in the Glyptothek known as the Oelgiesser (Oil-pourer), a Roman copy of an Attic bronze of about the middle of the fifth century B. C. (Pl. [11]).[1034] Though the right arm and left hand are lost, it is clear that the athlete held in his raised right hand an oil flask, as in the Petworth statue.[1035] Notwithstanding that the head resembles the Praxitelian Hermes,[1036] this does not show that the statue is of fourth-century origin, for its original is older; it merely shows that the art of Praxiteles was deeply rooted in that of his fifth-century

Fig. 23.—Head of so-called Oil-pourer. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. predecessors. Because of its Attic affiliations, Klein tried to identify it with the Ἐγκρινόμενος of Alkamenes mentioned by Pliny,[1037] by amending that title to Ἐγχριόμενος, the “Anointer.” Brunn, however, rightly saw the analogy of the body forms to Myron’s Marsyas,[1038] and Furtwaengler and Bulle have ascribed it to Lykios, the son and pupil of that master, who worked about 440 B. C., the approximate date of the original of the statue. A fragmentary head in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (Fig. [23]),[1039] formerly in private possession in England, is a copy of the same original as the Munich statue. Its special interest is that it is not an exact copy of the original, as the Munich statue is, but a freer one, showing a fuller mouth, fleshier cheeks, and deeper-set eyes. While the Munich statue is the dry work of a Roman copyist of Augustus’ time, this head is by a far abler Greek copyist of the second century B. C. A torso in the Albertinum in Dresden, without a head,[1040] is similar to the Munich statue, but hardly a replica. It probably goes back to an original by an Attic master of the end of the fifth or beginning of the fourth century B. C. Other under life-size statues related to this torso show the same motive.[1041] A black-marble statue found at Porto d’Anzio in 1758, and now in the Glyptothek,[1042] has the Polykleitan standing motive. The left arm, which is stretched out, holds an oil flask in the hand, while the right arm is lowered. The band, which the position of the fingers shows that the right hand probably held, indicates it is the statue of a victor. A bronze statuette from South Italy, now in the British Museum,[1043] represents a nude youth holding an alabastron in his right hand, while the left has the palm open to receive the oil. The hair fashion (κρωβύλος) seems to point to an Attic sculptor of about 470 B. C.[1044] The same motive is found on terra-cotta statuettes from Myrina,[1045] on reliefs,[1046] and on gems.[1047]

PLATE 11

Statue of the so-called Oil-pourer. Glyptothek, Munich.

Oil-scraping.

Another ordinary palæstra motive was employed in representing the athlete after the contest, scraping oil and dirt from his body and arms with the scraping-blade or strigil (στλεγγίς, strigilis).[1048] This motive is not uncommon on r.-f. vase-paintings of the fifth century B. C.[1049] It was treated in sculpture by many masters. Pliny mentions such statues of athletes destringentes se (ἀποξυόμενοι), by Polykleitos, Lysippos, and Daidalos of Sikyon.[1050] Perhaps the perixyomenoi by Antignotos and Daïppos, the latter the son of Lysippos, had the same motive.[1051] Of the Apoxyomenos of Polykleitos we have no authenticated copies in sculpture, though Furtwaengler believes that he has found reminiscences of it on gems which represent a youth resting the weight of his body on the left leg, the right being drawn back (i. e., in the attitude of the Doryphoros), the right forearm extended, and the left holding a strigil. The similarity of these gem-designs makes it certain that they are all derived from a well-known work of art.[1052] Perhaps the fine bronze statuette, dating from the middle of the fifth century B. C., and now in the Loeb collection in Munich, represents the pose of the destringens se by Polykleitos.[1053] It represents a nude youth resting the weight of the body on the soles of both feet, the left one slightly advanced, and holding a strigil in the raised right hand. The famous marble copy of an Apoxyomenos in the Vatican[1054] (Pl. [29]), which, because of its long slim legs and graceful ankles, might well represent a runner, has long been held to represent the canon of Lysippos, as it exhibits proportions widely different from those employed by Polykleitos, and agreeing with Pliny’s account of Lysippos’ innovations.[1055] However, the doubts arising in recent years as to whether this statue is a copy of Lysippos’ statue or a later work will be considered at length in Chapter VI.[1056]

PLATE 12

Statue of an Apoxyomenos. Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

The same motive is exemplified by many existing statues, statuettes, reliefs, etc. The marble statue of an athlete in the Uffizi, Florence, (Pl. [12]),[1057] a copy of an original of the end of the fifth century B. C., wrongly restored as holding in both hands a vase at which the athlete is looking down, was interpreted by Bloch as an ephebe pouring oil from a lekythos held in the right hand into an aryballos held in the left. This action for an athlete has been characterized by Furtwaengler as “unparallelled, unclassical and, above all, absurd.” Through recent discoveries we now know that it represents an apoxyomenos, and that it should be restored with the left forearm close to the thigh, and with the right crossing the abdomen diagonally in the direction of the left hand. This attitude so closely corresponds with that of a figure on a gem as to make it probable that both gem and statue are copies of the same original. The figure on the gem[1058] holds a strigil in both hands and is generally explained as scraping the dirt from the left thigh; the light hand holds the handle and the left the blade. A hydria, palm-branch, and crown are pictured to the right—showing that the figure represents an athlete, just as the statue has the swollen ears of one. The attention of the athlete in both monuments is concentrated on the operation involved—a concentration reminding us of Myron’s Diskobolos. While, however, in the latter work the concentration is momentary, it is less transient in the Florence statue and also in the Munich Oil-pourer. This pose is too conscious in the Florentine statue to be the work of Myron. Arndt names no artist, but as the similarity between the head of the statue and that of the Oil-pourer is so marked, and as every one now regards the latter as Attic—even if not by Alkamenes—he thinks that the two must be by the same Attic sculptor, although the Uffizi statue is somewhat later than the Munich one.[1059] The original of the Florence statue was famous, if we may judge by the existing number of replicas with variations.[1060]

Among statues showing the same motive and pose, we may note the bronze statue of an athlete over life-size—pieced together from 234 fragments—found by the Austrians at Ephesos and now in Vienna.[1061] The subject, pose, and heavy proportions recall the Argive school of Polykleitos, and its original has been assigned by Hauser to the Sikyonian Daidalos, the son and pupil of Patrokles, who was the pupil of Polykleitos. As further reproductions of the same type of figure, we may cite a bronze statuette in Paris,[1062] and a marble one found at Frascati in 1896 and now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.[1063]

A chalcedony scarab of archaic type in the British Museum represents a nude athlete with a lekythos slung over the left arm and a strigil in the left hand, which rests on the hip.[1064] A beautiful marble grave-relief, much mutilated, in the museum at Delphi,[1065] which dates from the middle of the fifth century B. C., represents a palæstra victor, with his arms extended to the right, cleansing himself with a strigil, which is held in the right hand, while a slave boy, holding the remnant of an aryballos in his right hand, looks up at him from the right. The careful anatomy of this relief may point to Pythagoras of Samos, as its author, though we have no certain work of his, for it fits the description of that artist by Pliny, who says that he was the first to express sinews and veins.[1066]

Libation-pouring.

PLATE 13

Statue of an Athlete, after Polykleitos. Farnsworth Museum, Wellesley College, U. S. A.

An original Greek bronze statuette in Paris (Fig. [24])[1067] reproduces the motive of the statue of the boy wrestler Xenokles by the sculptor Polykleitos Minor at Olympia, as a comparison with the footprints on the recovered base of the latter shows.[1068] As the forms correspond with those of the Doryphoros and Diadoumenos, and as its execution is so marvelous, Furtwaengler has ascribed the statuette to the circle of Polykleitos’ pupils. The position of the right hand, which has the thumbs drawn in, corresponds with that of the Idolino (Pl. [14]), which we are to discuss, and can best be explained by assuming that it similarly held a kylix; the left hand carried a staff-like attribute.

Fig. 24.—Bronze Statuette of an Athlete. Louvre, Paris. The head is bent and looks to the right. Furtwaengler believed that, inasmuch as the act of pouring a libation does not occur in art or literature as an athletic motive, the statuette represented a hero or god. Many Roman marble copies show the same motive and preserve to us a Polykleitan work which corresponds in all essentials with the Louvre statuette.[1069] We mention two, the only ones of the type in which the heads are on the trunks, one in the Galleria delle Statue of the Vatican,[1070] the other in the Farnsworth Museum at Wellesley College (Pl. [13]).[1071] These copies represent a youth standing with both feet flat upon the ground, the weight of the body resting upon the right one, while the left is turned a little to the side. He is looking downwards to the right. Doubtless we should restore these copies after the Paris bronze, with a kylix in the right hand. The palm-branch in a similar statue, to be mentioned further on, shows that in all probability the origin statue was that of an athlete; and that he was a famous athlete is shown by the number of copies of the torso and head.[1072] A bronze head from Herculaneum (Fig. [25])[1073] so strongly resembles in its forms the type under discussion—which Furtwaengler has called the “Vatican athlete standing at rest”[1074]—and corresponds with it so closely in its measurements, that it might be regarded as a copy of the same original, if certain differences, not due to the copyist, did not rather show that it comes from a closely allied work. This head shows an intense melancholy, which has been explained by Furtwaengler as due to the lack of skill on the part of the copyist, who fashioned it slightly askew. Amelung very properly explains the absence of the motive of libation-pouring in athletic art as merely a lacuna in our sources.[1075] If the original of these copies and variations represented an athlete, he was certainly pouring a libation before victory; if a warrior, he was doing the same thing before going on a campaign. In the latter case the left hand should be restored with a spear.

Fig. 25.—Bronze Head of an Athlete, from Herculaneum. Museum of Naples.

We must also place here the life-size original Greek bronze in Florence, discovered at Pesaro, near Ancona, in 1530, and known from the early eighteenth century as the Idolino (Pl. [14]),[1076] for its motive connects it with the series just discussed. This is, perhaps, our finest bronze statue from antiquity, as it represents the highest ideal of boy beauty, just as the Doryphoros does of manly beauty. The chief characteristics—the positions of the feet, head, and arms, though essentially those of the statues discussed, offer certain differences. Thus the left leg is placed more to one side and turned further outwards than in the statue of Xenokles and kindred works; the left hand hangs down at an angle to the leg differently from the others. In other words, by comparing it with the Paris statuette, we see a slightly different rhythm from that found in Polykleitan works. The Idolino has been looked upon as Myronic by Kekulé,[1077] Studniczka,[1078] and hesitatingly Klein,[1079] while Mahler regarded it as Pheidian.[1080] Furtwaengler, however, by a careful analysis, has shown its Polykleitan characteristics—especially the shape of the head and the features, and the treatment of the hair, which reminds us of the Naples copy of the Doryphoros. Owing to differences, however, he did not assign it to the master himself, but suggested that it was the work of his pupil Patrokles.[1081] Bulle found the head Polykleitan, but the body Attic, and assigned the figure to an unknown Attic sculptor working in the Polykleitan circle. In this controversy on its style, a statue found in 1916 in the excavations of the Baths at Kyrene should be of use, for it is the most faithful of all the Roman copies known of the bronze original and clearly shows a Polykleitan character influenced by Attic art.[1082] By a comparison of this marble copy with the Florentine bronze we see that the latter was a subsequent rendition of the same original, and doubtless by some artist of lesser fame from the Polykleitan school, who was influenced by Attic art.

But it is the interpretation of the Idolino which chiefly interests us here. While Longpérier called the similar Paris statuette a Mercure aptère, and the publisher of the statue from Kyrene called that copy a Hermes, yet Kekulé, Bulle, and most other archæologists have seen in the Idolino an athlete. The inner surface of its outstretched right hand is left rough, and the fingers are in the same position as those of the Paris bronze. Such a position can be explained satisfactorily by restoring the hand with a kylix or a φιάλη, such as was commonly used in libations. The left hand is smooth and evidently empty, though Bulle restores it with a victor’s fillet, and so, following Kekulé, calls the statue that of a boy victor, who is bringing an offering to the altar in honor of his victory. The marble statue in the Galleria delle Statue has the right forearm restored; in the Kyrene statue the right hand is preserved and has a thick object held downwards at a greater angle than in the Idolino. The photograph does not let us judge decisively, but it seems to be too thick an object for the remnants of a kylix. A marble statue in the Barberini Palace, Rome,[1083] which resembles the Idolino so closely as to be considered a copy of it, though with variations of pose and technique, has the arms broken off, and so adds nothing to the solution of the motive of the Idolino. The fact that a palm-stem stands beside the right leg, however, adds weight to the interpretation as victor. Furtwaengler interprets the Idolino and kindred works as divinities. Though boys serve at libations, he thinks they never perform the ritual act of pouring the libation.[1084] That a libation-pourer should appear in the guise of a boy victor (that of Xenokles) he calls a genuine Argive trait. Svoronos, also, has recently tried to show that the Idolino is not a victor,[1085] but represents the hero Herakles. He compares the figure with a fourth-century Pentelic marble relief in Athens,[1086] which represents Herakles standing at the door of Hades and beside him a father leading his son up to the open air. The pose of the figure of Herakles resembles that of the Idolino in a remarkable way. In the relief Herakles holds a kylix in the right hand[1087] and a club in the left, and a lion skin is thrown over the left arm. Svoronos believes that the left hand in the relief explains the turning in of the left hand of the Idolino—for he believes that the latter also held a club. We must, however, leave the final solution of the motive of the Idolino and kindred works open, although inclining to the belief that they represent a victor.

PLATE 14

Bronze Statue known as the Idolino. Museo Archeologico, Florence.

A statue in Athens, which was found in 1888 in the Roman ruins at the Olympieion, may represent a boy victor pouring a libation (Fig. 26).[1088] It is a poor Roman copy, dry and lifeless,

Fig. 26.—Marble Statue of an Athlete(?). National Museum, Athens. of a bronze original of the middle of the fifth century B. C.[1089] In this statue Mayer has seen the motive, and probably the copy, of the Splanchnoptes (Roaster of Entrails) by the sculptor Styphax (or Styppax) of Cyprus, which, according to Pliny,[1090] represented Perikles’ slave “roasting entrails and blowing hard on the fire, to kindle it, till his cheeks swell.” He thinks that the position of the broken arms and a comparison of the figure with similar ones on vases make the identification possible. Von Salis concurs in his restoration and interpretation and publishes a small statuette in Athens from Dodona,[1091] which has a similar pose, and holds a three-pronged fork in the left hand, which he believes should be restored in the statue. Although statue and statuette have much in common (e. g., the position of the breast and shoulders, the treatment of the hair, etc.), which shows that both may be copies of one original, the conception of the two is somewhat different. The statue from Athens represents a boy standing busily engaged at the altar; the statuette represents one standing at rest merely looking on, the fork not being held in position for use.[1092] In any case the face of the Athens statue can not correspond with Pliny’s description—ignemque oris pleni spiritu accendens. Quite a different explanation of the statue is possible—one which Mayer thought improbable. The right arm—broken above the wrist—was raised to the height of the shoulder and may have held an object in the hand; the left arm—broken off below the shoulder—seems to have been held close to the body and appears to have corresponded in movement with the other. The boy, therefore, may have held a cup in the right hand and a branch or a victor fillet in the left. Thus it may merely be another example of a boy victor pouring a libation.

Certain other statues have been mistaken either for libation-pourers or oil-pourers, when they are really wine-pourers and have nothing to do with the athletic motives under discussion. A good example is the marble statue of a Satyr in Dresden,[1093] which represents the youthful demi-god lifting a can with his right hand, out of which he is pouring wine into a drinking-horn held in the left. There are many copies of this work,[1094] a fact which shows that the original bronze was famous. An attempt has therefore been made to identify it with the bronze Satyr of Praxiteles mentioned by Pliny as the Periboëtos or “far-famed,”[1095] which seems to have been grouped with a Dionysos and a figure of Drunkenness—a grouping which might fit the Dresden Satyr, since a second figure should be imagined, for which the horn is being filled. However, it differs stylistically so much from the Hermes of Olympia that the ascription has been given up, though its graceful form shows Praxitelean influence and certainly emanates from the fourth century B. C.

PLATE 15

Marble Head of an Athlete, after Kresilas (?). Metropolitan Museum, New York.

Resting After the Contest.

A very favorite motive was to represent a victor, either standing or seated, resting after the exertions of the contest (ἀναπαυόμενος). An excellent example of this motive in a standing posture is the fourth-century B. C. statue of Attic workmanship found at Porto d’Anzio and now in the Vatican,[1096] which reproduces the type of the Apollo Lykeios.[1097] Many of the statues, by various sculptors, which represent the victor standing at rest may be intended to represent him as resting after the contest. The well-known head of a youth adorned with the victor’s chaplet, and preserved in four copies in European museums, appears to come from a statue which represented a victor in this manner. The best of these copies is in the collection of Lord Leconfield at Petworth House, Sussex.[1098] We should add a fifth, a Roman copy of the head, in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (Pl. [15]).[1099] In these copies the ears are not swollen, and a certain refinement and gentleness show that the original was not from the statue of a boxer or pancratiast, but from that of another type of athlete, perhaps a pentathlete. Since Pliny mentions the statue of a Doryphoros by Kresilas,[1100] and because of its supposed Kresilæan style, Furtwaengler, albeit on slender grounds, has attempted to identify the original of these heads with that work.[1101] The expression is certainly one of complete repose. On the crown of the head, and on the left side over the fillet, is a rectangular broken surface,[1102] apparently the remnant of a support for the right arm, which, as Conze thought, proves that the athlete stood with one arm resting on the head, the hand hanging over the left side. Furtwaengler admitted that such an attitude might be that of an apoxyomenos,[1103] but pointed out that the expression of the face in all the copies seems too tranquil for such an interpretation. Since the victor was in repose and the left arm required a slight support, he believed that this support might have been an akontion. He therefore reconstructed the original statue as that of a resting pentathlete, and assigned it to the great Cretan contemporary of Pheidias, who worked in Athens.[1104] The number of replicas at least shows that the original was a famous work.

Fig. 27.—Head from Statue of the Seated Boxer. Museo delle Terme, Rome.

Perhaps our best example of the motive of a seated victor resting after the contest is the bronze statue of a boxer found in Rome in 1884 and now in the Museo delle Terme there (Pl. [16] and Fig. [27]).[1105] This is a masterpiece in the portrayal of brute strength in the most naturalistic and revolting way. If we like to think of victors as having noble forms, we are rudely startled on looking at this brutal prize-fighter. If we compare it with works of the fifth and fourth centuries B. C., we see in it, as in no other example of Greek sculpture, the great change which professionalism had later wrought in the Greek ideal of athletics. Here are massive proportions, bulging muscles, arms and legs hard and muscle-bound. We can compare it only with the bronze head of a boxer found at Olympia (Fig. [61] A and B) of similar style and age.[1106] But there we have only the head, while here we have a complete statue almost perfectly preserved, the only restorations being a portion of the left thumb, a piece of the right flank, and the base.

PLATE 16

Bronze Statue of the Seated Boxer. Museo delle Terme, Rome.

It represents a professional boxer, who is seated exhausted at the close of the bout, the severity of which is indicated by every part of the body. He leans forward, his arms rest on his thighs, and his head, sunk between his shoulders, is raised and turned to the right, as he stupidly looks around at the applauding spectators. His nose is broken and his ears are swollen and scars of the contest show on his face and limbs. Beneath his retreating upper lip some of his teeth appear to have been knocked out as the result of previous fights, while indications of the recent struggle are to be seen in the blood dripping from his ears and the deep lacerations in face and shoulder, which may have once been filled with red paint to make his appearance even more realistic. The right eye is swollen and the lower lid and the cheek imperceptibly sink into each other. The mustache shows flecks of blood and the swollen back of the right hand protrudes through the glove. His nose is clotted with blood and he seems to be struggling to get his breath.

Such realism and delight in depicting the hideous show that the work, like the Olympia head, belongs to the Hellenistic age. The careful workmanship, especially visible in the hair and beard and in the hair on the chest[1107], proves that the statue is not a Roman copy, but a Greek original of the beginning of the Hellenistic age, of the end of the fourth or beginning of the third century B. C. Nor is it a portrait, as Winter maintained,[1108] since it is an adaptation of a late type of Herakles. It certainly is a victor statue from one of the great Greek games, and is, perhaps, from Olympia itself. Since the head is turned toward the right shoulder and the mouth is open, as if speaking, Wunderer tried, on the basis of a passage in the history of Polybios,[1109] to identify it with the statue of the famous Theban boxer and pancratiast Kleitomachos at Olympia by an unknown artist.[1110] The historian states that Kleitomachos, while fighting with the Egyptian Aristonikos, was angered by the acclaim given the foreigner and, stepping aside, chided the spectators for not cheering one who was fighting for the honor of Greece. The speech caused a revulsion in the popular feeling, which helped, even more than the fists of Kleitomachos, to vanquish Aristonikos. However, the motive of the statue does not fit the incident, as the boxer is not speaking, but breathing hard, nor is the seated posture that of one haranguing a crowd. Moreover, the date of the Theban’s victory is too late for the statue.[1111]