REMAINS OF CHARIOT-GROUPS.
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.
Fig. 63.—Charioteer Mounting a Chariot. Bas-relief from the Akropolis. Akropolis Museum, Athens.
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 Olympia[1916] 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]