Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art

by Walter Woodburn Hyde

STATUES OF CHARIOTEERS.

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. onwards[1942] 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]

PLATE 27

Statue of a Charioteer (?). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

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

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] Svoronos[1953] 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 Joubin[1959] 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.