Fig. 49.—Stone Jumping-Weight (No. 155). L. 7½ in.
The Foot Race.—A somewhat conventional foot race of armed hoplites is shown on the vase B 143. This is a Panathenaic amphora, that is, one of the two-handled vases, won, as the inscription on the other side states, at the games at Athens. They always bear on one side a figure of the patron goddess Athena, on the other a representation of the contest in which they were won. Many examples may be seen in the Second and Fourth Vase Rooms.
Throwing the Diskos.—This was one of the oldest and most popular contests at the great festivals. It was already known in Homeric times, and we read of Odysseus using a disc of stone, and of one of iron hurled at the funeral games in honour of Patroklos; but all existing examples are in bronze except a lead disc at Berlin which cannot have been used in athletics. The diskos was used, not like the modern quoit, with the object of hitting a mark, but with a view to throwing as far as possible, as in the modern contest of putting the weight.
Existing discs vary considerably in size and weight, and were doubtless made to suit various degrees of strength, like modern dumb-bells or Indian clubs. The plain bronze example in this Case (No. 156) weighs as much as 8 lb. 13 oz. The small disc (No. 157; fig. 50), which was dedicated by Exoidas to the Dioscuri after a victory over his Kephallenian competitors[32] (cf. above, p. [49]), weighs only 2 lb. 12 oz. The weight used at modern athletic sports weighs 16 lb. and has been put 48 ft. 2 in.
Fig. 50.—Diskos of Exoidas (No. 157). Diam. 6⅜ in.
Diskos-throwing reached its greatest popularity in the sixth and fifth centuries, and it is to the middle of this period that the remarkable votive disc here shown (No. 158; fig. 51) may be assigned. It is engraved with finely-incised designs, representing on one side an athlete with jumping-weights; on the other, another holding a hurling-spear[33] in both hands. This disc weighs rather more than 4 lb. The method of handling the disc will be readily understood from the bronze figure and representations on vases exhibited in this Case; they should be compared with the copies of the famous Diskobolos of Myron in the second Graeco-Roman Room and the Gallery of Casts.
Fig. 51.—Engraved Bronze Diskos (No. 158). Diam. 8¼ in.