Fig. 15. Diadumenos from Vaison, after Polycleitus. British Museum. (Greek Sculpture, Fig. 75.)
In the Doryphoros (Fig. [14]), and Diadumenos (Fig. [15]), we have another type of athletic genre. These statues are studies of the athlete at rest, studies in proportion. The Doryphoros indeed was called the canon, because in it the artist was said to have embodied his ideal of the proportions of the human body. If we consider what such a canon implies, we shall understand why the old diversity of type tended to disappear. The artist of this period was seeking an ideal of human proportion. Such an ideal is not to be found in any extremes of type, in strength or beauty by itself, but only in a combination of the two, in the golden mean, that avoidance of all excess which dominated Greek life and thought. The influence of athletic training had impressed upon him the value of physical strength systematically trained and developed; his artistic sense taught him that no subject was fitting for his art which did not present beauty of outline and proportion. Hence that union of strength and beauty which characterizes the athletic art of this period.
Other circumstances contributed to produce uniformity of type. The three great sculptors of the age, Myron, Pheidias and Polycleitus, whom we now know to have been almost contemporaries, and in the full activity of their art in the middle of the century, were all, according to traditions, pupils of the Argive sculptor Ageladas. In the stern, manly discipline of the Argive school they acquired their consummate knowledge of the human body. The influence of these artists was increased by the concentration at this period of all art at Athens. Polycleitus indeed remained at Argos; but Myron and Pheidias worked at Athens, and through Pheidias the art of Athens spread over the Greek world. The school in which these artists had been trained had devoted itself to the study of athletic proportion, and it was therefore only natural that a similar athletic ideal should prevail generally,—a similar but not quite the same ideal. Polycleitus remained true to the Argive tradition of a somewhat thick-set, massive type, with square-jawed, powerful head. At Athens the influence of the softer Ionian art, perhaps, too, the prevalence of other characteristics in the population, produced a slighter, taller, more graceful type. Both schools combined strength and beauty. In both it is impossible to decide in what event any particular athlete had excelled; but while strength continued to be the prevalent idea of Polycleitus, Athenian art was rather dominated by the idea of beauty.
This union of strength and beauty belongs especially to the time of full-grown youth and opening manhood. It is the age when the Greek youth began to undertake some of the duties of citizenship, and when the state took upon itself his training. In most Greek cities somewhere between the ages of sixteen and eighteen the youths were enrolled in corps, and for two years were subject to a strict military discipline under officers appointed by the state. They learnt to use their weapons and to ride; they hardened their bodies by athletic exercises and hunting; they gained practical experience in war by acting as police patrols on the frontiers. This time of life was especially devoted to athletics and physical training. At many of the games there were special competitions for youths of this age—the beardless or ἀγένειοι. To the same age belong these romantic boy friendships which figure so largely in Greek life, from the time of Harmodius and Aristogeiton or earlier. That these friendships did at times lead to serious abuse cannot, unfortunately, be denied. But the charge of immorality brought against them seems to me greatly exaggerated,[[110]] at least as far as regards the fifth century and the most enlightened states. These friendships arose on the one side from the natural hero-worship of youth, on the other from an intense appreciation of bodily beauty.
This strong artistic feeling is illustrated by the practice which arose among the vase painters of inscribing on their cups the name of some popular youth with the word καλός, or sometimes the more general inscription καλὸς ὁ παῖς, “the boy is fair.” The term “love names” applied to these inscriptions is somewhat unfortunate. The word καλός implies none of that modern maudlin sentimentality so often mistaken for love, but rather the artist’s sense of the beautiful, sometimes his admiration for some popular youth, sometimes, perhaps, merely his satisfaction in the form he has himself created. The point, however, which interests us here is that the beauty which appealed to the Greek of the latter half of the fifth century was not the beauty of woman, nor even of the mature man, but the beauty of manly youth, and the art of the Periclean age has been well described as the glorification of the ephebos.
The growing preference for the younger type can be traced in the lists of athletic statues at Olympia recorded by Pausanias. There is a steady increase during the fifth century of the proportion of boy victors as compared with men, and the increase is more than maintained during the fourth century. The change is perhaps connected with a change in the character of athletics. There can be no doubt that athletics were already becoming more specialized, and the specialized athlete did not appeal to the artist of the fifth century. In the following age we find an increasing diversity of type, but in the Periclean age the ideal of athletic youth dominates all treatment of the human figure. We can see it in the figures of children and young boys which, despite their small stature, have the proportions and muscular development of men, or in the figures of women which, whether undraped or, as was more usual, draped, differ little in framework and proportion from the figures of graceful youths. In the Periclean age, we cannot distinguish between the athlete and the ephebos. Every educated youth is an athlete, and every athlete is an educated youth and a citizen of a free state. Of the strictly athletic statues unfortunately we possess only marble copies, which in the transference from bronze have lost much of the grace of the originals. But the ephebos is known to us from many a grave relief, and above all from the sculptures of the Parthenon. The grave reliefs are at least originals, though we do not know the artists’ names, while the Parthenon sculptures were executed under the direction of Pheidias. A truer idea of the athletic youth of this age can be formed from the Theseus of the pediment, or the epheboi of the frieze, than from late copies of Polycleitus.
In all these figures the prevailing impression is one of a perfect harmony, an absence of all exaggeration. Beauty of line is not exaggerated into softness, nor strength into coarseness. There is, too, a graceful ease of movement and of action which tells of an education in which music goes hand in hand with gymnastic. Musical drill and dances formed an important part of Greek education; even at the great festivals the competitors in the pentathlon performed to the accompaniment of the flute. The influence of music is especially suggested by the rhythmic movement and poise of the Diadumenos. Hence these harmonious shapes produce an effect deeper than that of mere physical beauty, they seem to be the outward expression of the spirit within. καλὸς καὶ ἀγαθός—beauty and goodness—are inseparable to the Greek. The heads, too, are in perfect harmony with the body; somewhat passionless perhaps, they seem to denote a mind well ordered as the body. They are not the heads of students or philosophers, much less of mere athletes, but the heads of healthy, vigorous youths, to whom all activity whether of mind or body is a joy. In the clear-cut, strong features we read courage and resolution, endurance and self-control. The expression is calm and dignified, yet without a trace of arrogance or pride. The face is often turned slightly downwards, and the downcast eyes produce an impression of modesty which is most marked in those statues which, like the Diadumenos binding the victor’s fillet round his head, expressly represent victory. Such is the beautiful bronze head of the ephebos shown in Fig. [16]. This combination of dignity and modesty is part of what the Greeks called αἰδώς,[[111]] a word which we shall see is the keynote of Pindar’s athletic ideal, and which expresses more than any other the spirit of these statues.
Fig. 16. Bronze head of ephebos. Munich, Glyptothek, 457. (From a photograph by Bruckmann.)
The influence of athletics is equally plain in the lesser arts. On coins and gems it is seen chiefly in the nude figures of gods and heroes. Sometimes, however, we find a purely athletic type. On the coins of Aspendus in Pamphylia we have a long series of wrestling groups (Fig. [109]), and on the other side a naked slinger, a punning allusion it seems to the name Aspendus. On the coins of Cos occurs a most interesting figure of the diskobolos, a crude attempt to represent the very moment selected by Myron (Fig. [86]). Both series date from the early fifth century. On gems of a later date we have frequent copies of the actual work of Myron. In Sicily we find no representations of the athlete proper, but the close connexion of Sicily with Olympia, and the successes of its cities and tyrants in the chariot and horse races are commemorated by numerous coins bearing a horseman or a chariot.[[112]]