Fig. 56. R.-f. kylix. Berlin, 2307.
Fig. 57. R.-f. kylix. British Museum, E. 818.
Finally, on a red-figured vase in the British Museum, we see the finish of the race (Fig. [57]). A bearded runner who has passed the winning post looks back in triumph on his rival, who, as he reaches the goal, seems to have thrown down his shield in disgust. The winner holds in his hand his helmet, which he has just taken off. This gesture, which occurs on a number of vases, seems to be symbolical of victory. What could be more natural at the finish of a 400 yards’ race over the hot sand and beneath the scorching sun of Olympia than to take off the heavy, cumbrous helmet? The action reminds one, too, of a cricketer who after a fine innings takes off his cap as he returns to the pavilion. Of the style of the runners little need be said; it resembles the style of the stade runner in the swinging of the arm, and for obvious reasons of symmetry the vase painter always makes the right arm work with the right leg, the left arm, which holds the shield, being generally stationary. The type of runner represented on Panathenaic vases is, as we should expect, sturdier and heavier than is shown in other races. The hoplites on one in the British Museum exhibit that length of body in comparison with length of leg which Philostratus mentions as a useful quality for this event, and we may further note that they run on a flat foot (Fig. [58]). Yet in spite of such examples a foreign archeologist has maintained that the hoplitodromos advanced by a series of leaps and bounds, and has deduced therefrom the theory that jumping was the best training for this race, and that therefore the statue of a hoplitodromos practising, described by Pausanias, represented him not running, but jumping! The Greek athlete has certainly been hardly treated by some of his admirers.
Fig. 58. Panathenaic amphora. British Museum, B. 608. Archonship of Pythodelus, 336 B.C.
The popularity of the armed race in the fifth century is partly due to that spirit of military enthusiasm which animated athletics after the Persian wars, and partly to its attractiveness as a spectacle. There is something amusing in the sight of a body of men racing at full speed in incongruous costume, and the comic element in the armed race is brought out in the Birds of Aristophanes,[[518]] where Peisthetaerus as he watches the chorus of birds advancing on the stage with their quaint plumage and crests aptly compares them to the hoplites assembling to run the diaulos. Amusing incidents must have been frequent, especially in the crowding at the turning post. On vases, for example, we often see a runner who has dropt his shield, or stoops to pick it up.[[519]] A race of this kind naturally lends itself to variations, and of these we have evidence on the vases. A red-figured kylix at Munich shows two armed runners racing to the left, holding their shields in front of them in a decidedly quaint style (Fig. [59]). Three others race in the opposite direction, two of them with helmets only, the third unarmed. The sponge and other implements hanging on the walls indicate that the scene is placed in the gymnasium where athletes are practising; but the idea suggested is undoubtedly that of a race in which the runners at the end of the lap put down their shields and ran the next lap without them, and then, perhaps, doffed their helmets also. No certainty is attainable as to details, but the vases establish the general fact that such variations did exist at different places.[[520]]
Fig. 59. R.-f. kylix. Munich, 1240.
The comic element is still more apparent in the Lampadadromia and in the Oschophoria described above.[[521]] These old ritual races hardly come within the sphere of true athletics, although connected with the gymnasia and the training of the epheboi. They are of the type of events which we find in the modern gymkhana, and it is therefore unnecessary to describe them here at length.