Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art

by Walter Woodburn Hyde

We have many examples from athletic sculpture of the use of the fillet. Thus it appears on the bronze head of a boxer in the Glyptothek (Pl. [3])[1121] and on the bronze head from Herculaneum in Naples (Fig. [4]),[1122] both of which have been discussed in Chapter II, as fragments of Greek original statues of Olympic victors. It also appears on the marble head of a youthful victor—not necessarily Olympic—from the Akropolis,[1123] which, because of the similarity in cheeks, mouth, and eyes to heads on the metopes of the Parthenon, should be dated somewhere between 450 and 440 B. C. It occurs on the Olympia marble head (Frontispiece and Fig. [69]),[1124] which we ascribe in Chapter VI to Lysippos, and likewise on the statue of the pancratiast Agias in Delphi (Pl. [28], Fig. [68]). In most athlete heads the fillet is twisted into a knot at the back of the head. In one case, on the Petworth head of a pentathlete already discussed,[1125] which, because of the curve of the neck, must come from a statue represented at rest, it is not so tied, but is wound round the head with the two ends tucked in and pushed through the fillet on either side over the temples.[1126] Though so practical an arrangement as the latter must have been common enough in real life, this seems to be the only example of its representation in sculpture.

The fillet, instead of encircling the head, was sometimes held in the hand, as in the case of the Spartan chariot victor Polykles at Olympia.[1127] A curious life-size statue of the Roman period, found in the Peiræus, represents a nude boy holding in his right hand over the breast a bundle of books and in the left an alabastron. The body is covered with fillets—fifteen in all—which appear to have been prizes won in gymnic contests, probably at the gymnasium or palæstra.[1128]

Fillet-binders.

Statues representing victors binding fillets in their hair (diadoumenoi) are common to all periods of Greek art.[1129] We shall discuss only two—those of Pheidias and of Polykleitos.

PLATE 17

Statue known as the Farnese Diadoumenos. British Museum, London.

Pausanias mentions a statue by Pheidias, representing a Boy Binding on a Fillet, as standing in the Altis at Olympia.[1130] Robert has argued that this figure was the one of similar motive mentioned by Pausanias as on the throne of Zeus there.[1131] However, the figure on the throne was very probably in relief and not in the round.[1132] The cicerones at Olympia seem to have been imposing on the periegete when they said that a likeness to Pantarkes, the boy favorite of Pheidias, was to be seen in the face of this figure on the throne. The mention of Pantarkes has given rise to the usual identification of the παῖς ἀναδούμενος with the victor statue of the Elean Pantarkes mentioned by Pausanias as standing in the Altis.[1133] However, the assumption[1134] is far-fetched and must be rejected, because Pausanias mentions the two statues in two different parts of his periegesis of the Altis.[1135] Of the παῖς we know only the artist’s name. It was probably merely a votive gift,[1136] and the name of the person so honored was unknown to Pausanias. Of the statue of the victor Pantarkes we know only the name, and neither the artist nor the motive of the statue. It seems clear, therefore, that we have to do with three distinct monuments: the boy with the fillet, the throne figure by Pheidias, and the victor by an unknown sculptor.[1137]

The small marble statue in the British Museum known as the Diadoumenos Farnese[1138] (Pl. [17]), which is now almost universally regarded as an Attic work,[1139] has been assumed by many archæologists to be a copy of Pheidias’ statue.[1140] Since Pausanias tells us that a statue by Pheidias stood in Olympia, representing an unknown boy binding a fillet around his head, and since the style of the Farnese statue shows great similarity in head and body forms and general bearing to certain figures on the Parthenon frieze,[1141] and its motive agrees with that of the Olympia statue, it seems reasonable to see in this little work a copy of the statue in the Altis by the great master. Furtwaengler and Bulle have shown that the motive of this work was initiated by Pheidias and not by Polykleitos, since the latter’s great statue was several years younger than the work of Pheidias at Olympia. That Pheidias was pleased with the motive is disclosed by the fact that he repeated it on the throne of Zeus.