Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art

by Walter Woodburn Hyde

We have no direct literary reference to a victor statue at Olympia of a pentathlete with the attributes of the diskos or javelin. That they existed there, however, seems probable enough. Such a work as the Diskobolos of Myron, which displays the youthful victor in its every line, other statues, statuettes, reliefs, and vase-paintings, show us how the artist represented the different steps in the casting of the quoit. Similarly, the famous Doryphoros of Polykleitos, copies of which have been identified in many museums (Pl. [4] and Fig. [48]), will give us an idea how a javelin thrower might have been represented at rest. The akontion or victor’s casting-spear, was, as we see from the Spartan relief of a pentathlete just mentioned, about the height of a man. The attitude of the diskobolos and doryphoros will be discussed at length in the next chapter.

Boxers.

The statue of a boxer would be sufficiently characterized by thongs, which he might carry in his hand, as in the statue of the Rhodian Akousilaos at Olympia,[1230] or wound round his forearm, as in the statue of a boxer in the Palazzo Albani, Rome,[1231] or on a near-by prop, as on the tree-stump beside the Choiseul-Gouffier Apollo in the British Museum (Pl. [7A]).[1232]

Wrestlers.

Long ago Scherer tried to show that the aryballos was a wrestler-attribute, since oil was so important in wrestling.[1233] He interpreted as aryballoi the pomegranates mentioned by Pausanias as held in the hands of the statues of the wrestlers Milo[1234] and Theognetos[1235] at Olympia, assuming that the Periegete mistook oil-flasks for pomegranates (ῥοιαί). But it hardly seems reasonable that such a small utensil, which was used by athletes in general, could ever have been regarded as a peculiar attribute of the wrestler. A similar attribute may have been held in the outstretched hand of the half life-size archaic bronze “Apollo” of the Sciarra Palace in Rome,[1236] and it occurs on other statues.[1237]

Caps for Boxers, Pancratiasts, and Wrestlers.

Often the boxer and pancratiast (and even wrestler)[1238] are represented as wearing close-fitting caps, made up of thongs of leather or of solid leather. This, however, can scarcely be called a determining attribute. Our best example of such a cap is afforded by an athlete head dating from the first half of the fifth century B. C., in the Capitoline Museum, Rome,[1239] formerly called a portrait of Juba II, who was the king of Numidia and Mauretania from 25 B. C. to 23 A. D. This ascription was based on the barbarous look of the head and the fact that another head, discovered in the Gymnasion of Ptolemy in Athens and thought to resemble it, was assumed to be that of Juba, since Pausanias mentions one of that prince there.[1240] It is rather the head of an athlete engaged in putting on a cap. This cap consists of three transverse leather pieces crossing the head from side to side, one over the forehead, one over the crown, and the third over the occiput, all three converging above the ears. A fourth strap fastens them together and is drawn over the crown from forehead to occiput. In the complete statue doubtless the hands were raised to the head, grasping the straps near the ears to fasten them. This is, therefore, an anticipation of the later Diadoumenos motive. We see it in a statuette formerly in the Stroganoff collection in Rome, but now in private possession in England,[1241] which represents an athlete putting on a similar headdress. Though the arms of the statuette are gone, remains of the two hands are seen touching the left ear and tying the straps, one of which runs around the cranium above the swollen right ear. With this complicated head-dress we may compare the close-fitting cap—evidently of leather—pictured on an archaistic Greek votive relief-in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, in Rome, which represents an athlete washing his hands in a basin, which stands on a tripod.[1242] Here the cap is fastened by two bands, one around and the other under the chin. An object in the upper left corner of the relief, enclosed in a frame, appears to be a victor crown adorned with bow-knots. Such caps, used in wrestling, would make it impossible for an opponent to grasp the hair; in boxing and the pankration it would protect the head from injury. We saw that such a cap was pictured on a Munich kylix of the early fifth century B. C. It is probable that such caps were customary at a period before athletes lost their long hair and that it was continued afterwards for various reasons. The little statuette from Autun now in the Louvre (Fig. [60]), representing a pancratiast, has a close-fitting cap. The ring at the top shows that this statuette was hung up—perhaps being used as a weight in a Roman scale, or perhaps for adornment. In later days boys while practising in the palæstra, but never at the public games, wore ear-lappets (ἀμφωτίδες or ἐπωτίδες) to protect their ears, not dissimilar to those worn in our day for protection against the cold. We see them on a marble head, formerly in the possession of Fabretti.[1243]

The Swollen Ear.

We have lastly to speak of the swollen ear, which was an attribute of victor statues, both primary and secondary, since it characterized victors as such, and also early differentiated victors in various contests. Swollen ears may have played a role as a characteristic attribute of pugilists in early times.[1244] We found them on the Rayet head in the Jacobsen collection (Fig. [22]), which belongs to the last quarter of the sixth century B. C. and comes from the funerary statue of an athlete, probably a boxer. In course of time, however, they came to characterize pancratiasts, wrestlers,[1245] and athletes in general. The assumption, then, that heads with swollen ears come from statues of boxers,[1246] and that the boxer was known throughout Greek history as the “man with the crushed ear” is erroneous.[1247] The earliest literary reference to the bruised ear is in Plato.[1248] The philosopher used the term slightingly of those who imitated Spartan customs, especially Spartan boxing. The Lacedæmonians never boxed scientifically, but fought with bare fists and without rules. Literary evidence, furthermore, shows that bruised ears did not play the part in boxing matches which other bruised features of the face did—the eyes, nose, mouth, teeth, and chin. Vase-paintings sustain this evidence, for we often see bloody noses and cuts on the cheeks and chin, but no crushed ears.[1249] In short, the crushed ear was merely a professional characteristic, a realistic detail, common to athletes of various sorts, and, as we shall see, to warriors, gods, and heroes. To quote Homolle: “La bouffissure des oreilles ellemême n’est pas un trait personnel, mais un caractère professionnel; elle ne désigne pas Agias, mais en général le lutteur. Cette déformation peut atteindre même un dieu, s’il a pratiqué les exercices gymnastiques et passé sa vie dans les luttes”.[1250] It is found constantly on athletic types of heads in sculpture, whether these represent gods or mortals. A few examples will make this clear. The following heads of athletes show the swollen ears: the bronze portrait head of a boxer or pancratiast from Olympia, dating from the end of the fourth century B. C. or the beginning of the third (Fig. [61] A and B);[1251] the marble head from the statue of the boxer Philandridas set up among the victor statues at Olympia, the work of Lysippos (Frontispiece and Fig. [69]);[1252] the head of the statue of the pancratiast Agias at Delphi (Pl. [28] and Fig. [68]) ;[1253] that of the Seated Boxer in the Museo delle Terme in Rome (Pl. [16] and Fig. [27]);[1254] that of the Apoxyomenos of the Uffizi in Florence (Pl. [12]);[1255] the bronze head from an athlete statue found at Tarsos and now in Constantinople, an Attic work of the end of the fifth century B. C.;[1256] the beautiful bronze head of a boxer in the Glyptothek (Pl. [3]);[1257] the head of the so-called Apollo-on-the-Omphalos in Athens (Pl. [7B]);[1258] the athlete head from Perinthos (Fig. [33]);[1259] the bronze copy of the head of the Doryphoros, found in Herculaneum and now in Naples, by the Attic artist Apollonios (Fig. [47]);[1260] the Ince-Blundell head in England, to be discussed; four heads in Copenhagen;[1261] the remarkably beautiful bust of an athlete in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (Pl. [20]), whose rounded skull, oval face, projecting lower forehead, and dreamy, half-closed eyes place it in the fourth century B. C., a work influenced by the art of Praxiteles.[1262]

PLATE 20