Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art

by Walter Woodburn Hyde

Philostratos says that the jump was the most difficult part of the pentathlon.[1534] It never existed as an independent competition despite its popularity in Greece. This popularity is attested by the frequency with which it is depicted on vases from the sixth century B. C. onward. Here the jumper is regularly shown with weights, and we can assume that many pentathlete statues were so represented, the sculptor ordinarily copying the kind of weight which was in use in his own age. While Philostratos in his day thought that the use of weights was merely to aid in exercise, Aristotle long before had rightly understood that the jumper could make a longer jump with than without them,[1535] a fact easily proved by the feats of modern jumpers. While the modern record for the running broad jump is 25 feet 3 inches,[1536] an English athlete jumped 29 feet 7 inches with the use of 5-pound weights,[1537] and a German officer in full uniform jumped 23 feet from a springboard.[1538] The recorded jumps of Phaÿllos at Delphi and of Chionis at Olympia, the former 55 feet and the latter 52, can not, however, be explained as ordinary broad jumps, even if we assume that the Greek jumper was far superior to the modern one. Such jumps would be impossible even with springboards or raised platforms, and we have no evidence that the Greeks used such devices. We might explain them on the theory of triple jumps[1539]—though the difficulty of such a solution is very great—or simply as mistakes in the records. Thus the record of Phaÿllos is found in a late epigram, in which this athlete is also said to have thrown the diskos 105 feet.[1540] That of Chionis is, to be sure, given by Africanus.[1541] But it is more than probable that νβʹ (52) of his record should read κβʹ (22), since the Armenian Latin text reads duos et viginti cubitus.[1542]

Vase-paintings tell us how the halteres were used.[1543] The jumper swung them forward and upward until they were level with or higher than the head; then he brought them down, bending the body forward until the hands were below the knees, the jump taking place on the return swing. We find the preliminary swing represented most commonly on the vases;[1544] we also see on them the top of the upward swing,[1545] the bottom of the downward swing,[1546] the jumper in midair,[1547] and the moment just before alighting.[1548] The act of landing is seen on an Etruscan wall-painting from a tomb at Chiusi.[1549] Running jumps are the ones most commonly depicted.[1550]

The representation of the jump, therefore, was specially adapted to the vase-painter and not to the sculptor. If any movement in the jump could have been represented to advantage in sculpture, it would have been the early position in which the weights were swung forward and upwards. This is the one represented on an incised bronze diskos from Sicily now in the British Museum,[1551] where an athlete, with his right leg drawn back for the spring, is holding the weights in his outstretched hands. A small finely modelled bronze statuette dating from the middle of the fifth century B. C., in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, may represent a jumper either just taking off, or perhaps just finishing the jump.[1552] The athlete is standing with his left foot advanced, his knees bent back, and his body leaning forward, and is holding both arms in front, the palms downwards. Such a concentrated attitude reminds us strongly of Myron, under whose influence this statuette must have been made. Some have interpreted it as the representation of a diver, though the hands seem to be held too far apart and the body wrongly poised for that position, as we see it in a statuette of a diver from Perugia.[1553] More likely a jumper is intended, as the attitude is very similar to that depicted on several vases.[1554] However, as the jumper has no halteres, it can not represent a pentathlete, but must be an ordinary gymnasium athlete.

Diskoboloi.

The diskos-throw (δισκοβολία) goes back to mythology and heroic days.[1555] In Homer, at the games of Patroklos, Achilles casts a metal mass called the σόλος.[1556] This was the primitive type of diskos. Of such early contests and feats of strength we have a good record in the red-sandstone mass, weighing 143.5 kilograms ( = 315 pounds), which has been found at Olympia, marked with a sixth-century inscription to the effect that one Bybon threw it over his head.[1557] There is nothing athletic, however, about the use of such a stone or of the Homeric solos. The diskos was also known to Homer.[1558] It was of stone, and in Pindar the heroes Nikeus, Kastor, and Iolaos still hurl the stone diskos instead of the metal one of the poet’s day.[1559] The stone diskos appears on sixth-century vases as a white object,[1560] but metal ones were introduced at the end of the sixth century B. C. A bronze one from Kephallenia (?) in the British Museum has a sixth-century inscription in the Doric dialect and in the alphabet of the Ionian Islands, which gives the dedication of Exoïdas to the Dioskouroi.[1561] Several others have been found in different parts of Greece, especially at Olympia.[1562] Pausanias says that boys used a lighter diskos than men.[1563]

While only unimportant monuments outside of vase-paintings illustrate the jump, those illustrating the diskos-throw are rich and varied, including not only vases, but statues, statuettes, small bronzes, reliefs, coins, and gems.[1564]

In his careful attempt at reconstructing the method of casting the diskos, E. N. Gardiner has distinguished seven different positions, which are illustrated by the monuments.[1565] He shows that while the swing of the quoit was always the same, i. e., in a vertical and not in a horizontal arc, and the throw was invariably made from a position like that of Myron’s statue, the preliminary and certain other movements varied. It will be well, before discussing representations of the diskos-thrower in sculpture, very briefly to recapitulate his summary of positions, using the evidence which he and others have collected. First, the preliminary position or stance, with three variations: either the position of the Standing Diskobolos of the Vatican (Pl. [6]), which occurs in bronzes, but not on vases; or the position in which the diskobolos raises the quoit with the left hand level with the shoulder, which occurs on vase-paintings;[1566] or that in which the diskos is held outwards in both hands level with the waist.[1567] From any of these stance positions, either with or without change of feet, we reach the second position, in which the diskos is raised in both hands and extended either horizontally to the front and level with the head,[1568] or held above the head.[1569] Thirdly the diskos is swung downwards and rests upon the right forearm, with either foot forward.[1570] This position leads up to that of Myron’s statue, in which the diskos is swung as far back as possible (Pls. 22, 23, and Figs. 34, 35).[1571] The fifth position is the beginning of the forward swing, when the body is straightened.[1572] As the diskos swings downwards and the left foot advances, the sixth position is reached.[1573] Lastly the right foot is advanced after the diskos is cast.[1574]

A victor statue of a diskobolos might conceivably have taken

Fig. 46.—Bronze Statuette of a Diskobolos. Metropolitan Museum, New York. any one of these seven positions. We have already considered the two statues, the Standing Diskobolos of Naukydes in the Vatican (Pl. [6]) and that of Myron (Pls. 22, 23, and Figs. 34, 35), the two most important works in sculpture to illustrate positions of the throw. The statue of Naukydes is not taking aim, as Juethner maintains, nor looking down the course. The head is inclined a little to the right and downwards, and the eyes are directed to the ground only a short distance away, thus measuring the distance the left foot is to be advanced, when the diskos is finally swung forward for the cast, which takes place off the left and not off the right foot. The right forearm is rightly restored, as it thus appears on bronzes which imitate this stance.[1575] A different stance is shown in a fine bronze statuette in the Metropolitan Museum (Fig. [46]),[1576] dating from about 480 B. C. This little masterpiece of the transition period of Attic art, still disclosing archaic traits, represents a diskobolos standing firmly on both legs, the right being slightly advanced, and holding with the left hand the diskos level with the head. That he is preparing for intense action is seen by the way in which the toes catch the ground. Though the right arm is broken off from below the shoulder, we can infer from vase-paintings which show diskoboloi in the same position[1577] that it was lowered and bent at the elbow and the hand left open. From this position the diskos will be raised high above the head with both hands, as in a bronze in Athens,[1578] which illustrates Gardiner’s second position.