Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art

by Walter Woodburn Hyde

Fig. 56.—Boxing Scene. From a b.-f. Panathenaic Panel-Amphora. University of Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia. we know as a copyist of the first century A. D., and who was active in reproducing Greek works for the Roman market.[1708] The body forms are too badly injured for us accurately to date the original from which this copy was made, but the head gives us the clue, as its style appears to be a connecting link between that of the seated statue of Herakles, in the Palazzo Altemps in Rome[1709] and the Munich Oil-pourer (Pl. [11]),[1710] as it shows affinity to both. Though Sogliano referred it to the school of Lysippos and Juethner to the beginning of the fourth century B. C., it shows indubitable Myronian characteristics and may have been the work of Myron’s pupil Lykios, who is known to us as an athlete sculptor.[1711] In this statue the youth is resting his weight on his right leg, the left, with full sole on the ground, being turned to one side. The left forearm is extended outwards and to the side, the head leaning toward the right leg—in other words, the athlete is represented in an attitude similar to that of the Idolino (Pl. [14]). As there is an olive crown in the hair, it seems reasonable to conclude that the original statue was that of an Olympic victor.

By the beginning of the fifth century B. C., if not earlier, boxers were represented in violent motion, as we saw in the case of the statue of the boy boxer Glaukos, by the Aeginetan sculptor Glaukias,[1712] represented in the act of sparring (σκιαμαχῶν). Whether he was represented as facing an imaginary antagonist or as merely punching a bag we can not say, though the latter seems the more probable. The motive is depicted in many art works, notably in the figure of a youth punching a bag which hangs from a tree on the Ficoroni cista in the Museo Kircheriano, Rome,[1713] and in that of another represented on the so-called Peter cista in the Museo Gregoriano Etrusco of the Vatican, whose engraved scenes show exercises of the palæstra.[1714] The same motive is seen also in a statuette in the Museo Chiaramonti of the Vatican, which is proved to be that of a boy boxer by the glove on the right hand.[1715] Here the boy is represented with the right foot far advanced and rising on the toes of both feet, the right shoulder being drawn back, the right forearm raised, and the left extended forwards. The marble torso of a copy of the same original on a large scale is in Berlin.[1716] While Amelung believes that the original of both statuette and torso was a bronze of the second half of the fourth century B. C., Furtwaengler thought that the torso went back to the severe style of the fifth century, and that this original once stood in Olympia, where it might have served as the inspiration for a carelessly worked bronze statuette of a boxer found there, which repeats the motive of the torso and similarly belongs to the fifth century B. C. (Fig. [2]).[1717] The Olympia statuette also has the right foot advanced, the upper part of the body leans backward, and the left arm with open palm is outstretched for defense, while the right with balled fist is held up ready to strike. It certainly is a votive offering of an Olympic victor—doubtless one of the small reductions, which were not uncommonly erected for economy’s sake.[1718] Whether the Aeginetan Glaukias also made victor statues in repose is doubtful.

Waldstein, on insufficient grounds, has argued that the so-called Strangford Apollo in the British Museum (Fig. [14])[1719] is a copy of the statue at Olympia of the famous Thasian boxer and pancratiast Theagenes by Glaukias. Its close observation of nature finds its analogy in the statues of the Aeginetan pediment groups (see Figs. 20, 21). The statue of the boy boxer Athenaios of Ephesos, by an unknown sculptor, was represented as lunging at his adversary, as we see from the footmarks on the recovered base. The left foot was advanced and turned outwards, while the right one touched the ground only with the toes.[1720] Similarly the statue of the boxer Damoxenidas by Nikodamos of Arkadia was represented as about to strike. On its recovered base the left foot stood solidly upon the ground, while the right foot was drawn back and touched the ground only with the toes—if we judge rightly from the size of the missing part of the stone.[1721] The statue of the Ionian boxer Epitherses by Pythokritos of Rhodes seems to have had but one foot flat upon the ground, and consequently must have been represented in motion, though we are not sure of the position of the other, since one stone of the base is missing.[1722]

The bronze plate from the base of the statue of the boy boxer Philippos, an Azanian of Pellene, was found at Olympia and has been referred to the end of the fourth or beginning of the third century B. C.[1723] However, since Pausanias says that Myron made the statue,[1724] various attempts have been made to reconcile the discrepancy in dates. Our own solution is that the statue seen by Pausanias did not represent Philippos at all, but some earlier unnamed Arkadian boxer, who was contemporary with Myron.[1725] Years later the Azanian boy Philippos

Fig. 58.—Statue known as Pollux. Louvre, Paris. won a victory at Olympia and attached the recovered epigram to the old base, in which he implored Zeus to let the ancient glory of Arkadia be revived in him, and also a newer one in which he said that he had restored the statue of Myron.[1726] Pausanias saw the newer one, but omitted to mention the older, which was probably illegible from weathering. He therefore thought that the original Myronian statue used by Philippos represented the latter victor.[1727] The words on the affixed plate beginning ὧδε στὰς ὁ Πελασγὸς ἐπ’ Ἀλφειῷ ποκα πύκτας κ. τ. λ., may refer to the position of the boxer rather than to a portrait of the victor.[1728] We have long ago hazarded the suggestion[1729] that the so-called Pollux of the Louvre (Fig. [58]),[1730] whose body forms recall the Marsyas and whose head recalls the Diskobolos, may go back to the statue of the unnamed Arkadian by Myron.[1731] But the uncertainty which we have found in a former section[1732] in assigning this and kindred works to Myron or to Pythagoras leaves it only a suggestion.

Pancratiasts.

The pankration (παγκράτιον)[1733] was a combination of boxing and wrestling, in which the contestants fought either standing, or prone on the ground. While the wrestler merely tried to throw his opponent in a series of bouts, the pancratiast continued the fight on the ground until one or the other acknowledged defeat. The etymology of the word shows that it was a contest in which every power of the contestants was exerted to the utmost.[1734] Strangling, pummeling, kicking, and, in fact, everything but biting and gouging were allowed. Both Lucian[1735] and Philostratos[1736] speak of the prohibition against biting and gouging, which statements Gardiner thinks are quotations from the rules governing the contest at Olympia, as they are twice quoted by Aristophanes.[1737] Philostratos, however, says that the Spartans allowed both biting and gouging, but that the Eleans allowed only strangling. A case of gouging the eye of an opponent with the thumb is seen on the r.-f. kylix in the British Museum, already mentioned (Fig. [55]).[1738] Here the official is rushing up with his rod to punish such a breach of the rules. Philostratos calls the men’s pankration the “fairest” of contests at Olympia, probably in reference to the impression made on the spectators by the various positions of the contestants, who had to rely quite as much on skill as on strength. Pindar wrote eight odes in praise of this contest.[1739] However, even though it was carefully regulated at Olympia by rules, it was a dangerous sport—τὸ δεινὸν ἄεθλον ὅ παγκράτιον καλέουσιν, in the words of the protesting philosopher Xenophanes.[1740] But it was never the brutal sport which some modern writers have pictured it.[1741] Plato, to be sure, kept it out of his ideal State,[1742] not, however, because of its brutality, but merely because its distinctive feature, the struggle on the ground, was of no service in training a soldier. The Greeks themselves considered the boxing match far more dangerous. Inasmuch as gloves were not used in the pankration, this seems reasonable.[1743] We have in the preceding section mentioned the epithets applied to boxing. Pausanias, in speaking of the boxing match between Theagenes and Euthymos, says that the former was too much wearied by that contest to enter the pankration, and was in consequence compelled to pay a talent to the god and another to Euthymos.[1744] In speaking of another contest, between Kapros and Kleitomachos, he records that the latter told the umpires that the pankration should be brought on before he had received hurts from boxing.[1745] Artemidoros states that no wounds resulted from the pankration.[1746] However, death by strangulation was often the result of the bout. Thus the pancratiast Arrhachion was crowned after he had been throttled by his adversary, for just before expiring he was able to put one of the toes of his opponent out of joint and the pain caused the latter to let go his grip.[1747] Pausanias tells also how the boxer Kreugas was slain by Damoxenos in the pankration at Nemea, but adds that the body of the former was proclaimed victor.[1748]

The pankration was not known to Homer, though later writers ascribed its invention either to Theseus or Herakles, the typical mythical examples of skill as opposed to brute force.[1749] It was introduced at Olympia in Ol. 33 ( = 648 B. C.),[1750] long after the separate events, wrestling and boxing, had appeared there. The boys’ contest was instituted at Olympia in Ol. 145 ( = 200 B. C.),[1751] though it had appeared elsewhere much earlier.[1752] It must have been a popular sport at Olympia, since Pausanias records statues erected to twenty victors for thirty victories in this contest.