Statue of the Pancratiast Agias, from Delphi. Museum of Delphi.
Fig. 68.—Head from the Statue of Agias (Pl. [28]). Museum of Delphi.
PLATE 29
Statue of the Apoxyomenos, after Lysippos or his School. Vatican Museum, Rome.
THE APOXYOMENOS OF THE VATICAN, AND LYSIPPOS.
But another statue, the Apoxyomenos, of the Vatican (Pl. [29]),[2031] ever since its discovery by Canina in 1849, had held the honored place of being regarded as the centre of the stylistic treatment of Lysippos. Seldom has the discovery of a Roman copy of a Greek original proved so important for the study of ancient sculpture as this athlete statue, which was found in an appropriate place, in the ruins of a building, which almost certainly was a Roman bath. Despite unimportant restorations, the statue is well preserved. The fingers of the right hand holding the die were wrongly restored by the sculptor Tenerani at the suggestion of Canina who wrongly interpreted the passage in Pliny (XXXIV, 55), which refers to two works by Polykleitos, destringentem se et nudum talo incessentem, as meaning one and the same monument.[2032] This slightly over life-size statue represents a nude athlete, who is standing with legs far apart, employed in scraping the sand and oil from his extended right arm with a strigil held in the left hand. This, as we saw in Chapter III, was a common palæstra motive.[2033] Despite certain portrait-like features, this statue may not represent an individual victor, but, like Myron’s great work, an athletic model. The words of Pliny,[2034] which mention one of the best-known works of Lysippos in antiquity—it heads the list in his account of the sculptor—as an athlete destringentem se, and his statement in another passage[2035] that Lysippos introduced a new canon into art capita minora faciendo quam antiqui, corpora graciliora siccioraque, per quae proceritas signorum major videretur, i. e., a canon of bodily proportions essentially different from that of Polykleitos, seemed to have their best illustration in the slender and graceful body and limbs, and noticeably small head of this statue. It was, therefore, though admittedly a Roman work, long regarded as a direct copy of the Lysippan original, and as faithfully representing his style in every detail.[2036] Such a view, of course, was founded entirely on circumstantial evidence, and could not survive any positive evidence to the contrary which might come to light in the future. G. F. Hill, in speaking of the insufficient evidence on which the Apoxyomenos had been accepted as the key to Lysippan style, rightly remarks: “It is more scientific, until we acquire documentary evidence of excellent character, to classify our extant examples of ancient art as representing tendencies rather than men.”[2037] The Lysippan character of the Vatican statue had not been seriously attacked until the discovery of the Agias. Its original was certainly a work worthy of Lysippos. Its rhythm, proportions, and fine modeling have received praise of connoisseurs ever since its discovery. Its difficult pose had been remarkably well executed. While appearing at rest, the statue suggests vigorous action both by its supple limbs and the suppressed excitement indicated by the partly opened lips, an excitement befitting a victorious athlete. Perhaps it was the difficulty of such a pose that best explains why the Apoxyomenos has left no other copy.[2038] The very excellence of the Vatican statue prejudiced us in favor of regarding it as an illustration of Lysippos’ ideal of bodily proportions. But we really knew very little of the original Apoxyomenos, only what we gathered from Pliny, that Lysippos made such a statue and that it was carried to Rome by M. Agrippa and was set up in front of his Thermæ, whence it was removed by the enamored Tiberius to his bed-chamber, only to be restored when the populace remonstrated. As for the proportions of the supposed copy in question, they only prove that this statue goes back to an original which was not earlier than Lysippos, but not that it was by the master himself.[2039] The discovery of the Agias showed us at last on what slender foundations our theory had been built. Despite certain well-marked similarities in the pose, proportions, and relatively small head—characteristics which were not even exclusively Lysippan, since they are just as prominent in certain other works, e. g., in the warriors of the Mausoleion frieze—between the Agias and the Apoxyomenos, nevertheless just as striking differences appear, which make it difficult to keep both statues as examples of the artistic tendency of one and the same artist, even if we should assign them to different periods of his career.