Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art

by Walter Woodburn Hyde

Fig. 71.—Head of the Statue of Herakles (Pl. [30]). Lansdowne House, London.as well as those of Herakles and Hermes (as we have shown in Ch. II)[2076] adorned palæstræ and gymnasia. That the head is of marble and slightly under life-size seems to lend some support also to the belief that it is a fragment of a statue of Herakles, on the assumption that statues of victors in the Altis were uniformly of bronze, an assumption, however, not supported by the facts, as will be shown in Chapter VII. So some have seen the heroic features of the youthful hero in the γοργόν of the eyes, the energetic forehead, closely cropped hair, muscular neck, and almost challenging inclination of the head seemingly corresponding with an energetic raising of the left shoulder.[2077] In Chapter III we saw that swollen ears were of little use in determining whether a given head belongs to the statue of a victor or to one of Herakles, since they formed no personal characteristic, but only a professional one common to athletes and to gods, if these latter were concerned with athletics.[2078] Where personal attributes are absent, it is often difficult, therefore, to determine whether an ideal athlete or Herakles is intended, for it may be the hero in the guise of the athlete, or an athlete in the guise of the hero. The head under discussion, then, may furnish merely another illustration of the process of assimilation of type which we have already discussed. Thus it is not surprising that some have regarded this head as that of a youthful Herakles. Yet such a view is wrong; for, apart from all considerations which we shall adduce to identify it with the Akarnanian pancratiast, and in the absence of distinguishing attributes, if we compare it with another Lysippan head from a statue generally recognized as that of a Herakles—the famous Pentelic marble one in Lansdowne House, London (Pl. [30] and Fig. [71]),[2079] which Michaelis long ago characterized as “unmistakably in the spirit of Lysippos”—we can see how fundamentally different is the whole spiritual conception of the two, and how differently an athlete (even if highly idealized) and a hero are treated by the same sculptor. If we once recognize a victor in the head from Olympia, then the swollen ears, the fierce, barbarous look of the eyes, and the half-painful expression of the mouth, all concur in convincing us that we here have to do with a victor in boxing or the pankration, the two most brutal and dangerous contests.

IDENTIFICATION OF THE OLYMPIA HEAD.

PLATE 30

Statue of Herakles. Lansdowne House, London.

Having established, then, the Lysippan character of the head and the probability that it comes from the statue of a boxer or pancratiast, we shall next discuss the evidence for identifying it with one of the monuments mentioned by Pausanias in his periegesis of the Altis. He names only five statues of victors by Lysippos: those of Troilos,[2080] victor in the two- and four-horse chariot-races; of Philandridas[2081] and of Polydamas,[2082] victors in the pankration; of Cheilon,[2083] victor in wrestling, and of Kallikrates,[2084] victor in the hoplite-race. Of these, the only two which can come into consideration are those of the two pancratiasts; and one of these, that of Polydamas, can at once be eliminated; for this small head can have had nothing to do with the pretentious monument mentioned by Pausanias in these words: ὁ δὲ ἐπὶ τῷ βάθρῳ τῷ ὑψηλῷ Λυσίππου μέν ἐστιν ἔργον, μέγιστος δὲ ἁπάντων ἐγένετο ἀνθρώπων, κ. τ. λ. Fragments of the base of this monument have been recovered, and it stood in a part of the Altis[2085] too far removed from the spot where the statue of Philandridas stood, or from that where the marble head was found. Our choice is limited to the statue of the Akarnanian, the tenth in the series of 168 victors[2086] named by Pausanias in his first ephodos.

We can determine very closely the position of these first few statues in the Altis. Pausanias begins his enumeration ἐν δεξιᾷ τοῦ ναοῦ τῆς Ἥρας, in the northwest of the sacred enclosure.[2087] He is often loose in his employment of words to denote locations, and especially so in that of the terms ἐν δεξιᾷ and ἐν ἀριστερᾷ, which must sometimes be interpreted from the viewpoint of the spectator, and sometimes from that of a given monument. We shall show in Chapter VIII that these words in this connection must be taken as referring to the temple pro persona, and consequently to the southern side of the Heraion. The marble head was found in this neighborhood, in the wall of some late Byzantine huts behind the southern end of the stadion-hall of the Great Gymnasion, 23.50 meters north of its southeastern corner and 5 meters east of its back wall,[2088] and consequently very near the Heraion. Inasmuch as the inscribed tablet from the base of the statue of Troilos,[2089] the sixth statue mentioned by Pausanias, and the inscribed base of the monument of Kyniska,[2090] the seventh, were both found in the ruins of the Prytaneion nearby, and the basis of the statue of Sophios,[2091] the twenty-second in the series, was discovered also in this part of the Altis, in the bed of the Kladeos,[2092] we can conclude that all four monuments originally stood near together, and in the order named by Pausanias, along the southern side of the Heraion. The remarkably good preservation of the surface of the marble head points to the fact that it was set up in a sheltered place.[2093] Furthermore, the unfinished condition of the back hair, which is only roughly blocked out, so that not even the contour of the locks is indicated, shows that the statue was intended to be set up against a solid background, i. e., in front of a wall, niche, or column.[2094] From this fact we may conclude that the statue of Philandridas, and perhaps those of some of the other victors first mentioned by Pausanias, stood on the southern stylobate of the Heraion, over against the columns of the peristyle.

THE DATES OF PHILANDRIDAS AND LYSIPPOS.

The date of the victory of Philandridas is not recorded, but it probably must lie within the years of the activity of Lysippos, who made the statue.[2095] On the principle which has been sufficiently demonstrated in my monograph de olympionicarum Statuis, that statues of nearly contemporaneous victors were grouped together in the Altis, as well as those of the same family and state, or those who had been victorious in the same contest, I have already in that work[2096] proposed Ol. 102 or Ol. 103 ( = 372 or 368 B. C.) as the probable date of his victory, as his statue stands among those of victors, none of whom could have won later than Ol. 104 ( = 364 B. C.). The first six named by Pausanias are Eleans and the dates of their victories fall between Ols. 94 and 104 ( = 404 and 364 B. C.); the sixth, Troilos, is known to have won his two victories in Ols. 102 and 103.[2097] None of the next seven Spartans—among whose statues that of Philandridas was placed—can be dated later than Ol. 97 ( = 392 B. C.), while most of them belong to the close of the fifth century B. C. Sostratos of Sikyon won in the same contest in which Philandridas did in Ol. 104 ( = 364 B. C.);[2098] and doubtless his two other known victories should be assigned to the two succeeding Olympiads. To bring Philandridas down as far as Ol. 107 ( = 352 B. C.) is unwarranted, since no statue of so late a date stood in this vicinity. On the other hand, to place his victory earlier than Ol. 102, is also out of the question, owing to the inexpediency of dating Lysippos so early. Doubtless, therefore, his statue by Lysippos was placed in the Spartan group about the same time that the image of Troilos, by the same sculptor, was placed among the Eleans. This is an independent argument, then, for so early a date for Lysippos.[2099]

Percy Gardner, in the discussion of the date of this artist,[2100] has shown how slight is the evidence for any date later than 320 B. C. The date of the second Olympic victory of Cheilon of Patrai, whose statue was by Lysippos, can not be later than 320 B. C.[2101] Pausanias quotes the inscription on the base of the statue to the effect that Cheilon died in battle and was buried for his valor’s sake by the Achæan people. He infers the date of his death by reference to the date of Lysippos as either 338 B. C. (Chæroneia) or 322 B. C. (Lamia). In another passage, VII, 6.5, he says that the Olympic guide told him that Cheilon was the only Achæan who fought at Lamia. Gardner justly remarks that either of these dates, the two occasions in the lifetime of Lysippos when the Achæans took part in an important war, fall within the dates of the artist’s activity.[2102] The dates of the two hoplite victories of Kallikrates of Magnesia, on the Meander, whose statue was also the work of Lysippos, must be left indeterminate.[2103] Gardner also shows that the wish not to separate Lysippos from the Apoxyomenos has been the real reason which has influenced so many archæologists to extend his activity to the end of the fourth century,[2104] and to explain away the evidence for an earlier date offered by the statue of Troilos, who won his second victory in 368 B. C. If we once for all give up the Apoxyomenos, the difficulty of an early dating disappears, as does also the theory that Skopas could have strongly influenced the youthful Lysippos as a master would influence a pupil, and it becomes clear that this influence must have been mutual, that of one great contemporary upon another. Although Lysippos worked longer, as is attested by his work for Alexander and his generals, he could have been but little if any younger than either Skopas or Praxiteles, from both of whom he learned. We have already quoted Homolle[2105] as saying that an analysis of the style of the Agias discloses the mixed influences of Praxiteles and Skopas, as well as the independent work of Lysippos, in the pose, proportions, and whole type of the figure.