THE SPARTA HEAD AN ECLECTIC WORK AND AN EXAMPLE OF ASSIMILATION.
It is, then, in consequence of these resemblances to Lysippan work, and because of the differences between it and the Tegean heads, that I am led to see more of Lysippos than of Skopas in this beautiful head from Sparta. An analysis of its style permits us to discover in it the mixed influences of Praxiteles, of Lysippos, and of Skopas. It seems to me necessary, therefore, in view of this mixture of tendencies, to regard it as an eclectic work, in which the unknown artist has combined Lysippan and Praxitelean elements chiefly; and that he was also under the influence of Skopas is evinced by the peculiarities mentioned in the treatment of the eyes and hair;[2167] but even in the modeling of the eyes, I believe that his chief debt was to Lysippos. The fineness of surface modeling, commented on by both Professor Bates and Dr. Caskey, recalls the delicacy of execution in detail which is mentioned by Pliny as characteristic of Lysippan art.[2168] It surely points to a date for the work not much if at all later than the end of the century which was made glorious in the history of sculpture by the labors of these three great masters.
In the preceding account I have tacitly assumed with Professor Bates that the head from Sparta represents a beardless Herakles. But, as Dr. Caskey remarks, one might hesitate to accept this identification if it were not for the attribute of the lion’s skin above the forehead, for here there is little indication of the strength so characteristic of later representations of the hero. Dr. Caskey, however, observes that a head of Herakles, now in the British Museum, which some have regarded as an original by Praxiteles, is even more boyish than this one. However, it is very doubtful if the Sparta head should be referred to a statue of Herakles at all. Pausanias mentions only three statues of Herakles in Sparta, to any one of which it seems futile to try to refer the head under discussion; thus in III, 14.6, he speaks of an ἄγαλμα ἀρχαῖον to which the Sphairians, i. e., lads entering on manhood, sacrificed, as standing on the road to the Δρόμος, outside the city walls; in the same book, 14.8, he says that an image of the hero stood at the end of one of the two bridges across the moat to Plane-tree Grove, i. e., the boys’ exercise-ground; and again in this book, 15.3, he says that an ἄγαλμα ὡπλισμένον of Herakles stood in the Herakleion close to the city wall, whose attitude (σχῆμα), was suggested by the battle between the hero and Hippokoön and his sons. The same writer enumerates only three other statues of Herakles in Lakonia. One of these was in the market-place of Gythion (III, 21.8), another in front of the walls of Las beyond Gythion (III, 24.6), and the third on Mount Parnon near the boundaries of Argolis, Lakonia, and Tegea (III, 10.6). The head under discussion is more probably only one more example of the idealizing tendency of athletic Greek art, which assimilated the type of victor to that of god.[2169] In the case of the Agias the sculptor plainly wished to raise the victor to the ideal height of the hero. The same idealization is visible in the head ascribed to the statue of Philandridas. In both these heads the ears, while small, are battered and swollen; the remains of the ears in the head from Sparta are too badly damaged to indicate whether these were swollen or not. But even if they were preserved and were in that condition, they would not be a distinguishing factor in determining whether the head belonged to the statue of a victor or of Herakles. In our consideration of the Olympia head we saw by a comparison with the Lansdowne Herakles, a statue universally recognized as that of the hero, how fundamentally different were the two in their whole conception and how differently a highly idealized athlete and a hero were treated by the same sculptor. The same might be said of the boyish head from Sparta, when compared with a genuine head of Herakles. For this reason, and because of the resemblance in expression between the Philandridas and the head from Sparta, I am inclined to believe that the latter, instead of being a representation of a youthful Herakles, is really the idealized portrait of an athlete, probably that of a boy victor, either in the boxing or wrestling match,[2170] assimilated in form to that of the hero.[2171]
CHAPTER VII.
THE MATERIALS OF OLYMPIC VICTOR MONUMENTS, AND THE OLDEST DATED VICTOR STATUE.[2172]
Figures 78–80.
It has been assumed pretty generally by archæologists that the victor statues set up in the Altis at Olympia were uniformly of bronze. Scherer, in his inaugural dissertation de olympionicarum Statuis, which appeared in 1885, was the first to discuss the question fully,[2173] and his arguments and conclusions have been followed, for the most part, by later investigators. Thus Dittenberger and Purgold state unequivocally that these statues were “ausnahmslos aus Bronze”,[2174] while more recently Hitzig and Bluemner, in their great commentary on Pausanias, have again pronounced the dictum that “die Siegerstatuen waren durchweg von Erz”.[2175] Others, however, have not been quite so sweeping in their generalization. Thus Wolters believes that these statues, because they were set up in the open, were “der Regel nach” of bronze,[2176] and Furtwaengler and Urlichs assume that they were “fast ausschliesslich aus Bronze”.[2177]
THE CASE FOR BRONZE.
The arguments adduced by Scherer and others in defense of the contention seem at first sight, although inferential in character, quite conclusive. In the first place, it has been pointed out that all the statuaries mentioned by Pausanias in his victor periegesis,[2178] if recorded at all in Pliny’s Historia Naturalis, appear there in the catalogue of bronze founders as workers in bronze κατ’ ἐξοχήν, while none of them is known exclusively as a sculptor in marble. As Hagelaïdas is the first in point of time, who flourished from the third quarter of the sixth century B. C. to the second quarter of the fifth,[2179] Scherer believed that all statues from his date down—posteriorum temporum—were of bronze; and as Rhoikos and Theodoros, the inventors of bronze founding, flourished about Ols. 50 to 60 ( = 580 to 540 B. C.),[2180] he believed that bronze might have been used up to their date. In the next place, the excavated bases, which have been identified as those of victor monuments, show footprints of bronze statues. Thirdly, actual bronze fragments, indubitably belonging to victor statues (of which two are attested by inscriptions), were found during the excavations of the Altis. These consist of the following: