Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art

by Walter Woodburn Hyde

THE STATUE OF ARRHACHION AT PHIGALIA.

In his description of Arkadia, Pausanias mentions seeing the stone statue of the pancratiast Arrhachion in the market-place of Phigalia. He describes it as archaic, especially in pose, the feet being close together and the arms hanging by the sides to the hips; and adds that he was told that it once bore an inscription which had become illegible in his day.[2214] This Arrhachion won three victories at Olympia in the pankration in Ols. 52–54 ( = 572–564 B. C.).[2215] Therefore his statue is one of the oldest victor monuments of which we have record. At so early a date, before individual types of victor statues had been developed, we should expect, in harmony with the description of Pausanias, that this statue would conform in style with the well-known archaic “Apollo” type, the most characteristic of early Greek sculpture, which, as we saw in Chapter III, is exemplified in the long series of statues found all over the Greek world, the oldest class being represented by the

Fig. 79.—Stone Statue of the Olympic Victor Arrhachion, from Phigalia. In the Guards’ House at Bassai (Phigalia). example from Thera (Fig. [9]), and one of the youngest by that from Tenea near Corinth (Pl. [8A]).

In his commentary on the passage of Pausanias, Sir J. G. Frazer records that during a visit in May, 1890, he saw a recently discovered archaic stone statue in a field just outside Pavlitsa, a village on the site of the southeastern precincts of the old city of Phigalia, some 2.5 miles from the temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassai. He thought that this statue agreed completely with Pausanias’ description of Arrhachion’s, even to the half-effaced inscription which he transcribed from its breast just below the neck.[2216] Through the courtesy of Dr. Svoronos, of the National Numismatic Museum in Athens, I have been able to procure a photograph of the monument from K. Kouroniotis, the Arkadian Ephor of antiquities stationed at Bassai, and I present it herewith (Fig. [79]). The statue is now cared for in the house of the temple guards. This statue, like all other examples of the series, represents a nude youth standing in a stiff, constrained attitude. It is badly mutilated and its surface is rough from weathering. Besides having lost its head, arms, and the lower part of the legs, it has been broken into two parts across the abdomen. The ends of curls on either side of the neck, extending a few inches over the breast, show that the head looked straight forward, thus following the usual law of “frontality,”[2217] which precluded any turning of the body; for a median line drawn down through the middle of the breastbone, the navel, and the αἰδοῖα would divide the statue into two equal halves. The body shows the quadrangular form of the earlier examples, the sculptor having worked in flat planes at right angles to one another, with the corners merely rounded off. The remains of arms broken off just below the shoulders show that they must have hung close to the sides. The shoulders are broad and square, and display none of the sloping lines characteristic of other examples, as, e. g., the one from Tenea. From the breast down the body is slender, the hips being very narrow. The legs show the usual flatness and the left one is slightly advanced, as is uniformly the case in every one of the series. They are somewhat more separated than in many other examples. The αἰδοῖα form a rude pyramidal mass, not being differentiated as they are, e. g., in the statues from Naxos and Orchomenos[2218] (Fig. [10]). Some attempt at modeling is visible in the muscles of the breast and lower abdomen. In general, it may be said that the similarity in attitude of this statue to Egyptian works impresses us, as it does in all the examples of early Greek sculpture. As the subject of Oriental, especially Egyptian, influence on early Greek art has given rise to very diverse views, we shall make a short digression at this point to discuss this interesting question.

EGYPTIAN INFLUENCE ON EARLY GREEK SCULPTURE.

This question has been under discussion in all its bearings ever since Brunn, in 1853, tried to demonstrate the originality of the Daidalian ξόανα,[2219] but, strangely enough, archæologists are not yet agreed as to its proper settlement. While some emphasize the spontaneous origin of Greek art, others quite as strongly advocate that the early Greek sculptor, at least, copied Egyptian models.[2220] Thus Furtwaengler, who early assumed a Cretan origin for the “Apollo” type of statues,[2221] later became convinced that it developed in Ionia through Greek contact with the colony of Naukratis in Egypt, which was founded in the middle of the seventh century B. C. He concluded that this plastic type “ist bekanntlich nichts als die Nachahmung des Haupttypus aegyptischer statuarischer Kunst”.[2222] Similarly Collignon traces the archaic male type to Egyptian influence, and assumes that this influence from the Nile valley was exerted on the Greek artist before the latter half of the seventh century B. C.[2223] On the other hand, H. Lechat, in his review of the evolution of Greek sculpture from its beginning, believes that the early sculptor owed but little to Egypt or the East.[2224] Deonna entirely rejects the assumption of Egyptian influence, believing that all the so-called characteristics of early Greek statues can be explained as the result of natural evolution in Greece itself.[2225] Von Mach also completely excludes all foreign influence when he says: “In her sculpture at least, Greece was independent of influence of any one of the countries that can at all come under consideration in this connection, Phœnicia, Assyria, and Egypt.”[2226] But here, as in so many questions about Greek art, the truth must lie between the two extremes.[2227] The economic conditions of early Greece certainly prove that the Greeks were dependent on outside peoples in many ways, and there is no a priori reason for denying this dependence in art. We clearly see Egyptian influence, for example, in the ceiling of the treasury of Orchomenos,[2228] and that the Greeks learned many animal decorative forms as well as a correct observation of nature from Assyrian art is clear, if we study the best examples of the late period of that art, the reliefs from the palace of Assurbanipal at Nineveh (Konyonjik), now in the British Museum. Such decorative designs could be easily transmitted to the Greeks by the Phœnicians on embroidered fabrics. It seems reasonable, therefore, to assume that early Greek artists, especially in the Greek colonies to the east and south of Greece, were acquainted with earlier models and especially with those of Egypt. The Greeks themselves of a later date recognized this debt to Egypt. This is shown by many passages in Pausanias, which mention the similarity existing between early Greek and Egyptian sculptures,[2229] and by the curious tale told by Diodoros about the Samian artist family of Rhoikos, according to which the latter’s two sons made the two halves of the statue of the Pythian Apollo for Samos separately, Telekles working in Samos and Theodoros in Ephesos. When joined together the two parts fitted exactly, just as if they had been made by one and the same artist. Diodoros adds that τοῦτο δὲ τὸ γένος τῆς ἐργασίας παρὰ μὲν τοῖς Ἕλλησι μηδαμῶς ἐπιτηδεύεσθαι, παρὰ δὲ τοῖς Αἰγυπτίοις μάλιστα συντελεῖσθαι.[2230] Such a story is valuable in that it shows that the later Greeks believed that they had adopted the conventional Egyptian canon of proportions. If we compare any of the “Apollo” statues with Egyptian standing figures of any period of Egyptian art, as Bulle has done, the resemblances in detail between the two types will be found to be very striking. Thus from the Old Kingdom (Memphitic), which included the first eight dynasties of Manetho,[2231] we may cite the painted limestone statue of Ra-nefer and the wooden one of Tepemankh in the Museum of Cairo (Fig. [80]), two men prominent in the fifth dynasty;[2232] or the wood statue of Ka-aper, the so-called Sheik-el-Beled, which represents the apogee of Memphitic art, and that of his “wife,” without legs or arms, the two statues being found similarly in a grave at Sakkarah (Memphis), and now being in the same museum.[2233] From the Middle Kingdom, including the eleventh to the seventeenth dynasties,[2234] we may mention the painted statue found at Dahshur and now in Cairo, which represents Horfuabra, the co-regent of Amenemhat III, who was one of the kings of the twelfth dynasty.[2235] From the New Empire, including the eighteenth to the twentieth dynasties,[2236] we cite the draped wood statue of the priestess Tui, a gem of Egyptian art, which was found in a grave near Gurna, and is now in the Louvre;[2237] and lastly the draped alabaster statue of Queen Amenerdis (or Amenartas) in Cairo, the wife of the Aethiopian King Piankhi, who began to absorb Egypt by 721–722 B. C., just before the twenty-fourth dynasty.[2238] After the early dynasties, the Egyptian type of statue was reduced to a fixed and mechanical canon, which was used over and over again with lifeless monotony. In all these statues, whose dates extend over a period of many centuries, we note the same technical characteristics which are observable in the Greek “Apollos,” with the exception that the latter are always nude and lifelike. These characteristics may be summarized thus: long hair falling down over the shoulders in a mass;[2239] shoulders broad in comparison with the hips; arms hanging down stiffly by the sides[2240] or crooked at the elbows;[2241] hands closed, with the thumbs facing forward and touching the ends of the index fingers; the left leg slightly advanced and the soles placed flat on the ground; high ears,[2242] and the upper body and head turned straight to the front.[2243] Only minor differences in the two types appear. Thus the left foot is always further advanced in the Egyptian than in the Greek statues, so that the former appear to have less movement and life.[2244] Since there is no trace of this type in Mycenæan art it seems impossible not to conclude that in some way, doubtless through Ionian sources, it was originally borrowed from Egypt. The imitation of the Egyptian models, however, was never slavishly done. The Greek artist immediately rendered the type his own by making it nude,[2245] and by transmuting the abstract lifeless schema of the Egyptians into a highly individualized one characterized by life and vigor.[2246] This Egyptian influence, it must be remarked, was operative only in the initial stage of Greek sculpture; it was soon lost, as the Greek artist came to rely upon himself. F. A. Lange has truly said: “Die wahre Unabhaengigkeit der hellenischen Kultur ruht in ihrer Vollendung, nicht in ihren Anfaengen”.[2247]

Fig. 80.—Statues of Ra-nefer and Tepemankh, from Sakkarah. Museum of Cairo.