CHAPTER VIII.
POSITIONS OF VICTOR STATUES IN THE ALTIS; OLYMPIC VICTOR MONUMENTS ERECTED OUTSIDE OLYMPIA; STATISTICS OF OLYMPIC VICTOR STATUARIES.[2293]
Plans A and B.
The first part of this final chapter is a special study in the topography of the Altis at Olympia. It is an attempt to fix, more or less exactly, the positions of victor statues erected there, so far as these can be determined from the data furnished by Pausanias, and from the locations of the inscribed fragmentary bases of the statues which have been recovered during the excavations at Olympia.
STATUES MENTIONED BY PAUSANIAS.
We shall first attempt to give the positions of the statues mentioned by Pausanias, who is our chief source of information. After describing the votive offerings (ἀναθήματα) at the end of Book V, he begins the enumeration of the monuments of “race-horses ... and athletes and private individuals” at the beginning of Book VI.[2294] This description falls into two routes (ἔφοδοι), the first of which is concerned with the statues of 168 victors,[2295] and the second with those of 19.[2296] Both accounts also include many “honor” monuments erected to private persons. The first route begins at the Heraion in the northwestern part of the sacred enclosure, while the second begins—manifestly where the first ends—at the Leonidaion at its southwestern corner, and extends to a point near the so-called Great Altar of Zeus near the centre of the Altis (see Plans A and B).[2297] Besides these meagre indications of his two routes furnished by Pausanias himself, we are fortunate in knowing exactly the position of one statue, that of Telemachos, the 122d victor mentioned, the base of which still stands in situ near the South wall of the Altis, a little southeast of the temple of Zeus, showing that the route passed before the eastern front of this temple and thence westward to the Leonidaion. With these data and with the help of some forty inscribed bases of statues and other monuments mentioned by Pausanias, many of which were found in or near their original positions, it is possible to trace yet more definitely his routes. Several attempts have been made, since the German excavations, to define topographically the positions of these statues, especially by Hirschfeld,[2298] Scherer,[2299] Flasch,[2300] Doerpfeld,[2301] and the present writer.[2302]
The position of several inscribed base-fragments of statues, corresponding with Pausanias’ order of presentation, should alone be sufficient to confute the doubts raised by some scholars that these routes through the Altis were not topographical.[2303] But in any attempt to reconstruct them we must constantly be on our guard against assuming that Pausanias describes a continuous line or row of monuments, as both Hirschfeld and Scherer have done. Though here and there this may have been true, still, generally speaking, we must conceive of these statues as being strewn about the Altis in no other order than that they stood in groups, and that these groups had only a general direction; for we shall see that Pausanias sometimes returns to the same spot without mentioning it and often leaves long spaces unnoticed. Apart from the indication of such groups in the description itself, as attested by the use of such words as παρά, ἐφεξῆς, μετά, πλησίον, ἀνάκειται ἐπί, ἐγγύτατα, ὄπισθεν, μεταξύ, οὐ πόρρω, οὐ πρόσω, κ.τ.λ., I have already shown in my previous work that it is possible to reconstruct many other groups, for abundant proof is there given that statues of nearly contemporaneous victors were often grouped together, as were those of the same family or state, or those victorious in the same contest, or those whose statues were made by the same artist.[2304] So, in general, we can group only certain statues in belts or “zones” around some building or monument which is still in situ. Further than this we can seldom go. W. Gurlitt has thus well expressed the difficulty of following these routes of Pausanias: “Jede folgende Statue ist nach der vorhergehenden orientirt zu denken ... Beziehungen auf frueher oder spaeter erwaehnte Monumente waren ueberfluessig ... wir sind ... auf wenige Fixpunkte angewiesen und verfallen daher leicht in den Fehler, die Wegrichtungen in den Plan zu schematisch einzuzeichnen.... Das Hin und Her auf den viel verschlungenen Wegen der Altis koennen wir nicht mehr controllieren”.[2305] In his description of the scattered altars (V, 14.4–15.12), Pausanias had not the same problem to meet as in that of the victor statues. As there was so little continuity in describing the altars, which were strewn all over the Altis, he had to introduce many other monuments to make their locations known; but in the case of the victor statues there was great continuity, and consequently such indications would have been superfluous.[2306] And, in general, owing to the number and variety of monuments crowded together in the circumscribed area of the Altis, he was not compelled to describe Olympia with such definite detail as Athens. That these victor statues, however, are described in topographical order is not only attested by the internal evidence of Pausanias’ words,[2307] but also by the finding of many of their bases in the order of his presentation. With this introductory warning, let us take up the routes of Pausanias in detail.