VI. TWO MARBLE HEADS FROM VICTOR STATUES.[2022]

PLATES 28-30 AND FIGURES 68-77.

THE GROUP OF DAOCHOS AT DELPHI, AND LYSIPPOS.

If in these later years our knowledge of Skopas has been greatly augmented by the discovery of the Tegea heads (Fig. 73), that of Lysippos has been almost revolutionized. With the discovery in 1894 at Delphi of the group of statues dedicated by the Thessalian Daochos[2023] in honor of various members of his house, whose dates covered nearly two centuries,[2024] an entirely new impetus was given to the study of the last of the great Greek sculptors. Homolle immediately recognized the fourth-century origin of the group, and at first pronounced the statue of Agias Lysippan;[2025] later he saw in the types, poses, and proportions of the group the mixed influences of Praxiteles, Skopas, and Lysippos, but referred the Agias to the school of Skopas,[2026] while still later he again pronounced it Lysippan.[2027] But its true character was not destined to be long in doubt. When Erich Preuner[2028] found almost the same metrical inscription, which was on the base of the best preserved statue of the group, that of Agias (Pl. 28 and Fig. 68),[2029] in the traveling journal of Stackelberg,[2030] copied from a base in Pharsalos, the Thessalian home of Daochos, with the additional information that Lysippos of Sikyon made the statue, our views of the work of that artist had to undergo a thorough revision. For this discovery brought the Agias—if not the others of the group—into direct relation to Lysippos by documentary evidence, while the easily recognized Lysippan characteristics of the statue—the slender body and limbs, the small head, the proportions and pose—confirmed this connection on stylistic grounds. It became clear that Daochos had set up a series of statues in honor of his ancestors both at Pharsalos and Delphi. Whether the Thessalian group was of bronze, as is generally held, owing to the widespread belief that Lysippos worked only in metal, and the Delphian group was composed of contemporary marble copies of those originals, will be discussed further on. If the marble group was a copy, we may infer that it reproduced the original statues, not mechanically and laboriously as was often the case in Roman days, but accurately; for having employed a noted artist in the one case, the dedicator would have desired an accurate reproduction of the work in the other.

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.

THE AGIAS AND THE APOXYOMENOS COMPARED, AND THE STYLE OF LYSIPPOS.

These differences are most apparent in the surface modeling and facial expression of the two works. In the Agias the muscles are not over-emphasized in detail, but show the simple observation of nature characteristic of artists who worked before the scientific study of anatomy at the Museum of Alexandria had reacted upon sculpture. In the Apoxyomenos, on the other hand, we see an intentional display of the new learning in the labored and detailed treatment of the muscles, which disclose a knowledge of anatomy unknown before the Hellenistic age. This academic treatment, culminating later in such realistic works as the Laocoön and the Farnese Herakles, can hardly have antedated the beginning of the third century B. C., when anatomy was studied by the physicians Herophilos and Erasistratos, a date after the close of the activity of Lysippos. We see no trace of this influence in the Agias. Moreover, the face of the latter discloses the intense expression, which is elsewhere seen only in works supposed to be by, or influenced by, Skopas, which recalls what Plutarch[2040] said of Lysippos’ portraits of Alexander, that they reproduced his masculine and leonine air (αὐτοῦ τὸ ἀρρενωπὸν καὶ λεοντῶδες); for a comparison of this face with that of the Apoxyomenos, which exhibits the lifelessness and lack of expression so characteristic of many early Hellenistic works, makes it still more evident that we must be on our guard against assuming that both works are representative of the same sculptor. The essential differences in physical type and artistic execution between the two statues have been well summarized by K. T. Frost in a letter published by Prof. Percy Gardner in the latter’s treatment of the same subject.[2041] After a careful analysis of these differences, Frost closes by saying: “It is difficult to believe that the two statues represent works by the same artist; it is not only the type of man, but the way in which that type is expressed which forms the contrast.” He compares the Apoxyomenos with the Borghese Warrior (Fig. 43) as true products of the Hellenistic age.

When we consider these differences between the two statues, we see that our judgment of Lysippan art must depend on how we interpret them. We may either flatly reject the Apoxyomenos and put the Agias in its place as representing the norm of Lysippan art, or keep the Apoxyomenos and reject the Agias as evidence; or lastly we may keep both as characteristic works of two different periods in the artistic career of Lysippos, explaining the differences as the result of influence or of the lapse of years. A recent writer, to be sure, has cut the Gordian knot by rejecting both statues, and placing the Apoxyomenos of the Uffizi—which we have treated at length in a preceding chapter (Pl. 12)—as the key to our knowledge of the art of Lysippos.[2042] But such a solution of the problem raises even more difficulties. Long before the Agias came to light some critics, indeed, had doubted whether the Apoxyomenos really represented the work of Lysippos, as its Hellenistic character seemed evident. Thus, in 1877, Ulrich Koehler,[2043] following a still earlier judgment,[2044] had come to the conclusion that the Vatican statue was only a free reproduction of Lysippos’ masterpiece and attributed its Hellenistic characteristics to the Roman copyist; but even yet the school which long recognized the Apoxyomenos as the norm of Lysippos has its supporters,[2045] though many archæologists have now supplanted the Apoxyomenos by the Agias.[2046] Others, not willing to renounce the Apoxyomenos as evidence, accept both it and the Agias as characteristic works of the master, appealing to the length of his career to explain the differences, and suggesting that in his youth Lysippos was under the influence of Skopas, but later in life attained independence, and followed a more anatomical rendering for his athlete statues.[2047] However, despite the fact that other artists must have influenced Lysippos,[2048] the Agias can not be shown to be a youthful work of his, nor can the special influence of Skopas be shown to have been that of master on pupil, but rather of one great master on another and equally great contemporary. The difficulty about penetrating the obscurity surrounding Lysippos comes largely from the fact that he borrowed traits from several of his predecessors and contemporaries. The influence of Polykleitos, Skopas, and Praxiteles, and especially of the last two, as Homolle emphasized in his study of the Daochos group,[2049] can be certainly traced in the Agias. Fräulein Bieber, in a recent article,[2050] while denying that Lysippos had anything to do with the Delphian group, tries to prove that one figure in it shows the influence of Praxiteles, another that of Polykleitos, and a third that of Skopas. She believes that the sculptor of the Agias had seen the original bronze statue, the work of Lysippos, which stood in Pharsalos. However, we may leave any such conclusion to one side, and judge between the Agias and the Apoxyomenos solely on the merits of the two statues.

The differences between them appear to us too great to be reconciled on any such principles as those just rehearsed, for their style and technique seem to represent two distinct periods of art. If one is to be rejected, the connection of the Agias with Lysippos certainly rests on better evidence than does the Apoxyomenos. By separating them completely, it is possible both to assign to Lysippos the early date which other evidence points to, and to remove the Apoxyomenos entirely from the fourth century B. C., thus explaining its later modeling, comparatively expressionless features, body-build (which shows the use of three planes, instead of two), and other Hellenistic details. We should, then, see in its original a work not by Lysippos at all, but by some pupil or later member of his school, a work retaining merely traces of the style of the master. In thus eliminating the Apoxyomenos we are justified in following Homolle’s lead in assigning the statue of Agias to Lysippos, in spite of arguments which have been adduced against attributing it to Lysippos and in spite of recent criticism of the inscriptions of the Delphian bases, by which Wolters tries to prove that the inscription on the base of the statue of Agias, and consequently the Agias itself, antedate the inscription and dedication at Pharsalos.[2051] We may, therefore, until further discoveries prove the contrary, consider it as the centre of our treatment of that sculptor. Whether the Apoxyomenos is to be explained as emanating from the immediate environment of Lysippos, or is to be regarded as a work illustrating the last phase of his development, or the innovation of another master—in any case it seems to us clearly to belong to an age essentially different from that which conceived the Agias.[2052]

As the Agias is a statue of a victor in the pankration, we can learn from it how Lysippos represented such an athlete. In giving up the Apoxyomenos, we must also give up statues of athletes which have hitherto been assigned to Lysippos on the basis of their resemblance to it, and the future ascription of statues of this class must be based on stylistic resemblances to the statue of Agias. Thus, for example, we should give up the statue of a youth in Berlin, and the two statues of athletes represented in lunging attitudes in Dresden, which Furtwaengler, on the basis of the Apoxyomenos, believed were copies of originals by Lysippos,[2053] and the Roman male head in Turin, published by A. J. B. Wace,[2054] whose original is somewhat later than that of the Apoxyomenos. On the basis of the Agias, on the other hand, we may regard as Lysippan the statue of an athlete in Copenhagen,[2055] and perhaps the Parian marble statue of an athlete from the Palazzo Farnese now in the British Museum,[2056] with copies in Paris and Rome.[2057] This latter statue Furtwaengler ascribed to the school of Kalamis of the fifth century B. C., on account of the similarity of its style to that of the Apollo-on-the-Omphalos (Fig. 7B) and of its motive to that of the Lansdowne Herakles (Fig. 71 and Pl. 30); however, A. H. Smith finds it very similar to the Agias, and so rightly refers it to the fourth century B. C.

THE HEAD FROM OLYMPIA.

Impressed by its remarkable likeness to the head of the Agias, I hazarded the opinion some years ago,[2058] that the much discussed Pentelic marble head from Olympia (Frontispiece and Figure 69)[2059] was Lysippan, and attempted to bring it into relation with the statue of the Akarnanian pancratiast (whose name I restored as Philandridas), which Pausanias[2060] says was the work of Lysippos. Since then, after a careful revision of the evidence, this earlier opinion has become conviction, and I now have no hesitancy in expressing the belief that in this vigorous marble head we have to do with an original work by Lysippos himself. It will be our task briefly to rehearse the reasons for making such an ascription, despite the serious and weighty objections which might be raised against it.

At first this head was ascribed with surprising unanimity to the school of Praxiteles,[2061] and subsequently, after the discovery of the Tegea heads, with almost equal unanimity to that of Skopas. Treu, who first published the head,[2062] pointed out its near relationship to the Hermes of Praxiteles, which appeared to him to be obvious, notwithstanding the injured condition of the chin, nose, mouth, and brows. He found the general proportions, the shape of the cranium and forehead, and the form of the cheeks and mouth the same in both, while the differences, such as the deeper cut and wider opened eyes with their γοργόν expression, the hair, and the fact that the head is harder, leaner, and bonier than that of the Hermes, were all explained by the different character given to the statue of a victor or Herakles. Many other archæologists, as Boetticher,[2063] Laloux and Monceaux,[2064] and Furtwaengler,[2065] have also seen sure signs of the hand of Praxiteles or his school in the graceful attitude, delicate chiseling, and finish of the work. Still others,[2066] however, found every characteristic of Skopas in this head. Even Treu in his later treatment of the head found it more Skopaic than Praxitelian, and yet, by a careful analysis,[2067] he conclusively showed that the formation of the eyes, the opening of the mouth, and the treatment of the hair were so different in the heads from Tegea (and especially in that of the Herakles, Fig. 73) as to preclude the possibility of assigning them and the head from Olympia to the same sculptor, and so declared for some independent sculptor among the contemporaries of Skopas. However, he did not see Lysippos in this allied but independent artist, though he admitted the resemblance of the head in question to that of the Agias, as also Homolle,[2068] Mahler,[2069] and other critics have done.

THE OLYMPIA HEAD AND THAT OF THE AGIAS.

A detailed comparison of this head with that of the Agias will show wherein the wonderful resemblance—so striking at first glance—consists and will disclose its Lysippan character. Neither head is a portrait, nor even individualized; the Agias could be no portrait, for Agias was the great-grandfather of Daochos, who enlisted the services of his contemporary Lysippos in erecting his statue, and he won his victory in the pankration more than a century before this statue was set up.[2070] A glance at the head from Olympia also clearly discloses its ideal character; for it is no portrait of Philandridas, but the victor κατ’ ἐξοχήν in the pankration. The small head of the Agias—under life-size—first arrests attention as the chief characteristic of the whole statue and (taken with the other proportions of the body) as the chief mark of its Lysippan origin. As Homolle says, it is not that small heads are not found outside the school of Lysippos or before his day—for Myron can furnish examples of them—but it is only with Lysippos and after him that we see a conscious intention of having the proportions thus reduced. Now the head from Olympia is also less than life-size,[2071] but as the head alone is preserved, we can only assume that the proportions it bore to the body were similar to those we see in the statue of Agias. The conformation of the crania of both is, as in Attic works, round, with small, only slightly projecting occiputs, as opposed to the squareness of Polykleitan heads, which are longer from front to back and flatter on top—showing how Lysippos in this respect departed from the creator of the Doryphoros. This cranial conformation is almost identical in the two heads, as is clearly shown in Fig. 70, where one is drawn in profile over the other.

The head of the Agias is turned slightly upward and to the left. Treu found traces of the use of a file on the back of the neck of the head from Olympia, which show from their position, what also was clear from the muscles of the throat, that this head also was inclined somewhat to the left and upward, possibly more than that of the Agias. The outlines of the face—lean and bony in both—are oval, in the head from Olympia somewhat broader, rounder, and fleshier toward the chin. In both the forehead is remarkably low, with a low depression or crease in the middle, and with a prominently projecting superciliary arcade, which breaks the continuous line from forehead to nose very perceptibly. This line is concave above and below, but convex at the projection itself, though this is less prominent in the Agias. The powerful framing of the eyes, which are deep-set and thrown into heavy shadows by the projecting bony structure of the brows and the overhanging masses of flesh, the eyeballs slightly raised and peering eagerly into the far distance, the slight upward inclination of the head, and the prominent forehead drawn together, all combine to give both heads (though young and vigorous) a pensive, even a sad look of heroic dignity, a look seemingly of one who takes no joy nor pleasure in victory, though it is not mournful. This humid and pensive expression was doubtless a characteristic of works of Lysippos—it was, as we know, present in his portraits of Alexander—but he did not treat it with as great intensity as did Skopas.

The eyeballs in both heads are strongly arched, though the inner angles are not so deep as in Skopaic heads; the raised upper lids form a symmetrically narrow and sharply defined border over the eyeball, and in neither head is this lid covered by a fold of skin at the outer corners, as in the Tegea heads; the mass of flesh at the outer corners is heavier in the head from Olympia, and the expression of the eyes is more free and defiant than in the more meditative Agias. In both, the cheek bones are high and prominent. The elegant contour of the lips of the Agias is wholly wanting in the head from Olympia, in which the lips are broken off, like the nose and the chin, but it is clear that the lips were slightly parted, just showing the teeth—not, however, as in the Tegea examples, as if the breath were being drawn with great effort. The look of pensiveness is also increased by the open lips. The contour of the jawbone is not so visible as in the Agias, where it is clearly discernible beneath the closely drawn skin, giving the face a look of greater leanness, as of an athlete in perfect training.

In both heads the swollen and battered ears, though small, are prominent, and in both the hair is closely cropped, as becomes the athlete. The hair of the Agias does not show so much expression as is displayed in that of some Lysippan heads, nor the fine detail we should expect from Pliny’s statement that Lysippos made improvements in the rendering of the hair[2072]—for it is in great measure only sketched out. In Lysippan portraits of Alexander the hair is generally expressively treated, and this is often the case in early Hellenistic heads.[2073] However, we should not expect an elaborate treatment of the hair in the statue of a pancratiast. The head from Olympia also shows great simplicity in this regard. As in Skopaic heads, the hair is fashioned into little ringlets ruffled straight up from the forehead in flat relief, but here the curls are shorter and more tense. It covers the temples and surrounds the ears as in the Agias, but it is not, as there, bounded by a round, floating line across the forehead, nor divided into little tufts modeled in relief radiating in concentric circles from the top of the head. While lacking in detail, the hair of the Agias is treated carefully, and with the greatest variety. Narrow bands, perhaps the insignia of victory, despite their small size, encircle both heads; in the Agias the band is dexterously used to heighten the effect of variety in the hair by alternately flattening and swelling it here and there. In neither head is there any sign of the use of the drill to work out the tufts of the hair; only the chisel was used.[2074]

Finally, the whole expression of these two ideal heads is one of force and energy, of heroic dignity tempered by pensiveness and pathos, which is, in the head from Olympia at least, even a little dramatic. Both heads, while ideal, show close observation of nature in modeling and expression; and both show the predilection of Lysippos for types in which force and energy predominate, and his indifference to the softer and more delicate types of manly beauty so characteristic of his contemporary, Praxiteles.

In the foregoing comparison, we have tacitly assumed that this marble head is from an athlete statue, and, moreover, that it, as the Agias, represents a victor in the pankration, though many have seen in it the representation not of a victor, but of a youthful Herakles.[2075] The swollen ears and the band in the hair might pass equally well for either, just as the fact that it was unearthed near the ruins of the Great Gymnasion (if it were necessary to assume that the statue once stood there) might be adduced as evidence for either interpretation; for statues of athletes 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.

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.

Lysippos was a great reformer in art, breaking away from Argive and Polykleitan traditions, even though he called the Doryphoros as well as Nature his master, and though the influence of Polykleitos is visible in the body of the Agias, just as that of Skopas in the treatment of its forehead, eyes, and mouth, and in the intensity of its expression. Evidently he was strongly affected by the work of his great predecessors and contemporaries, but developed at the same time new and independent tendencies. Thus the Philandridas must have been—just as the lost statue of Troilos—an early work of the master, whereas the Agias was the work of his mature genius. The difference between the two can thus be explained by the lapse of time between them, and by the influences that surrounded the youthful artist; but the similarities between them are, at the same time, striking, and there is little resemblance in either to the Apoxyomenos. This is another link in the chain of evidence that the latter work could not have been produced by the same artist; for artists do not radically change their style after many years of work, and Lysippos must have been at least fifty years old when he created the Agias.

The identification of this marble head with that of the victor statue of the Akarnanian pancratiast by Lysippos raises two questions which we shall briefly examine: whether the statues in the Altis were ever made of marble, and whether Lysippos ever worked in that material. The first of these questions will be left for the following chapter; the second will be discussed in the present connection.

LYSIPPOS AS A WORKER IN MARBLE, AND STATUE “DOUBLES.”

To regard a marble statue as an original work of Lysippos, who has been looked upon almost universally as a sculptor in bronze exclusively, seems at first sight to be baseless. Pliny certainly classed Lysippos among the bronze-workers, for in the preface to his account of bronze-founders[2106] he tells us that this artist produced 1,500 statues, and doubtless we are to infer that the historian regarded them all as being made of metal. He further[2107] speaks of Lysippos’ contributions to the (ars) statuaria, and it seems clear that this term, as the modern title of Book XXXIV, is to be taken in its narrow sense of sculpture in bronze as opposed to sculptura,[2108] that in marble. How firmly the belief is established that Lysippos worked only in bronze can be seen from the following words of Overbeck: “Zu beginnen ist mit wiederholter Hervorhebung der durchaus unzweifelhaften und wichtigen Tatsache dass Lysippos ausschliesslich Erzgiesser war.”[2109] That Lysippos was preëminently a bronze-worker, and that his ancient reputation was due chiefly to his bronze work, can not be doubted. But to say that he never essayed to produce works in marble, as so many other Greek artists did who were famed as bronze-workers,[2110] is, as one writer has lately expressed it, a kindisches Vorurtheil.[2111] That marble work was done in his studio, if not by his hand, is well attested by the reliefs from the base of the victor statue of Polydamas mentioned above, which have been generally referred to Lysippos’ pupils.[2112] These are too damaged to be used as exact evidence of his style, but the legs of Polydamas himself, in the central relief, so far as their contour can be made out, are thin and sinewy, as we should expect in Lysippan work, and this relief doubtless would have been regarded as the work of the master himself, if it had not been taken for granted that he worked only in bronze. But for the same assumption some critics would have seen an original from the hand of Lysippos in the statue of Agias at least, if not in the others of the Delphian group.[2113] It will be interesting to rehearse some of the arguments by which the statue of Agias has been adjudged a copy.[2114]

It has been generally assumed that the original group of statues at Pharsalos was of bronze (though we have no proof that it may not have been of marble), while the one at Delphi was copied almost, if not quite, simultaneously in marble[2115]—so faithfully, indeed, that even the proper marble support to the figure of Agias was omitted. While Homolle notes the absence of this support as evidence of the marble statue being an exact copy of the original bronze, Gardner argues that this proves a free imitation, where the support was not needed.[2116] The inexact modeling of the hair, since hair can not be rendered so perfectly in marble as in bronze, has been adduced as a sign that the marble statue was a copy of the bronze original. This in itself is a weak argument, since the slight and sketchy treatment of the hair of the Hermes of Praxiteles—which is, for the most part, merely blocked out[2117]—might with just as good reason be used as evidence that that statue is only a copy, especially as we know that Praxiteles also worked in bronze.[2118] The omission of the artist’s signature on the base of the Agias has also been taken to indicate that some pupil of Lysippos (Lysistratos, for example) did the work of transference in the master’s studio under his supervision and doubtless from his model.

Despite all such arguments, which prove little, it must be admitted that the careless finish of the Delphian statue is not what we should expect in a masterpiece by so renowned a sculptor as Lysippos, as the statue can not be said to be a first-rate work of art. But that it was made under the direct supervision of Lysippos can hardly be questioned. It seems reasonable to believe that Daochos, who employed the great artist in the one case, would not have trusted a mere copyist in the other, or one who was free to indulge his individual taste in details,[2119] especially as the statue was to be placed in so prominent a place as Delphi. He probably gave the orders for the two statues at the same time, and Lysippos must have had the oversight of the Delphian one. So it seems best to regard the statue of Agias as a “double,” and not as a copy in the later sense of the word. The custom of making such doubles goes back at least to the middle of the sixth century B. C. Thus the statue of the Delian Apollo by Angelion and Tektaios, known as the “Healer” (Οὔλιος),[2120] had a “double” in both Delphi[2121] and Athens.[2122] Similarly the Philesian Apollo of Branchidai near Miletos, by the elder Kanachos,[2123] had a double in Thebes known as the Ismenian Apollo, which Pausanias says differed from the one in Miletos neither in form nor size, but only in material, for it was of cedar-wood,[2124] while the Milesian one was of bronze. Furtwaengler[2125] has demonstrated that contemporary doubles of works by Polykleitos, Pheidias, and Praxiteles existed. The case of the statues of the athlete Agias at Pharsalos and at Delphi is paralleled by that of the Olympic victor Promachos, who had statues, probably alike, both at Olympia and in his native city Pellene.[2126] A double of the base of the Nike of Paionios at Olympia was discovered at Delphi,[2127] and a fine head in the collection of Miss Hertz in Rome is from the same original.[2128] A Polykleitan head in the British Museum, similar to that of the Westmacott Athlete (Pl. 19), seems to be a contemporary replica of an original of the fifth century B. C.[2129] Such examples (and many more could be cited) show the difference between contemporary “doubles” and the later copies of Greek masterpieces. The former are Greek originals in a very true sense, made, as we assume the Agias was, under the direct supervision of noted sculptors. In this sense only the Delphian statue should be called a copy.

HEAD OF A STATUE OF A BOY FROM SPARTA, AND THE ART OF SKOPAS.

We shall next discuss the beautiful Pentelic marble head of a boy, with a lion’s scalp drawn over the top so that the muzzle comes down over the forehead, which is said to have been discovered near the Akropolis at Sparta in 1908 (Fig. 72). This head was for a time in the University Museum, Philadelphia, and later was exhibited at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. At last accounts it was in private possession in Philadelphia. It has been published as the head of a youthful Herakles by my colleague, Professor W. N. Bates, in the American Journal of Archæology.[2130] Of its style he says: “The points of resemblance which the Philadelphia Heracles bears to the heads from the Tegean pediments are so many and so striking that they must all be traced back to the same sculptor; and that he was Skopas there can be little doubt.” He therefore concludes that it is “probably a very good copy of a lost work of Skopas.”[2131] A little later, Dr. L. D. Caskey, of the Museum in Boston, found these resemblances hardly close enough, in view of the influence of Skopas on later Greek sculpture, to justify so definite an attribution.[2132] He found them confined to the upper part of the face, while he believed that the lower portion resembled heads which could be assigned to Praxiteles or his influence, and consequently he pronounced the head “an eclectic work in which features borrowed from Skopas and Praxiteles have been combined with an unusually successful effect.”

As Dr. Bates points out, there is no recorded statue of Herakles by Skopas which corresponds with this head. The stone one mentioned by Pausanias as standing in the Gymnasion at Sikyon[2133] has been thought by the authors of the Numismatic Commentary on Pausanias to be reproduced on a Sikyonian copper coin of the age of Geta, now in the British Museum.[2134] Many statues and busts scattered in European museums, which represent a beardless Herakles and show Skopaic influence, have been traced back to this original.[2135] However, the coin represents the hero wearing a wreath, and so, if it was copied from the original in the Gymnasion, the latter could not have been the prototype of the head under discussion.

It is now universally acknowledged that all constructive criticism of the art of Skopas must be based on a study of the heads found at Tegea. Besides those discovered in 1879, and now in the National Museum in Athens,[2136] two other male heads (in addition to the torso of a female figure draped as an Amazon, and a head on the same scale which probably belongs to it, as both are of Parian marble, representing probably Atalanta of the East pediment) were discovered by M. Mendel in his excavations of the temple of Athena Alea in 1900-1901, and referred to the pedimental groups described by Pausanias.[2137] As one of these (Fig.73) is characterized by a lion’s scalp worn as a helmet, the hero’s face fitting into the jaws, its teeth showing above his forehead, it has been regarded as the head from a statue of Herakles, although Pausanias mentions no such statue in his enumeration of the figures composing the group of the Eastern pediment, and although it is difficult to explain the presence of the hero in the group of the Western pediment, which represented the battle between his son Telephos and Achilles. Mendel considers this head to be inferior in workmanship to the others, and so refers it to the school of Skopas rather than to the master himself, and designates it “un travail d’atelier.” In describing it, however, he says: “tous ces caractères, qui sont ceux des têtes du Musée central, se retrouvent dans nôtre tête d’Héraclés.”[2138] Here we have a head of a youthful Herakles (or of some hero who has borrowed his attribute of the lion’s skin—perhaps Telephos), which, if not by Skopas himself, is still a work of his school reproducing all his characteristics; consequently, of all these heads from Tegea, it is with this one chiefly that we should compare the head from Sparta similarly covered with a lion’s scalp.

Though badly injured, it is still possible to see in this head of the so-called Herakles found at Tegea, both in full view and in profile, the characteristic Skopaic expression of passion, and to discover the means by which the artist effected it. The expression is due in great measure to the upward direction of the gaze, and to the heavy overshadowing of the deep-set eyes. It is further enhanced by the contracted brow, dilated nostril, and half-open, almost panting, mouth, whose parted lips clearly disclose the teeth. The structure of the head is in keeping with the strength of character portrayed; the skull is very deep from front to back, and its framework is massive and bony; the face is broad and short and the chin is heavy; everything emphasizes the impression of a virile and muscular warrior violently engaged in the fray. The subjects of the two pedimental groups—the Kalydonian boar hunt and the battle between Achilles and Telephos—justified the expression of unrestrained violence which we see in this and the other male heads, and gave the sculptor an opportunity to represent his heroes in the excitement of action and danger. To effect this intensity of expression Skopas relied mainly on the treatment of the eye. In one of the heads (the unhelmeted one in Athens) the gaze is not turned upwards as in the Herakles, nor are the neck-muscles strained as in the others, and yet the expression is even more violent than in them. Thus it is the modeling of the flesh about the eye which is the real distinguishing feature of Skopas’ work. In describing the helmeted head in Athens, E. A. Gardner says:

“The eyes are set very deep in their sockets, and heavily overshadowed, at their inner corners, by the strong projection of the brow, which does not, however, as in some later examples of a similar intention on the part of the artist, meet the line of the nose at an acute angle, but arches away from it in a bold curve. At the outer corners the eyes are also heavily overshadowed, here by a projecting mass of flesh or muscle which overhangs and actually hides in part the upper lid. The eyes are very wide-open—with a dilation which comes from fixing the eyes upon a distant object—and therefore suggest the far-away look associated with a passionate nature.”[2139]

COMPARISON OF THE TEGEA HEADS AND THE HEAD FROM SPARTA.

It is to the facial characteristics in the Tegea heads that Dr. Bates calls attention in basing his argument for the Skopaic origin of the head from Sparta: the forehead horizontally divided by a median line, the swelling, prominent brow, the deep-set eyes with their narrow lids—only 2 mm. wide—embedded in the projecting flesh at the outer corners, and the parted mouth. He also sees a resemblance in the small round curls bunched together above the ears. But if there are resemblances (especially in the modeling of the eyes) there are also great differences observable in the Tegea heads and the one from Sparta. Let us confine our comparison of the latter with the Herakles of the Tegea pediment, though the comparison with any of the other male heads would lead to substantially the same results.

In the first place the structure of the two heads in question is very different. As the head from Sparta is broken in two at the ears and the whole back part is missing, we can not tell whether it had the great depth of the one from Tegea. But of the massive, bony framework of the latter there is little trace in the former. In the Tegea example we are struck with the squareness of the head and the breadth of the central part of the face; the sides do not gradually converge toward the middle, but seem to form distinct planes. The distance between the eyes is also in keeping with the breadth of the skull as measured between the ears; the breadth of the face almost equals its length from the top of the forehead to the chin, and this fact, together with the massive, prominent chin, gives an element of squareness to the whole.[2140] On the other hand, the head from Sparta has a long, narrow face whose sides softly converge toward the middle in beautiful curves about the cheeks; its cheek-bones are not so high nor so prominent as those of the other; it ends in a delicate, almost effeminate chin, which slightly retreats and gives the whole lower part of the face an oval structure, thus recalling Praxiteles and fourth-century Attic works. The length of the face is accentuated by the considerable height to which the head rises above the forehead, in contrast with the flatness of the skull in the example from Tegea. The eyes are not so wide-open; they are longer and not so swollen nor compressed toward the centre; if we view the two heads from the side, we see that the eye-socket in the Tegea head is larger and appreciably deeper than in the one from Sparta.

Apart from these surface differences in the structure of the head and face, it is in the resultant expression that we see the greatest divergence from the Skopaic type. This seems to me to be fundamentally different in the Sparta head. In the Herakles, as in all the other Tegea male heads, and even in those of the boar and the dogs, the really characteristic feature, which differentiates them from all other works of Greek sculpture, is the passionate intensity of their expression. The one unforgettable impression left on the spectator by them all is this expression of violent and unrestrained passion, which the sculptor has succeeded in imparting to the marble. This is what marks him as the master of passion and the originator of the dramatic tendencies carried to such lengths in the Hellenistic schools of sculpture; it is this which explains Kallistratos’ characterization of his works as being κάτοχα καὶ μεστὰ μανίας.[2141] The head from Sparta shows only a little of this intensity. Notwithstanding the similar upward gaze and slightly parted lips, the intention of the artist seems to have been to portray the hero in an attitude of expectancy, tempered by a look almost of calmness. The look is deeply earnest, but not violent; it is even melancholy. It is this last feature, the delicate and compelling melancholy of the face, which impressed me most on first viewing it. This is further enhanced by the full, soft modeling of the lower face, that gives to the whole a delicate, almost effeminate character, which strongly reminds us of Praxitelean heads. In fact, the shape of the lips and the modeling of the flesh on either side of the mouth, together with the soft, dimpled chin, have little in common with the massive strength and remarkable animation of the Tegea heads. As Dr. Caskey has intimated, if we had only the lower portion of the face for comparison, we should be inclined to ascribe it to the influence of Praxiteles. If we considered the upper part only, resemblances to Skopaic work seem well marked; but if we take into account the expression of the face as a whole, we see that it lacks the most essential of Skopaic features, the look of passionate intensity. Consequently we shall find it difficult to bring the head into such close relation to that artist; for here there is little analogy to the vigorous warrior types of the Tegea pediments. For its quieter mien it might be better to compare it with the head of Atalanta,[2142] though none of the gentle pathos or eagerness of the Sparta head is there visible. The Atalanta, though full of vigorous life, utterly lacks the unrestrained passion so characteristic of her brothers; her eyes are not so deeply set, nor so wide-open; they are narrower and longer, and are not over-hung at the outer corners by heavy masses of flesh.[2143] In speaking of the absence of these rolls of muscle, E. A. Gardner notes a curious peculiarity: “This is a clearly marked, though delicately rounded, roll of flesh between the brow and the upper eyelid, which is continued right round above the inner corner of the eye, to join the swelling at the side of the nose, which itself passes on into the cheek.”[2144] He detects this same peculiarity in certain other Skopaic heads, notably in the Apollo from the Mausoleion and the Demeter from Knidos, though it is quite lacking in the Tegea male heads. It all goes to show that Skopas was not strictly consistent in his treatment of the eye. The lower face of the Atalanta is also longer and more oval than that of the male heads, and thus shows Attic rather than Peloponnesian influence. If it is difficult, then, to conceive of the Atalanta and the male heads as the work of the same sculptor, the contrast, both in structure and expression, between these two heads of Herakles, the one from Tegea, the other from Sparta, makes it more difficult to assume the same authorship for both; for here we can not explain the difference as the contrast between the types of hero and heroine; here we are comparing two heads which are supposedly of the same hero.

THE STYLES OF SKOPAS AND LYSIPPOS COMPARED.

In view, then, of the differences enumerated I should hesitate to assign a Skopaic origin to the head from Sparta. In the lower part of the face, with its small mouth and delicate chin, I see signs only of Praxitelean influence; in the upper part I am much more inclined to see affinities to the art-tendencies of Lysippos, as we now know them from the statue of Agias. In the present state of our knowledge it is not difficult to separate works of Praxitelean origin from those of Skopas; but it is a very different thing to distinguish those of Skopaic origin from those of Lysippos; here the line distinguishing the two masters is much finer and harder to draw. Before the discovery of the Tegea heads, the deep-set eye,[2145] prominent brow, and “breathing” mouth were looked upon as characteristic features of Lysippos, as they were known to us from representations of Alexander, especially on coins. We now know that these traits belonged to Skopas to a much greater extent. When the Agias was found, and before its true authorship had been determined, Homolle, as we have seen, had at first classed it as showing the manner of Lysippos, only later to see more of Skopas than Lysippos in it. Such a conclusion was natural so long as we regarded the Apoxyomenos as the key to Lysippan art. By assigning these traits definitely to Skopas, we were compelled to view the work of Lysippos as conventional and somewhat lifeless in comparison. But with the assumption that the statue of Agias represented true Lysippan characteristics, we were forced to recognize that the same traits belonged to Lysippos also, though to a less degree, since the energy of the Tegea heads was absent from the features of the Agias and their fierceness was here replaced by a look of quiet melancholy. The study of such allied works as the beautiful and excellently preserved Lansdowne Herakles (Pl. 30 and Fig. 71), the athlete on the Pentelic marble stele found in the bed of the Ilissos in 1874, and now in the National Museum in Athens (Fig. 74),[2146] the so-called Meleager in the Vatican (Fig. 75),[2147] and other copies of the same original (e. g., Figs. 76, 77), also shows how closely the type of Lysippos approached that of Skopas. Long ago I expressed the view[2148] that these and similar works should be assigned to Lysippos rather than to Skopas, to whom most critics had referred them. Thus, after the discovery of the Tegea heads, scholarly opinion began to follow the arguments of Furtwaengler in bringing the Lansdowne Herakles into the sphere of Skopas.[2149] But Michaelis, as far back as 1882, commenting on the characteristically small head, short neck in comparison with the mighty shoulders, and long legs in proportion to the thick-set torso, had declared: “Without doubt the statue offers one of the finest specimens, if not absolutely the best, of a Herakles according to the conception of Lysippos.”[2150] Now opinion varies again; only those who believe that the Agias is Lysippan class the Herakles as a Lysippan work.[2151] Of the Meleager, Graef[2152] gives eighteen copies besides the one in the Vatican. This number shows how common an adornment it was of Roman villas and parks. Some of these copies have a chlamys thrown over the arm, e. g., the Vatican example, and belong to imperial times, while others without the mantle, e. g., the torso in Berlin,[2153] are older. In addition to the Vatican example we reproduce two other copies, the beautiful Parian marble head now placed on the trunk of a Praxitelean Apollo in the gardens of the Medici in Rome (Fig. 76),[2154] and the statue without arms or legs and without the chlamys, found in 1895 near Santa Marinella, 30 miles from Rome, and since 1899 in the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University (Fig. 77),[2155] one of the most beautiful of the many replicas. At first the original of these copies was supposed to be Lysippan, being identified with the Venator at Thespiai mentioned by Pliny as the work of Euthykrates, the son and pupil of Lysippos,[2156] but after the discovery of the Tegea heads it was almost universally referred to Skopas.[2157] Here again the Skopaic group of Graef has been broken by P. Gardner[2158] and others, and the Meleager, like the Herakles, has been given to Lysippos.

Let us analyze a little further wherein the difference between the closely allied art of Skopas and Lysippos lies. We saw that it was chiefly the formation of the eye and its surroundings which characterized Skopaic work—the depth of the balls in their sockets, and the heavy masses of flesh above the outer corners. This was in harmony with the breadth of brow and the massive build of the Tegea heads. In the Agias and similar works the treatment of the eye is somewhat different. The head of the Agias is of slighter proportions than the heads from Tegea; in conformity with the Lysippan canon it is below life-size, and consequently has no such heavy overshadowing of the outer corners of the eyes. Moreover, as we shall see, this overshadowing is also relatively less in the statue of the Delphian athlete. The formation of the eye is thus described by E. A. Gardner:

“The inner corners of the eye are set very deep in the head and very close together; the inner corners of the eye-sockets form acute angles, running up close to one another and leaving between them only a narrow ridge for the base of the nose; thus they offer a strong contrast to the line of the brow, arching away in a broad curve from the solid base of the nose and forming an obtuse angle with it, such as we see in the Skopaic heads.”[2159]

The resultant expression is therefore somewhat different from that of the heads from Tegea; while we still see animation and even intensity in the face of the Agias, we see it in a modified degree. The far-away look of the Tegea heads is still present, but it appears to be fixed on a nearer object, and so the look of intensity is tempered; it is also lightened by the fact that the overshadowing of the eyes at the outer corners is less heavy. But even this latter so-called Skopaic trait, though it is absent in the Agias, is certainly present in other Lysippan heads. Besides being prominent in representations of Alexander the Great on coins,[2160] it is seen in busts of the conqueror, especially in the splendid one from Alexandria in the British Museum.[2161] In the latter example we see just such heavy rolls of flesh as we note in the Skopaic heads. It shows that this trait, introduced by Skopas, was used at times with equal effect by Lysippos. We have already noted how in one example, at least, Skopas himself laid it aside—in the Atalanta. Its presence on Lysippan heads shows that too much stress can be laid on this feature in deciding whether a given piece of sculpture is to be referred to Skopas. This trait complicates the whole problem of the style of the two masters.

THE SPARTA HEAD COMPARED WITH THAT OF THE PHILANDRIDAS.

As the Agias is considered by most critics to be a contemporary copy of the original statue at Pharsalos, perhaps it will be more just to compare the head from Sparta under discussion with the original marble head from Olympia, which we have ascribed in the earlier part of the present chapter to the statue of Philandridas by Lysippos. Such a comparison will, of course, show certain differences, but marked resemblances as well. We shall see that these resemblances are confined to the upper part of the face. In both we note the same low forehead with a corresponding depression or crease across the middle; the similarly bulging brow which breaks very perceptibly the continuous line from forehead to nose, concave above and below and convex at the swelling itself; the same powerfully framed and deep-set eyes thrown into shadows by the projecting bony structure of the brows and the overhanging masses of flesh. The eyeballs in both are similarly long and narrow, though they are slightly arched in the Philandridas just as in the Tegea heads, and not so close together as in the Agias, but their inner angles are farther apart and not almost hidden by the flat bridge of the nose when viewed straight from the front. In this respect they are strikingly like those of the Sparta head.[2162] The raised upper lids in both form symmetrically narrow and sharply defined borders over the eyeballs. These borders, in each case, are not partially hidden by the folds of skin at the outer corners, as they are in the Tegea heads; and yet the masses of flesh projecting from the brows are almost as heavy as in the latter. In both the heads from Olympia and Sparta the upper lids slightly overlap the under at the outer corners. The eye-sockets in both seem to be equally deep and the cheek-bones similarly high and prominent. We remark in the Philandridas the gradual converging of the sides of the face toward the middle, a trait which we have already observed in the head from Sparta as in contrast with the more angular formation with lateral planes so characteristic of the Tegea male heads. The flatness of the nose and the curves which it makes with the brow on either side are very similar in the two heads under discussion. In both, the hair is treated in the same simple and sketchy manner, being fashioned into little ringlets ruffled back from the temples in flat relief quite in the Skopaic manner, even if the curls seem shorter and more tense.

When we come to a consideration of the lower part of each face, we immediately detect differences. While both faces end in an oval, this is broader, heavier, and more bony in that of the Philandridas, as we should expect in the case of a more mature man. Consequently here the mouth is larger and firmer. The elegant contour of the lips observable in the Agias is also found, to a less degree, in the head from Sparta, whose lips are fuller and more sensuous, but can not be traced in the Philandridas owing to the damaged condition of the mouth. It is clear, however, that the lips of the latter were also slightly parted, just showing the teeth, but not as in the Tegea heads, as if the breath were being forced through them with great effort.

It is, however, in the expression of these two faces that we see the greatest resemblance. In the Philandridas, the powerful framing of the eyes, the slightly upward gaze of the balls, and the contracted forehead combine to give it a pensive, even melancholy, look of dignity, a look seemingly of one who takes no joy or pleasure in victory, though, as we have already mentioned,[2163] it is earnest rather than mournful. The almost identical treatment of the eye and its surroundings gives the still more youthful head from Sparta a similar expression. Homolle’s analysis of the expression of the face of the Agias would apply with equal fitness to the mood portrayed in both the heads we are discussing: “L’expression qui résulte de ces divers traits, c’est, dans une figure jeune et vigoureuse, un air pensif ou lassé, une certaine mélancolie, qui ne va pas à la tristesse morne ou à la méditation profonde, mais qui reste plus loin encore de la joie insouciante de la vie et de la pure allégresse de la victoire”.[2164] Preuner remarked that a verse of the epigram found on the base of the statue of Agias, which runs καὶ σῶν οὐδείς πω στῆσε τροπαῖα χερῶν, is almost an exact copy of the words of Herakles in the Trachiniae of Sophocles.[2165] In these words the dedicator of the statue ends the recital of his ancestor’s exploits with a melancholy reflection on the vanity of his glory. They suggest with no less truth the expression of both the heads we are discussing. This expression of pensiveness tinged with melancholy is enhanced in both by the slightly parted lips. We can see the same expression carried much further in many of the portraits of Alexander which go back to originals by Lysippos, and we know from Plutarch that this sculptor was chosen by the conqueror to make his portraits, because Lysippos alone could combine his manly air with the liquid and melting glance of his eyes.[2166] But how different is the delicately indicated pathos of these heads from the violent and unrestrained, even panting, expression of the Tegea sculptures! Here there is no trace of the μανία which Kallistratos said characterized the works of Skopas. If it be objected that the expression of the Philandridas is more dramatic than that of the head from Sparta, its fierce, almost barbarous, look of defiance may well be explained by the fact that here is represented a victor from Akarnania, a country noted among the other Greek states for anything but culture and refinement.

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]

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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:

(a) An inscribed convex piece of bronze of imperial times, “anscheinend vom Schenkel einer Bronzestatue herruehrend.”[2181]

(b) A similar inscribed fragment of the same period.[2182]

(c) The remarkable life-size portrait head of a boxer or pancratiast, which we have already discussed and reproduced (Fig. 61 A and B).[2183]

(d) A foot of masterly workmanship (Fig. 62) ascribed by Furtwaengler[2184] to the end of the third century B. C. Its position shows that the statue of which it was a part was represented in motion, and consequently it has been assigned to a victor statue.

(e) A beautifully modeled right arm, somewhat under life-size, supposedly from the statue of a boy victor.[2185]

(f) A right lower leg of excellent workmanship, assigned by Furtwaengler to the same period as fragment e.[2186]

Still other bronze fragments of statues found at Olympia may have belonged to statues of victors, especially to those of boys.[2187] The small number of such fragments recovered—Scherer wrongly thought there was none—is explained by assuming that all of these statues were of bronze, and consequently were destroyed by the barbarians in their inroads into Greece during the early Middle Ages, when this metal was much prized.[2188] Another argument for believing that these statues were of bronze is the silence of Pausanias concerning the materials employed in them; for, in his enumeration of 192 such monuments, he mentions the material of only two statues, those of the boxer Praxidamas of Aegina[2189] and of the Opuntian pancratiast Rhexibios,[2190] and he mentions these because of their great antiquity, peculiar position in the Altis apart from the others (near the column of Oinomaos), and the fact that they were made of wood.[2191] Furthermore, in his book on Achaia there occurs this passage in reference to the statue of the victor Promachos, which was set up in the Gymnasion of Pellene: καὶ αὐτοῦ [Προμάχου] καὶ εἰκόνας ποιήσαντες οἱ Πελληνεῖς τὴν μὲν ἐς Ὀλυμπίαν ἀνέθεσαν, τὴν δὲ ἐν τῷ γυμνασίῳ, λίθου ταύτην καὶ οὐ χαλκοῦ.[2192] Most critics have inferred from these last words, “the one in the Gymnasion being of stone and not of bronze,” that, although Pausanias says nothing about the material of statues of victors in the Altis (barring the two just mentioned), by implication all these statues were of bronze; and they point out the fact that other writers furnish no evidence concerning the material used in them—an argument ex silentio to the same effect. Besides these arguments many others have been urged on purely a priori grounds; e. g., that, since these statues stood in the open air, subject to all kinds of weathering, they must have been made of bronze;[2193] that metal statues would have been cheaper and more easily prepared than those of marble;[2194] that the later Peloponnesian schools of athletic sculpture, which were characterized by their predilection for bronze-founding, would nowhere have been more prominently in evidence than at Olympia; etc.

Thus the case for the use of metal in these statues seems very well substantiated, and, for the reasons given, it can not be reasonably doubted that the vast majority of these monuments were made of bronze. But that they were not exclusively of metal, and that there were many exceptions to the general rule, not only can be conjectured on good grounds, but can be proved by discoveries made at the excavations. We shall briefly consider, then, each of the foregoing arguments in turn, and see whether, in the light of the accumulated evidence, they are really as well founded as they appear to be.

THE CASE FOR STONE.

As for the first point, that the statuaries mentioned by Pausanias appear only in Pliny’s catalogue of bronze founders, we must remember that Pausanias himself says[2195] that he is making only a selection of the victor monuments in the Altis, those of the more famous athletes. Therefore, the 192 monuments (of 187 victors)[2196] which he does mention must be only a fraction of the multitude of such monuments which once stood at Olympia. Pliny, to be sure, says that it was the custom for all victors to set up statues in the Altis;[2197] but this refers only to the privilege, of which many victors could not or did not avail themselves on account of poverty, early death, or for other reasons.[2198] Still, the number of such dedications must have been very great. Manifestly, therefore, we should not base an argument on the number mentioned. There must, then, have been many other artists employed at Olympia, some of whom may well have been workers in marble. Besides, of the statuaries actually named by Pausanias, many do not appear at all in Pliny’s work, and many of these may have been sculptors exclusively in stone. Of the names found in Pliny, six at least—Kalamis, Kanachos, Eutychides, Myron, Polykles, and Timarchides—appear both in the list of bronze-workers and in that of marble-sculptors.[2199] Similarly, in answer to the second argument that the excavated bases show footprints of bronze statues, we must admit that only a fraction of the bases which once supported statues in the Altis have been recovered. Not one-fifth of the victors mentioned by Pausanias are known to us through these bases.[2200]

The fact that actual remains of bronze statues have been excavated at Olympia is matched by the fact that remnants of marble statues have also been found; and it does not seem reasonable, in the light of the evidence adduced by Treu, Furtwaengler, and others, to reject these as fragments of actual victor statues. These fragments include the following:[2201]

(a, b) The two life-size archaic helmeted heads (Fig. 30) which we have ascribed to hoplite victors.[2202]

(c, d, e) Fragments of statues of boy victors: c = trunk with left upper leg, three-fifths life-size (Fig. 78);[2203] d = breast, one-half life-size;[2204]

e = upper part of legs of a statue, two-thirds life-size.[2205] Besides these Treu also adduces fragments of four different boy statues, all of which are less than life-size.[2206]

The reticence of Pausanias as to the material used in these statues is merely in accord with his custom, for he very rarely mentions the materials of monuments, and apparently only where monuments of bronze and stone or other materials stand close together in a circumscribed area, as for instance, in enumerating the various monuments in the Heraion at Olympia.[2207] The only inference, therefore, to be drawn from Pausanias’ statement about the statue of Promachos mentioned is that this particular statue of a victor at Olympia was of bronze. We are not justified in going any further. Besides this stone statue at Pellene we have other actual notices of marble statues of Olympic victors outside Olympia, as those of Arrhachion at Phigalia[2208] (Fig. 79) and of Agias by Lysippos at Delphi (Pl. 28 and Fig. 68). If they existed outside Olympia, there is no reason why they should not have existed in the Altis also, e. g., the Lysippan marble head found there, which we assigned in the preceding chapter to the Akarnanian victor Philandridas (Frontispiece, and Fig. 69). Many of the older statues, like that of Arrhachion, conformed with the “Apollo” type, as we have shown in Ch. III,[5] and doubtless many such at Olympia were of marble.

Reinach’s argument that stone statues in Greece, because of their patina of color, were intended to be placed under cover in the porticoes or cellas of temples and elsewhere, while bronze ones were meant to stand in the open air, has been sufficiently combatted by H. Lechat,[2209] who argues that the use of paint in Greek architecture and on temple sculptures proves the contrary. As the paint was burnt in, it was reasonably durable, and if it did not prove so it was readily renewed. At Olympia, among several examples, we may cite the marble Nike of Paionios, which stood in the open in the space to the east of the temple of Zeus[2210] (see Plans A and B), while, on the other hand, a bronze statue of Aphrodite stood within the Heraion.[2211] The argument that metal statues were cheaper than marble must also be questioned.[2212] In the earlier part of the present work we saw that, for economy’s sake, many victors set up small bronze statuettes instead of statues at Olympia, numbers of which have been recovered. That such dedications were common elsewhere is shown by the countless athlete statuettes—especially diskoboloi—which are to be found in all European museums.[2213] For similar reasons victors would choose in place of bronze the less durable and cheaper stone, as in the cases of Arrhachion and Promachos cited, or even wood, as in those of Rhexibios and Praxidamas. Still others, especially boy victors, would set up small marble statues, two-fifths to two-thirds life-size, as the fragments of the seven examples collected by Treu and already enumerated above show.

Thus we see that the contention that the victor statues at Olympia were exclusively of bronze, in the light of the evidence adduced, is untenable.

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 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]

After this digression we will return to the statue of Arrhachion. Dr. Frazer was unable to decipher the inscription upon the breast with certainty, but made out the following letters, the last four of which are plainly visible in the photograph: ΕΥΝΛΙΑΔ. He believed them to be archaic and the first instance of an inscription on this class of statues. He thought that the name was that of a man, which favored the view that the “Apollo” statues represented mortals rather than gods. The letters form a combination manifestly not Greek, and so may have no significance; it is even possible that they were engraved in modern times.[2248] In any case we have the statement of Pausanias that the inscription was illegible in his day.

There seems little doubt, then, that this mutilated and weather-worn statue is the very one seen and described by Pausanias and referred by him to the victor Arrhachion.[2249] It is presented here for two reasons. In the first place, it is the oldest dated Olympic victor statue in existence. Only three older ones are recorded, and none of these has survived to our time. These three are the statues of the Spartan Eutelidas at Olympia, who won the boys’ wrestling and pentathlon matches in Ol. 38 (= 628 B. C.);[2250] of the Athenian Kylon on the Akropolis, who won the double running-race in Ol. 35 (= 640 B. C.);[2251] of the Spartan Hetoimokles at Sparta, who won five times in wrestling at the beginning of the sixth century B. C.[2252] The statue of Oibotas of Dyme, who won the stade-race in Ol. 6 (= 756 B. C.), was not set up until Ol. 80 (= 460 B. C.);[2253] that of the Spartan Chionis, who won five running-races in Ols. 28-31 (= 668-656 B. C.), was made later by Myron.[2254] Pausanias’ statement (VI. 18.7) that the wooden statues of Praxidamas and Rhexibios, who won in Ols. 59 and 61 respectively (= 544 and 536 B. C.), were the oldest at Olympia, is of course incorrect. In the second place, the statue of Arrhachion actually proves what has often been assumed, that some of the statues classed as “Apollos” are really victor monuments. As this question has provoked a good deal of discussion in recent years, I will briefly review the arguments by which the opinion has gradually gained acceptance.

EARLY VICTOR STATUES AND THE “APOLLO” TYPE.

As the earlier examples of the series were discovered under peculiar circumstances, they gave no clue to their meaning. Thus the “Apollo” of Naxos was found in the quarries of the island, while that from Orchomenos (Fig. 10) was first seen in the convent of Skripou, its exact provenience being unknown. From the first they were denominated “Apollos,” chiefly because of their long hair[2255] and nudity,[2256] while the existence of many small bronzes in the same schema dedicated to the god,[2257] and cult statues of similar pose appearing on vase- and wall-paintings,[2258] helped to make the identification more probable. Certain ancient texts, describing archaic statues of Apollo in this pose, were also cited as evidence, and it was pointed out that many of these statues were actually found in or near sanctuaries of the god. Thus Diodoros, in his description of the ξόανον of the Pythian Apollo made for the Samians by Telekles and Theodoros, which we have already mentioned, says: τὰς μὲν χεῖρας ἔχον παρατεταμένας, τὰ δὲ σκέλη διαβεβηκότα.[2259] Probably the gilded image by the Cretan Cheirisophos in the temple of Apollo at Tegea was of this type.[2260] The later type of “Apollo,” with the arms extended at the elbows, was doubtless followed in the statue of Apollo made for the Delians by Tektaios and Angelion,[2261] and in the works ascribed to Dipoinos and Skyllis and their school. It would be easy to give an extended list of such “Apollo” statues found in sanctuaries.[2262] We might instance one from Naukratis, Egypt;[2263] one from Delos;[2264] two from Aktion;[2265] several from Mount Ptoion in Bœotia;[2266] a copy of the head of the Choiseul-Gouffier Apollo (Pl. 7A) found in Kyrene.[2267] Still others have been found in temenoi of temples, e. g., two in that of Apollo at Naukratis,[2268] and one in that of Aphrodite there.[2269]

However, against this exclusive interpretation doubts have been raised with ever-increasing precision, until now we can predicate with certainty what Loeschke long ago assumed, that the more statues of the series there are found, the less probable will it become that they should all be ascribed to Apollo.[2270] Conze and Michaelis first argued on the basis of Pausanias’ description of Arrhachion’s statue that this type was employed for victor statues.[2271] Koerte’s objection to their view on the ground of the long hair was refuted by Waldstein, who demonstrated that athletes were not represented with short hair until after the Persian wars; he pointed out that the archaic grave-figures of the mortals Dermys and Kitylos discovered at Tanagra, which were sculptured in a constrained attitude analogous to that of the “Apollos,” had long hair.[2272] We now know that the hair of some of the “Apollos” is short, which shows the irrelevancy of this argument,[2273] and we also know that nudity characterizes many archaic statues of mortals. Nor do we learn much from dedications, for we have examples of statues of gods dedicated to other gods and even to goddesses.[2274] Ex votos were often more concerned with the dedicator than with the god to whom the statue was dedicated. Doubtless the cult statues portrayed on vase-paintings are actually those of Apollo, for at this epoch other gods, such as Hermes and Dionysos, are bearded.[2275]

Moreover, that a more advanced schema for representing the god Apollo had already become fixed toward the end of the sixth century B. C., we know from ancient descriptions of the statue of the god made for the Delians by Tektaios and Angelion, which represented him in the usual archaic attitude, i. e., of the statue of Arrhachion, but with the notable difference that the forearms were outstretched.[2276] That this was the recognized type in the early years of the fifth century B. C., is attested by the bronze statue of the god fashioned by the elder Kanachos of Sikyon for Branchidai, the pose of which is known from several statuettes and from a long series of Milesian coins.[2277] For conservative reasons this favorite pose was kept for cult statues even into the fourth century B. C., as we learn from representations on coins of the golden statue of the god set up in the inmost shrine of the temple at Delphi.[2278] But that many of the earlier examples of the “Apollo” series do represent the god, should not be denied. We agree with Homolle that the old appellation “Apollo,” after having received too much favor, has now by reaction become censured too severely, and in general should still be applied to those statues of the series which have been discovered in or near sanctuaries of the god, and in the absence of any other indication to the contrary, also to those which stand upon bases inscribed with dedications to him.[2279] Such a statue was found on the island of Thasos at the bottom of the cella of the temple of Apollo at Alki and is now in Constantinople.[2280] The colossal statue found on the island of Delos just south of the temple of Apollo,[2281] and the huge torso discovered in Megara[2282] may be referred to the god, for their size favors an ascription to a deity rather than to mortals. And many other examples of the type found in sanctuaries may very well represent Apollo and other gods.[2283]

That several of the series were also funerary in character is abundantly proved by the fact that they were discovered in the neighborhood of tombs. Thus the Apollo of Tenea (Pl. 8A) decorated a tomb in the necropolis of Tenea near Corinth.[2284] Likewise the example from Thera (Fig. 9) was found in a rock-cut niche.[2285] Another, now in the British Museum, was found in the dromos of a tomb on the island of Cyprus,[2286] while a fourth was unearthed from the necropolis of Megara Hyblaia in Sicily.[2287] The one found at Volomandra in Attika in 1900 was also found in an old cemetery.[2288] These furnish proof enough of the sepulchral character of many of these statues. Such funerary monuments may, of course, have been been set up also in memory of victors.

We are now in a position, on the basis of Pausanias’ description of Arrhachion’s statue and the actual monument itself, to maintain with certainty what hitherto has been conjectured only, that although some of these archaic sculptures represent Apollo and other gods, sepulchral dedications, and ex votos in general, others were intended to represent athletes also. Doubtless the other early victor monuments recorded, such as the wooden statues of Praxidamas and Rhexibios, and those of Eutelidas, Kylon, and Hetoimokles, already discussed in Ch. III, conformed with the earlier type, while that of Milo, described by Philostratos,[2289] conformed with the later. Certain examples of the series have already been ascribed to victors. Thus the marble head of Attic workmanship found in or near Athens and known as the Rayet-Jacobsen head (Fig. 22), has been referred to a pancratiast because of its swollen and deformed ears.[2290] Certain statuettes of the same pose as the “Apollos” have been looked upon as copies of athlete statues.[2291] So the early doubts[2292] as to the meaning of these archaic sculptures have been resolved in many cases. We have added one well-attested example to show that they sometimes represented victor monuments.

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VI. TWO MARBLE HEADS FROM VICTOR STATUES.[2022]…

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VI. TWO MARBLE HEADS FROM VICTOR STATUES.[2022]

Chapter VII