Cast of a statue of Victory, by Paionios of Mendè, Victory is supposed to be moving forward through mid-air. One foot rests lightly on the back of an eagle, beneath which is a rock. The wings and draperies that were originally spread out behind the figure are now wanting. The statue stood on a triangular pedestal, about 19 feet high. On the pedestal was an inscription recording that the Victory was offered as a tithe of spoil to Olympian Zeus by the Messenians and Naupactians; and that the author was Paionios of Mendè, who made the acroteria of the temple:--[Greek: Messanioi kai Naupaktioi anethen Dii | Olympiô dekatan apo tôm polemiôn. Paiônios epoiêse Mendaios | kai takrôtêria poiôn epi ton naon enika.] Mr. Murray (_Gr. Sculpt._, ii. p. 162) suggests as an explanation of the last clause of the inscription that the Victory was a replica of the acroteria (or figures above the pediments) of the Temple of Zeus. These are known to have been gilded figures of Victory (Paus., v. 10, 2). Pausanias was inclined to think that the inscription referred to a war of the Messenians against the Acarnanians (452 B.C.); but the Messenians of his time supposed that the statue was erected soon after the defeat of the Spartans at Sphacteria in 424 B.C. Discovered by the German excavators at Olympia, and now in the Museum at Olympia. Marble. _Ausgrabungen zu Olympia_, I., pls. 9-12; inscr. _ibidem_, pl. 32; pedestal, _ibidem_, II., pl. 34; Overbeck, _Gr. Plast._, 3rd ed., I., figs. 88, 89; Murray, II., pl. 19; Wolters, Nos. 496, 497. STATUES OF APOLLO (?). Of the following sculptures, Nos. 200-207 are examples of a somewhat numerous class of nude male figures, standing constrainedly with the heads directed straight to the front, having the hands either close by the sides, or slightly raised, by a bending of the arms at the elbows. The name of Apollo has been commonly given to sculptures of the type here described, but doubts have often been raised as to the accuracy of the title. It seems clear that at the stage of art represented by these figures one type of nude male figure was made to serve various purposes. It cannot be doubted that the type was often used to represent Apollo, for such figures have been found in or near shrines of Apollo at Naucratis (Petrie, _Naukratis_, i., pl. 1, fig. 4), Delos (_Arch. Zeit._, 1882, p. 323), Actium (_Gaz. Arch._, 1886, p. 235), and at the temple of Apollo Ptoös in Boeotia (_Bull. de Corr. Hellénique_, x., p. 66, Brunn, _Denkmaeler_, No. 12). The same type of Apollo occurs, _e.g._ on a vase in the Brit. Mus. (No. E, 313; _Gaz. Arch._, 1882, p. 58), on a vase published in _Annali dell' Inst._, 1849, pl. D (cf. _Hamilton Vases_, ii., pl. 6), and on a Pompeian fresco (_Arch. Zeit._, 1882, p. 58). Compare a relief in the _Palazzo Corsini_ (Dütschke, ii., p. 114). At the same time, similar figures served to represent athletes (Paus., viii., 40) and, perhaps, were placed on tombs, to represent a deceased person.