at the games, etc. Many of these interpretations are purely fanciful; the last is, perhaps, as good as any, though the strongly turned upper body seems not quite fitted to it. If it represents a runner, the sculptor has reproduced the well-known archaic pose. THE STATUE OF THE RUNNER LADAS. We shall next consider the famous statue of the runner Ladas by Myron, which is unfortunately known to us only from literary evidence, but which attained in antiquity an even greater fame than his nameless _Diskobolos_, since it portrayed even more tension than that wonderful work. Its fame was partly due to the picturesque story how the victory cost the runner his life, for he died of strain while on his way home to Sparta; it was also due in no less degree to the striking way in which the victor was depicted.[1439] Two fourth-century epigrams tell us of the statue. The first of these runs: Λάδας τὸ στάδιον εἴθ’ ἥλατο, εἴτε διέπτη, οὐδὲ φράσαι δυνατόν· δαιμόνιον τὸ τάχος. [ὁ ψόφος ἦν ὕσπληγγος ἐν οὔασι, καὶ στεφανοῦτο Λάδας καὶ κάμνων δάκτυλον οὐ προέβη.][1440] The second epigram, naming Myron as the sculptor, runs: Οἷος ἔης φεύγων τὸν ὑπήνεμον, ἔμπνοε Λάδα, Θῦμον, ἐπ’ ἀκροτάτῳ πνεύματι θεὶς ὄνυχα, τοῖον ἐχάλκευσέν σε Μύρων, ἐπὶ παντὶ χαράξας σώματι Πισαίου προσδοκίην στεφάνου. [Illustration: PLATE 24 Statue of a Kneeling Youth, from Subiaco. Museo delle Terme, Rome.] To these verses are added the following, which Benndorf thinks belonged to another epigram on the same statue: πλήρης ἐλπίδος ἐστίν, ἄκροις δ’ ἐπὶ χείλεσιν ἆσθμα ἐμφαίνει κοίλων ἔνδοθεν ἐκ λαγόνων. πηδήσει τάχα χαλκὸς ἐπὶ στέφος, οὐδὲ καθέξει ἁ βάσις· ὢ τέχνη πνεύματος ὠκυτέρα.[1441] Professor Ernest Gardner translates the two parts of the second epigram as follows: “Like as thou wast in life, Ladas, breathing forth thy panting soul,[1442] on tip-toe, with every sinew at full strain, such hath Myron wrought thee in bronze, stamping on thy whole body thy eagerness for the victor’s crown of Pisa.” “He is filled with hope, and you may see the breath caught on his lips from deep within his flanks; surely the bronze will leave its pedestal and leap to the crown. Such art is swifter than the wind.”[1443]