Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic ArtHyde, Walter Woodburn
History
Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art
Hyde, Walter Woodburn
Olympics; Sculpture, Greek; Sports -- Greece
Leaving the Heraion, we get no further fixed point until we arrive
opposite the eastern front of the temple of Zeus. For here around the
foundation of the statue of the _Eretrian Bull_—still _in situ_ 32
meters east of the northeastern corner of the temple (see Plans A and
B)[2314]—have been found fragments of the pedestals of the statues of
Narykidas (49) and Hellanikos (65) to the south, of Kallias (50) and
Eukles (52), beneath that of Kallias, to the north, of Euthymos (56)
and Charmides (58) close together to the east.[2315] So it is clear
that the series of statues from Narykidas to Charmides (49-58, P., VI,
6. 1-7.1) stood in this neighborhood. Now the statues of the family of
Diagoras, the Rhodian athlete, stood together (59-63), as Pausanias
says (VI, 7.1-2); one of them, that of Eukles (52), seems to have been
moved from its original position later, as we learn from a scholiast on
Pindar’s seventh Olympian ode,[2316] who, on the authority of the lost
works of Aristotle and Apollas on the Olympic victors,[2317] enumerates
these statues in an order different from that adopted by Pausanias,
showing that a change in their positions must have taken place some
time between the date of Aristotle and that of the Periegete.[2318]
The statues of Alkainetos and his son Hellanikos (64-65) must also
have stood together. Inasmuch as the victors from Euthymos to Lykinos
(56-68) are, with one exception, all pugilists or pancratiasts and of
the fifth century B. C., they must have been grouped together, with the
family groups of Diagoras and Alkainetos in the centre.[2319] We may
also add the statues of Dromeus and Pythokles[2320] (69-70) of nearly
the same date, and we can also extend the group in the other direction;
for the same scholiast says that the statue of Diagoras stood near that
of the Spartan Lysandros (35 a).[2321] Pausanias (VI, 3.14 and 4.1)
says that the statue of Lysandros stood between those of Pyrilampes and
Athenaios (35-36). Thus we can conclude that the 36 statues (35-70,
VI, 3.13-7.10) stood in the zone of the _Eretrian Bull_, extending
perhaps across the Altis to the vicinity of the Echo Colonnade along
its eastern boundary.
It would follow, then, that the intervening statues from Oibotas to
Xenophon (29-34, P., VI, 3.8-3.13) stood somewhere between the Heraion
and the _Eretrian Bull_. It is idle to discuss the route between these
two monuments more definitely.[2322]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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