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
by the temple of Zeus, but was then
transferred to its new position south of the temple.
After the statue of Philonides, there are still 19 statues of victors
and “honor” men to dispose of in this first ἔφοδος, those from Brimias
to Glaukon (155-169, P., VI, 16.5-16.9). Of these statues, the base of
that of Leonidas of Naxos (155a), the founder of the great building
just outside the southwestern corner of the Altis named after him, was
discovered in a Byzantine wall before the eastern end of the north
front of that building, while that of Seleadas (159) was unearthed
within the ruins of the same building; the base which supported the
group-monument of Polypeithes and Kalliteles (160-161)—which, owing
to the early dates of their victories, some time between Ols. (?) 66
and 70 (= 516 and 500 B. C.), must have stood originally in the area
later occupied by the temple of Zeus, like that of the above-mentioned
Eutelidas—a little to the south of the Byzantine church, between the
bases of the statues of Leonidas and Glaukon; two fragments of the base
of the statue of Deinosthenes (163) have been found, one east of the
apse of the church, the other in the ruins of the Palaistra further
north; and lastly, that of Glaukon, built into late walls northwest
of the church.[2334] As the statue of Philonides stood at the extreme
western end of the South Altis wall, and as most of these fragments
were found in the vicinity of the Leonidaion, it would be natural to
conclude that the majority of these later statues stood in the spaces
just outside the West Altis wall. But at the end of the first ἔφοδος
(VI, 17.1) Pausanias says that he has so far named statues “within the
Altis”; hence most investigators have placed these 19 statues either
west of the temple of Zeus or in the space at the southwestern corner
of the Altis. A little further on we shall see that many other victor
statues, not mentioned by Pausanias, stood just outside the West Altis
wall, and it is doubtful whether his words ἐν τῇ Ἄλτει (VI, 17.1)
should be taken thus literally, especially on any theory of his use
of earlier accounts in the final compiling of his own. If they were
“within” the Altis, they could scarcely have stood to the west or
southwest of the temple of Zeus, for the second ἔφοδος, as we shall
see, passed there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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