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
No inscribed fragments of bases dating from the fourth century B. C.
have been found.
Beginning with the third century B. C., we shall see that most of the
recovered bases were found either in the western part of the Altis,
in the neighborhood of the Philippeion, Theekoleon, and Leonidaion,
on both sides of the West Altis wall, or still farther west and
northwest, especially in or near the Palaistra and Prytaneion. We have
already seen that most of the statues named by Pausanias dating from
Alexander’s time stood to the west (and north) of the temple of Zeus.
As Pausanias enumerates only statues ἐν δεξιᾷ of his route around the
temple to the Great Altar, these statues farther west and northwest
are omitted from his account. Of the four bases of statues referred
to the third century, all belong to Elean victors; three were found
west and northwest of the Prytaneion and beyond, showing that these
statues once stood in the vicinity of this building, and the fourth
was found farther south, by the Palaistra, where it probably stood.
Thus the base of the wrestler Nikarchos, son of Physsias, was found
in a late wall west of the Prytaneion;[2386] that of the statue of an
unknown victor, son of Taurinos, was found at the southeast corner of
the Palaistra;[2387] that of another unknown victor, the son of
...phinos, was found in the _Nordwestgraben_;[2388] the base of the
statue of Thersonides, son of Paianodoros, victor κέλητι πωλικῷ, was
found northwest of the Prytaneion, between the Roman baths and east
hall of the Gymnasion.[2389]
Of the four statues referred with certainty to the second century
B. C., all but one were found to the west of the Altis, in a region
ranging from the Philippeion, northwest of the temple of Zeus, to the
Leonidaion southwest of it. Two of them were found outside the West
Altis wall, between the Leonidaion and the Byzantine church. Thus the
base of the statue of D...gonos, twice victor in πύξ, was found
outside the apse of the Byzantine church and west of the West Altis
wall;[2390] the fragments of that of an unknown boy victor in wrestling
or the pankration were found in the East Byzantine wall;[2391] that
of an unknown victor, συνωρίδι τελείᾳ (twice), and ἅρματι τελείῳ, was
found south of the Philippeion.[2392] The fragment of the base of the
statue of another unknown victor in wrestling, the son of the Elean
Aigyptos, was found to the northeast of the Leonidaion.[2393]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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