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
We know from the words of Pausanias[229] that victor statues also stood
on the Isthmus, and we should assume the same for Nemea, though in
both places they must have been few in number. At the various local
games it was customary for victors to erect statues of themselves. Thus
we know of such dedications at the Bœotian games in Thebes,[230]
at the Didymaion,[231] and at the _Lykaia_ in Arkadia.[232] Many
such victor statues decorated different localities of Athens. Thus,
on the Akropolis, we know of the statues of the hoplite runner
Epicharinos,[233] of the pancratiast Hermolykos,[234] of a helmeted
man by the sculptor Kleoitas,[235] of a παῖς κελητίζων representing
Isokrates;[236] in the Prytaneion, of the statue of the pancratiast
Autolykos.[237] Lykourgos, the rhetor, mentions victor statues in the
agora of Athens.[238] Some of these Athenian statues may have been
those of Olympic victors;[239] and of victors certainly Olympic we
know of the statues of Kallias the pancratiast,[240] of the charioteer
Hermokrates,[241] and of the bronze mares of Kimon.[242] Of the statues
of Nemean victors at Athens we know of that of Hegestratos, victor in
an unknown contest.[243] Of Isthmian victors there we know of that of
the pancratiast Diophanes,[244] and of other examples.[245] We have
inscriptional record of the statues at Athens of a boy victor at the
_Panathenaia_ and the _Thargelia_ in chariot-racing,[246] of a victor
at the _Pythia_, _Isthmia_, _Nemea_, and the _Panathenaia_,[247] of
one at the _Nemea_ and _Herakleia_ at Thebes,[248] of one at the
_Eleusinia_,[249] of one at the _Panathenaia_ and _Dionysia_,[250] and
of others at several games.[251]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.—Bronze Statuette of a Victor, from Olympia.
Museum of Olympia.]
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