Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art — John Shaqi
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
The erection of a statue in the Altis at Olympia was an honor which the
Elean officers in charge of the games[252] gave to victors to glorify
their victory.[253] Pliny, in a well-known passage of the _Historia
Naturalis_,[254] says it was customary for all victors to set up
statues, while Pausanias[255] says not all athletes did this, for “some
of those who specially distinguished themselves in the games ... have
had no statues.” This apparent contradiction in the statements of the
two writers is to be explained, as Dittenberger[256] and others have
pointed out, on the ground that Pliny states the general privilege
extended to the victor, while Pausanias states its practical working
out, since the setting up of a statue was an undertaking which would
be limited by the early death, poverty, or some other disability of
the victorious athlete. The cost of making, transporting, and setting
up a statue was considerable, and very often a victor must have
been too poor to do it. In such a case he would often be contented
to set up merely a statuette or small figure in bronze or marble.
Several such bronze figures have been unearthed at Olympia,[257] one
of which we reproduce in Fig. 2, and we have many examples found
outside the Altis: _e. g._, a group of wrestlers,[258] a boxer,[259]
and the arm of a quoit-thrower[260] from the Athenian Akropolis,
an archaic girl runner from Dodona,[261] an archaic statuette from
Delphi with a loin-cloth,[262] a bronze quoit-thrower dedicated in the
Kabeirion,[263] the Tuebingen bronze hoplite runner[264] (Fig. 42),
and the statuette of a παῖς κέλης from Dodona.[265] We should also
mention the great number of statuettes of diskos-throwers in modern
museums.[266] Boy victors especially would use the less expensive
marble for such statuettes and we have the remnants of many such found
in the excavations of the Altis.[267] Pausanias mentions several
monuments which were less than life-size, _e. g._, a horse among the
offerings of Phormis, which he says was “much inferior in size and
shape to all other statues of horses in the Altis,”[268] and the
equestrian monuments already discussed. Even reliefs and paintings,
in some cases, were offered in lieu of larger monuments, not only for
reasons of economy, but also because they gave a better representation
of the contest. This custom was common at the lesser games, especially
at the _Panathenaia_.[269] Pausanias mentions painted iconic reliefs
vowed by girl runners at the games in honor of Hera at Olympia.[270] On
an Attic vase in Munich a victor is represented as holding an iconic
votive _pinax_ in his hands.[271] Pausanias speaks of a painting by
Timainetos at Athens, which represented a boy carrying hydriæ,[272]
and one of a wrestler by the same artist in the Pinakotheke on the
Akropolis. Pliny mentions paintings, the works of great masters,
representing victors: thus the _currentes quadrigae_ by the elder
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