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
At Olympia, as elsewhere in Greece, statues were set up to men
_honoris causa_. Such statues would be dedicated by admirers, either
individuals or states. They were in no sense intended to honor the god,
though at Olympia they might be classed as ἀναθήματα, just as victor
statues, merely because they were erected in the sacred precinct. They
were granted to individuals not as a privilege, as victor statues
were, but as free gifts. Dio Chrysostom gives the difference between
victor statues—which he classes as ἀναθήματα—and such honor statues
in these words: ταῦτα (_i. e._, victor statues) γάρ ἐστιν ἀναθήματα·
αἱ δ’ εἰκόνες τιμαί· κἀκεῖνα (victor statues) δέδοται τοῖς θεοῖς,
ταῦτα δὲ (honor statues) τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς ἀνδράσιν οἵπερ εἰσὶν ἔγγιστα
αὐτῶν.[394] Pliny records that the Athenians inaugurated the custom
of a state setting up statues in honor of men at the public expense
with the statues of the tyrannicides Harmodios and Aristogeiton by the
sculptor Antenor, which were erected in 509 B. C., the year in which
the tyrants were expelled.[395] He adds that a “refined ambition” led
to a universal adoption of the custom and that statues began to adorn
public places everywhere and later on even private houses. The custom
grew apace in the later history of Greece. Demetrios of Phaleron is
said to have had over three hundred statues erected in his honor during
his short régime of about a year in Athens. The Diadochoi and the Roman
emperors enthusiastically took over the custom. Pliny gives several
Roman examples of it.[396]
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