Several inscriptions, mostly from the age of the Antonines, commemorate victories by teams of ball-players there.[702] The name σφαιρεῖς was given to Spartan youths in the first year of manhood. These competitions took place in the Δρόμος at Sparta.[703] Though, then, we should naturally expect statues of ball-players, like the one in Athens of Aristonikos already mentioned, the calm mien of the Cerigotto bronze and the direction of the gaze are certainly, as Th. Reinach said earlier, against interpreting it as the statue of one engaged in so active a sport. Von Mach, because of its voluptuous appearance, thought it might represent merely a _bon vivant_. While Lechat interpreted it as possibly an athlete receiving a crown from Nike,[704] Arvanitopoulos would have the right hand either hold a lekythion or be quite empty, and the left a strigil, thus restoring the statue as an apoxyomenos. S. Reinach would regard it merely as a funerary monument. In all this discrepancy of opinion it is not difficult to recognize elements of both god and mortal blended. The resemblance in the expression and features of the face to those of the Praxitelean _Hermes_, even though superficial, as well as the pose of the right arm recall the god; the muscular build of the figure fits either the god Hermes, in his character of overseer of the sports of the palæstra, or an athlete. It therefore seems reasonable to see in this Hellenistic statue of varied artistic tendencies merely the representation of an athlete, perhaps of a pentathlete, who is holding a crown or possibly an apple as a prize of victory in the right hand, whose form and features have been assimilated to those of Hermes. How the statue of an indisputable Hermes Logios, on the other hand, appears, may be seen in the _Hermes Ludovisi_ of the Museo delle Terme, Rome,[705] and in its replica in the Louvre. The original of this marble copy, dating from the middle of the fifth century B. C., has been variously ascribed to Pheidias,[706] Myron,[707] and others. In this statue the petasos, chlamys, and kerykeion indicate the god, while the position of the right arm raised toward the head[708] and the earnest expression of concentration in the face bespeak the god of oratory. The careful replica of the statue, except the head, in the Louvre, is the work of Kleomenes of Athens, a sculptor of the first century B. C. The copyist, however, has given to the original a Roman portrait-head, whence it has been falsely called _Germanicus_.[709] The Paris statue, then, is merely another example of the conversion of an original god-type, for the sculptor wished to represent a Roman under the guise of Hermes Logios, since the inscribed tortoise shell retained at the feet is a well-known attribute of the god.