Читать книгу Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art - Walter Woodburn Hyde - Страница 12

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Just as soldiers on returning from successful campaigns might dedicate their spoils of victory, victors in athletic contests might consecrate to the gods their prizes. In the Homeric poems we have no certain evidence of such a custom. A Delphic tripod was ascribed to Diomedes and possibly this was a prize won at the funeral games in honor of Patroklos.159 The first literary example of such a dedication of which we are certain is the prize tripod dedicated to the Helikonian Muses by Hesiod.160 Frequently such dedications were tripods; thus a Pythian tripod was dedicated to Herakles at Thebes by the Arkadian musician Echembrotos in 586 B.C.;161 a tripod was dedicated in the sixth century B.C. or perhaps earlier at Athens for some acrobatic or juggling trick;162 a victorious boxer dedicated one at Thebes.163 It became customary by the fifth century B.C. for victors at the Triopia to offer prize tripods to Apollo.164 Tripods or fragments of them have been found at Olympia165 and elsewhere. Many other objects were also offered.166 Sometimes a victor would dedicate the object by which he won his victory instead of his prize, just as a soldier might dedicate his arms instead of his spoils of war. Certain types of victors, e. g., those especially in running, the race in armor, singing, etc., would be excluded from making such dedications owing to the nature of the contest. Pausanias167 tells us, for instance, that twenty-five bronze shields were kept in the temple of Zeus at Olympia for the use of hoplite runners, which shows that these runners did not use all at least of their own armor. In some cases diskoi were lent to pentathletes. Pausanias168 says that three quoits were kept in the treasury of the Sikyonians at Olympia for use in the pentathlon. There are, however, as we shall see, instances of quoits being dedicated by victors. The pentathlete might consecrate either his diskos, javelin, or jumping-weights.169 Perhaps the huge red-sandstone block of the sixth century B.C., weighing 315 pounds and inscribed with the name and feat of Bybon, may have been such an ex voto,170 since Pausanias says the contestants at Olympia originally used stones for quoits.171 A stone, weighing 480 kilograms (about 1,056 pounds), was found on Thera, inscribed “Eumastos raised me from the ground.”172 Poplios (Publius) Asklepiades, who won the pentathlon at Olympia in the third century A.D.,173 dedicated a bronze diskos to Zeus, showing the old custom was kept up till late. Many bronze diskoi have been found in the excavations of the Altis.174 We have instances of the dedication of jumping-weights (ἁλτῆρες).175 Examples of dedicated strigils have been found at Olympia.176 Torches were dedicated at Athens.177 Actors dedicated their masks,178 while some of the ivory lyres and plectra conserved in the Parthenon were probably offerings of musical victors at the Panathenaic games.179 Equestrian victors dedicated their chariots, or models of them, and their horses. These models might be large or small. We have notices of large chariot-groups at Olympia of Kleosthenes,180 Gelo,181 and Hiero of Syracuse;182 of small ones of Euagoras,183 Glaukon,184 Kyniska,185 and Polypeithes.186 A large number of miniature models of chariots and horses in bronze and terra cotta have been found at Olympia,187 some of which have no wheels. Many very thin foil wheels have also been found.188 Furtwaengler189 believes that these wheels are conventional reductions of whole chariots. Some of them are cast190 and they are generally four-spoked, but two mule-car wheels are five-spoked.191 These various models are so common and of so little value, however, that they may have had nothing to do with chariot-races.192

Many great artists, e. g., Kalamis,193 Euphranor,194 and Lysippos,195 are known to have made chariot-groups and it is reasonable to assume that some of these were votive in character. Besides dedications of chariot victors, we find at Olympia also those of horse-racers. These were similarly both large and small, with and without jockeys. Thus jockeys on horseback by Kalamis stood on either side of Hiero’s chariot.196 Krokon of Eretria, who won the horse-race at the end of the sixth century B.C.,197 dedicated a small bronze horse at Olympia.198 The monument of the sons of Pheidolas of Corinth,199 representing a horse on the top of a column, must have been small. Pausanias, in mentioning the two statues of the Spartan chariot victor Lykinos by Myron,200 says that one of the horses which the victor brought to Olympia was not allowed to enter the foal-race, and therefore was entered in the horse-race. This story was probably told Pausanias by the Olympia guides and may have arisen from the smallness of one of the horses in the monument.201 The sculptors Kalamis,202 Kanachos,203 and Hegias204 are known to have made groups representing horse-victors, and Pliny derives the whole genre of equestrian monuments from the Greeks.205 Great numbers of small figures of horses and riders have been excavated at Olympia206 and elsewhere.207 Equestrian groups of various kinds were also known outside Olympia. Thus Arkesilas IV of Kyrene offered a chariot model at Delphi for a victory in 466 B. C;208 the base found on the Akropolis of Athens and inscribed with the name Onatas probably upheld such a group;209 the equestrian statue of Isokrates on the Akropolis was also probably a dedication for a victory in horse-racing.210