Читать книгу Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art - Walter Woodburn Hyde - Страница 19

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In another section421 we show that the overwhelming majority of the statues in the Altis were of bronze, though other materials, stone and wood, were also used in some cases. As to the size of these statues, no hard and fast rule seems to have been followed, but we may assume from the evidence at hand that they were in general life-size.422 Lucian would have us believe that the Hellanodikai did not allow victors to set up statues larger than life.423 We know, however, that there were exceptions to such a rule. In all probability the statue of Polydamas of Skotoussa by Lysippos, which Pausanias says stood on a high pedestal, was larger than life-size, if we may conjecture from its elevated position and the probable source of Pausanias’ remark that he “was the tallest of men, if we except the so-called heroes and the mortal race which preceded the heroes.”424 The traces of footprints on the recovered pedestal of the statue of the Athenian pancratiast Kallias by the sculptor Mikon show that the statue was larger than life-size.425 The footprints on the base of the statue of the Rhodian boxer Eukles by the Argive Naukydes are about 33 cm. long, and so the statue was slightly over life-size.426 We know the actual size of at least two of these Olympic statues. The scholiast on Pindar, Ol. VII, Argum., on the basis of a fragment from Aristotle’s lost work on the Olympic victors and one from the little-known writer Apollas Ponticus,427 says that the statue of the Rhodian boxer Diagoras was 4 cubits and 5 fingers tall,428 i. e., about 6 feet 4.5 inches, somewhat over life-size.429 From the same scholiast we learn that the statue of the son of Diagoras, the pancratiast Damagetos, was 4 cubits high, or less than that of the father by 5 fingers, and consequently just under 6 feet.430 The footprints on the base of the statue of the boxer Aristion by the elder Polykleitos are 29 cm. long, and so the statue was just life-size.431 There are several examples of such life-size statues,432 while others are slightly below life-size.433 The Polykleitan statue of a boxer in Kassel is under life-size.434 The marble head of a statue found at Olympia, which we ascribe to Philandridas, the Akarnanian pancratiast, by Lysippos, (Frontispiece and Fig. 69) is also under life-size,435 as is also that of the pancratiast Agias found at Delphi (Pl. 27 and Fig. 68). These two are in harmony with Pliny’s statement that Lysippos made the heads of his statues relatively small.436 Perhaps this statement of Pliny was the basis of the opinion of Mueller recorded above that “comparatively small heads” characterize the whole genre of victor statues. We have in the preceding chapter mentioned the marble fragments of the statues of boy victors, two-fifths to two-thirds life-size, found at Olympia.437 The two marble helmeted heads of the archaic period found there, which we shall later ascribe to hoplite victors (Fig. 30), are exactly life-size.438 Of the bronze fragments recovered at Olympia,439 the head of a boxer of the fourth century B.C. (Fig. 61, A and B) is life-size,440 while the extraordinarily beautifully sculptured right arm ascribed to a boy victor by Furtwaengler441 is a little under life-size.