Читать книгу Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art - Walter Woodburn Hyde - Страница 33

Herakles was the reputed founder of the games at Olympia.775 He was a famous wrestler, Pausanias frequently mentioning his combats with giants.776 He won in both wrestling and the pankration at Olympia.777 In connection with the victory of Straton of Alexandria, who won in these two events on the same day,778 Pausanias names three men before him and three men after him who won in these events on the same day.779 We learn their dates from Africanus.780 After the date of the last of these victories, Ol. 204 ( = 37 A.D.), the Elean umpires, in order to check professionalism, refused to allow contestants to enter for both events.781 To win the crown of wild olive in both these events was therefore regarded as a great honor, and in the Olympic lists a special note was made of such victors, who were called πρῶτος, δεύτερος, τρίτος, κ. τ. λ., ἀφ’ Ἡρακλέους.782 They also received the title of παράδοξος or παραδοξονίκης.783 Statues of Herakles, like those of Hermes and Theseus, were commonly set up in gymnasia and palæstræ throughout Greece,784 and it was but natural that Olympic victors, especially those in the two events mentioned, should want their statues assimilated to those of the hero. The difficulty of deciding whether a given statue is one of Herakles or of a victor is even greater than that of distinguishing between statues of victors and those of Hermes or Apollo. To quote Homolle: “Maintes fois, comme pour la tête d’Olympie, comme pour plusieurs autres encore, on peut se demander si le personnage représenté est le héros luimême sous les traits d’un athlête ou un athlête fait à l’image du héros.”785 In reference to the statue of Agias by Lysippos discovered at Delphi, which is an excellent example of the assimilation process which we are discussing, he continues: “Ici en particulier, étant donnée la nature du monument, il est permis de supposer que l’auteur ... ait voulu élever le personnage à la hauteur idéale du type divin en qu’ Agias ait été assimilé à Héraclès.”786

We shall discuss a few examples of this process of assimilation to types of Herakles. Our ascription of the head from Olympia mentioned by Homolle, which was found in the ruins of the Gymnasion, to the statue of the Akarnanian pancratiast Philandridas by Lysippos787 (Frontispiece and Fig. 69) will be discussed in a later chapter.788 The swollen ears and hair-fillet might pass for hero or mortal, for in deciding whether a given head represents Herakles or a victor, the ears are not the deciding criterion, since many heroes had the “pancratiast” swollen ear, as we shall see later. A good example of assimilation is seen in the beautiful little marble head of a man, found in Athens and now in the Glyptothek Ny-Carlsberg in Copenhagen, dating from the early Hellenistic age.789 As traces of color remain in the hair, some have thought that this head came from the reliefs on the “Alexander” sarcophagus from Sidon, belonging to the body of a headless youth represented there. Though the marble (Pentelic) and the dimensions would fit, it would be the only head on the sarcophagus with a band in the hair, and so the question can not be definitely decided.790 The head was at first called a Herakles, though Furtwaengler rightly saw in it an ideal representation of an athlete, even if the ears are not swollen. A bronze head of a youth from Herculaneum, now in Naples, is evidently a part of the statue of a victor or of Herakles.791 A Polykleitan ephebe head-type, with rolled fillet around the hair and swollen ears, represented by replicas in Naples, in Rome, and elsewhere, may represent a boxer in the guise of the hero.792 In the Roman copy of the group of Herakles and Telephos in the Museo Chiaramonti of the Vatican, Herakles, still the god, wears a fillet.793 Similarly, a colossal head of mediocre workmanship in the Sala dei Busti of the Vatican represents the hero with a fillet,794 while another head in the Capitoline Museum, with fillet and swollen ears, seems to represent Herakles as a victorious athlete.795 Many other heads in various museums, which are commonly called heads of Herakles, may represent athletes in the heroic guise. A good example is the Parian marble terminal bust of the fourth century B.C., representing a young Herakles wreathed with poplar, now in the British Museum (Fig. 31).796 In this head the ears are bruised. It seems to have been copied from some well-known statue of Lysippan or Skopaic tendencies. Another head in the British Museum shows the beardless hero, his hair encircled by a diadem, and his ears broken and crushed.797 This almost certainly comes from a victor statue. Many bronze statuettes in the British Museum may be interpreted either as Herakles or as victors.798 A bronze from Corfu represents a nude Herakles or an athlete, with the left foot advanced and the left hand extended. The objects held in both hands are lost, but the challenging pose and expression indicate a boxer.799 Similarly a small bronze in Berlin, represented with a fillet and in the walking pose, may be a Herakles or a victor.800 Duetschke gives two examples of heads in the Uffizi, both of them having fillets, and one of them having swollen ears, which may come from statues of the hero or victors.801 Heads of the hero with the rolled fillet can not, however, according to Furtwaengler, be classed as victors, since he believes that this attribute was borrowed from the symposium, to distinguish the glorified hero rejoicing in the celestial banquet.802