Читать книгу Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art - Walter Woodburn Hyde - Страница 34

Kastor is said to have won the foot-race and Polydeukes the boxing match, at Olympia.803 They had an altar at the entrance to the Hippodrome there,804 and were called “Starters of the Race” at Sparta.805 A stadion, in which they were fabled to have contended, was shown in Hermione, in Corinthia.806 Kastor was a famous horse-racer in Homer and later writers,807 and Polydeukes a famous boxer,808 both being κατ’ ἐξοχήν the rider and boxer respectively.809 Scenes showing Athena setting garlands on victorious hoplite racers (?) appear on reliefs of the Dioskouroi from Tarentum.810 An archaic Argive inscription tells how a certain Aischylos won the stade-race four times and the hoplite-race three times at Argos, for which he dedicated a slab to the Dioskouroi, which depicted them in relief.811 An inscribed bronze quoit of the sixth century B.C. from Kephallenia(?), now in the British Museum, was dedicated to the two heroes by Exoïdas for a victory (apparently in the pentathlon).812 A bronze four-spoked wheel with a dedicatory inscription in their honor was found at Argos, probably the remnant of a monument erected for a chariot victory.813 Doubtless certain victor statues were assimilated to them, though we have no direct evidence of the fact. Ordinary dead men appeared in the guise of the Dioskouroi on sepulchral reliefs, just as we have seen that in statuary they were heroized into statues of Hermes. Thus a grave-relief in honor of Pamphilos and Alexandros in Verona shows on the projecting lower rim the two Dioskouroi, the figure to the right carrying a lance in the right hand and holding the bridle of a horse in the left, while the figure to the left holds a lance in the left hand and touches a horse’s head with the right.814 A votive relief in the British Museum represents two youths on horseback, who, despite the absence of the conical cap or pilleus, are probably the Dioskouroi.815 Their short hair is bound with diadems, which shows that the dead men may have been victors.

Sufficient examples of the process of assimilation have now been given to prove that it was not an uncommon device of the ancient sculptor and to show the difficulty of distinguishing between types of gods and athletes.