(Pp. 168-201) Charles Waldstein - Pythagoras of Rhegion and The Early Athlete Statues

Pythagoras of Rhegion and the Early Athlete Statues
Author(s): Charles Waldstein

Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 1 (1880), pp. 168-201
Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies
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168
PYTHAGORAS OF RHEGION
PYTHAGORAS OF RHEGION AND THE EARLY

ATHLETE STATUES.
I.
THE earliest works of Greek art manifest the inability of
the artist to express all he desired by the inherent character
of his work. The most striking characteristic of Greek
art, and a trait which runs through the whole character of the
ancient Greek race, is the simplicity with which it attains
its great effects, the perfect harmony which obtains between
the desire and conception and the realisation and execution.
But it is only in the highest stage that we meet with this power:
the genius of Pheidias is characterised by the perfect harmony
that subsists between the idea and its realisation. Full proficiency
in the technical handling of the material must precede the
facile expression of inner conceptions by means of material
form; and the study of the history of archaic art is the study
of the struggle of the artistic spirit with the reluctant material
and its final victory over it.
But the desire to give individual character to their statues
was felt by the artists, though they had not the power to
put it into the essential form of the work itself. This desire
found an outlet in expression by means of more accidental and
attributive characteristics. The gods, such as Hermes, Apollo, and
Zeus, were characterised by means of their distinctive attributes.
The conventional and typical form of a male figure, with the feet
one before the other, and firmly planted in parallel lines, the
arms pressed close to the body down to the elbow, received on the
extended hand a thunderbolt or a sceptre to indicate Zeus, a bow
or a deer to indicate Apollo, a caduceus to personify Hermes.

AND THE EARLY ATHLETE STATUES.
169
We also meet with an Apollo with a lamb or a Hermes with

a ram, while there is no markedly distinct feature in the
personal appearance of either. The same applies to the archaic
representations of Hera, Athene, or Artemis. Grace and
beauty are not expressed in the essential forms of a female
figure, but in mere outward actions and positions, such as the
light suspension of a part of the garment in one hand, or the
holding of a blossom.1 The position of both hands in the
earliest Aphrodite type, which reminds us strongly of the
Oriental Astarte, was symbolic of fertility, and had not the
moral significance which a similar attitude has in the Aphrodite
of Knidus, and still less the morbid self-consciousness expressed
by the same attitude in the Venus de' Medici.
But not only did they fail in indicating the individual
character of gods and their moral qualities by means of the
bodily forms, but in the earliest stages we even find that the
artists were incapable of indicating in the statues themselves
the difference between the human and the divine. This difficulty arose especially in drawing distinctive lines between gods
and athletes in statues. For besides the decorative, architectural figures, we meet with no single statues besides those of
athletes in the archaic period. And the difficulty became most
apparent in dealing with a youthful male figure like Apollo.
The statue of the pancratiast Arrhachion in the market-place of
Phigalia is described by Pausanias 2 in a manner which makes
him correspond exactly to works like the existing statues of the
Apollo of Tenea, Orchomenos, and Thera. Apollo, in these early
stages, has all the unadorned dryness of a simple ephebe. He
is the type of a youth. A later stage will accentuate strength
and muscular development on the one hand, to indicate the
athletic character of a human youth, and a more luxurious,
comely, physical constitution, fuller and softer forms, on the
other hand, to represent the god of male beauty. I do not mean
to imply that early Greek art will ever represent an Apollo in
1 A question well worthy of special
investigation is, whether, as I am inclined to believe, the frequent endowment of a female figure with a blossom,
a fruit, or a flower, as we have it on
so-called ' Spes' figures and on reliefs,
does not simply point to an attempt to
express the subjective nature of the

figure bearing them, maidenly, womanly
charm, &c., and that it has no further
mythological or mystical significance,
as is generally assumed.
2 Arcadica, viii. ch. 40.

170
PYTHAGORAS
OF RHEGION
the luxurious, effeminate softness which pleased the taste and

corresponded to the spirit of the age of decadence; but I simply
mean that the incipient expressive power in art will manifest
itself in drawing the broad line between strength and richness
of form. And the manifestation of this power we do meet with
in one earliest instance of statuary, namely, the small bronze of
an Apollo from Miletus in the British Museum, generally
assumed to be a replica of the Apollo by the sculptor Kanachos
of Sikyon. The exact date of this work is a matter of discussion; we may however fairly assume that the Apollo of
Miletus falls shortly before or after the 71st Olympiad (493 B.c.).
However impeifect the rendering of the original statue may
be in so small a replica, and however little adapted, therefore, as
a criterion for the details of style, still we cannot help recognising a certain power of giving softer human forms which are
clearly opposed to the dryness of the athletic forms. There is
no reason to believe that the artistic movement receded, and
that the expressive power was smaller after Kanachos than
before; the Aeginetan marbles would immediately dispel such
an assumption. On the contrary, we must assume that after
Kanachos the power to distinguish an Apollo from an athlete
grew, and that a statue which in style and technique belongsto a
period subsequentto Kanachos is not an Apollo if the bodilyforms
markedly bear the characteristicsof the athletic youth.
Even before the times of Kanachos, however, the artists had
means of expressing the difference between the god and the
athlete in their works, yet in a less essential but a more
accessory manner, namely, in the difference of head-dress. A
thorough investigation of the question of ancient Greek headdress which combines the literary and monumental evidence
is as yet wanting; and as the following considerations are
merely part of a series which prove the importance of elucidating this question, we must devote some space to it.
We are accustomed invariably to associate short hair with
athletes, and archaeologists have been up to the present day
predisposed to ignore the athletic character of a statue if it did
not have short hair. But it is quite impossible that athletes
1 Brunn, Sitzungsberichte der kgl.
bayr. Akademie, 1871, p. 518 seq. ;
Urlichs, Abhandl. iib. d. Anfdinge d.
griech. Kiinstlergeschichte, Wilrzburg,

1872; M. Friinkel, Arch. Zeit., 1879,
p.. 90.

AND THE EARLY ATHLETE
STATUES.
171
should have been represented with short hair till after the
Persian wars. Before this period and for a good while after, the
agonistic games and the exercises in the palaestra were an
important part of the training of Greek youths. Originally, they
were an institution with a fixed social and political aim. They
were a means to produce strong and skilled citizens. More and
more this institution, which was originally a means to some
further end, asserted its independence, until finally it became
the end to which the whole personal existence became a means.
In modern terms this signifies that the young Greeks were
'gentlemen athletes,' who indulged in exercise to heighten their
bodily proficiency, but that, more and more, sports became an
end in themselves, until athletic exercise became a profession,
and all the time, the exertion and aspirations of an individual
became subservient to this acquisition. A similar tendency may
be noticed in modern times.
We know that the
'AXaLoLtook great pride in
their long and thick cappio/6copevre4
it
was
not only the case in the
and
hair,
heroic age, that short or thin hair was considered ungainly.
So the ugly Thersites is described*e8vi) 8'CrrevrvoOeXadXv7.Even
in the historic age the same tradition survived. Only the slaves
were ceKlcapCLvot
and were not allowed to wear long hair.' Long
hair prevailed throughout the whole of Greece. In Sparta
Lycurgus fixed the custom by law;2 the Spartans not only
considered long hair ornamental, but also useful, and devoted
great care to its preservation and adornment ;3 before the battle
they combed and braided their hair.4 In Attica, and especially
in Athens, long hair was also worn, and after the time of
the Alkmaeonidae specially luxurious and ornamental forms
of head-dress, such as the 1cpwAco seem to have come into
ov,
fashion.5
Now it is evident that the free-born Greek youth was
unwilling to sacrifice his long hair, in which he took such pride,
to avoid inconvenience during his exercises in the palaestra, or
on every occasion that he took part in one of the national
1 Aristoph. Av. 1. 911.
3 Plutarch, Apophthegnm.reg. et
2
Xenophon, De Republ. Lac. c. xi.
impert. T. i. p. 754 ; Lacon. Apo?3; of. J. H. Krause, Plotina, od. iiber phthcgm. p. 917; Lycurg. c. 22.
die Kostiime des Haupthaares bei dens
4 Herodotus, vii. c. 208.
6 Thucydides, i. 6.
Vdlkernder alten Welt, Leipzig, 1858.
Abschn. 1II.

172
games. On the other hand, though long hair must have been a
great impediment in many of the daily exercises, and especially
in the palaestra, we can still conceive of its being less troublesome in some of the lighter games of the pentathlon, such as
running, jumping, throwing the discus or the spear. But in
wrestling, boxing, and in the pancration' (a combination of the
two) the trouble caused by long hair must have been too great.
They were driven, therefore, to have recourse to such a disposal
of their hair as would render it least in their way.; this would
consist in braiding the hair into two long plaits, and in compactly laying these two braids round the back of the head,
along each side, and firmly tying them in front on the top.
This is a simple means of disposing of long hair, which we must
assume to have been adopted as the most practical.
The need for such contrivances was done away with after the
Persian wars. The ancient customs were altered; only children
retained their long hair, while so soon as they became ephebes
in a solemn act their hair was cut off to the length which vye
notice in the youths on the Parthenon frieze. The feast connected with this act was called
The so cut off hair
oiv'rlpta.2
was dedicated to one of the gods
or a river-god,3 and frequently
they made a pilgrimage to Delphi to dedicate it to the Pythian
Apollo.4 This change in custom may have been brought about
by the reformation in general customs which developed the
hardy, warlike spirit of the Greeks, who had learnt the value
of strong soldiers through the struggle with the Persians;
and this spirit again may have led to a renewed cultivation
and accentuation of athletic sports to serve the common
need.
According to the literary sources, therefore, we are led not to
expect short-haired athletes till some time after the Persian
wars (for the new fashion would not have transfused art until the
old association had died out, and the eye of the public had
grown accustomed to the innovation); and with works belonging
1 Special mention is even made of a
peculiar head-dress of the pancratiasts,
cf. Krause, Hellenica, I. Gymnastik
und Agonistik der Griechen, &c., p.
54.
2 Hesych. T. ii. p. 730; Pollux, vi.
22, Eupolis ap. Photium, Lexic. p. 321;
Eustath. 11. xii. 311, p. 967, 18 ; cf.

Krause, ibid. p. 76.
3 Aeschyl. Choeph.6, Paus. i. 37, 2;
1. 6 (Comic.
Diphilos,
wrovrpaay.
Graec. Fragm.
ed. Meineke, t. 4, p.
407) ; Dio Chrysost. xxxv. p. 67.
4 Dio Chrysos0ton, 1.c.

AND THE EARLYATHLETESTATUES.
173
to epochs previous to the Persian wars we shall expect to find

long-haired athletes.
The monumental evidence corresponds exactly to the literary
traditions which we have just examined. Of the numerous
athlete statues which have been recognized as such, not one has
been identified as belonging to an earlier date than the Discobolos of Myron. Of this statue there are numerous replicas.
But if works have come down to us by later artists and by the
famous sculptor Myron, why should no work have survived
of one of the earlier artists who were also famous, and of
one of whom (Pythagoras of Rhegion) we know that he gained
a victory over Myron, his younger contemporary, with an athlete
statue ?1 And if furthermore we take into account that, as has
been mentioned above,the only single statues besides architectural
groups and gods were athlete statues, and if we but glance into
Pausanias and see how enormous was the proportion of statues
commemorative of agonistic victories to the number of other
works of art, our astonishment will rise to a doubt, whether it
is not merely through some oversight or prejudice that archaeologists have hitherto failed to recognise athletes in many
statues belonging to the archaic period of Greek art. And so it
is. The reason why such statues have not yet been identified
among the works belonging to pre-Pheidiac art is simply that
the head-dress of the Myronian Discobolos and of all later works
has more or less consciously served as a criterion for the athletic
character of a work.
The Attic sculptor Myron falls exactly into that period in
which we should naturally suppose that the new Athenian
fashion had transfused art, and his personal character as it
manifests itself through his works was exactly of the stamp to
delight in introducing an innovation. After Myron we may
always expect short hair with athletes, before Myron we may
expect long hair. But, as I have said, archaeologists have never
looked for athletes in pre-Myronic works, and so it has come to
pass that a certain type of head with the hair disposed in two
braids wound round and fastened on the top, has crept into
literature as a type of an Apollo. Now I have only found two
cases in which this head-dress undoubtedly belongs to a god.
1 ' Pancratiaste
Delphis posito,
eodem vicit (Myronem).'-Plin., Nat.
Hist. xxxiv. 59.

174
OF RHEGION
PYTHAGORAS
The one instance is the youthful Apollo on a relief in the

Capitol,' an instance first noticed by Conze; and the other
is a Hermes on a coin from Aenos.2 Yet in the first case
we have the youthful Apollo in an assembly of gods at home
as it were, and he is then no longer the god, but the ephebe
beside Zeus. The artist did well to distinguish him by this
means from the other gods who have long hair. In the
second instance, Hermes wears the petasos, and this sufficiently
indicates the god Hermes; while the very petasos shows that he
is in action, and there he impresses the human, working side
of his person, and then he properly arranges his hair to suit his
swift vocation. In both these cases the gods are conceived in
their most human aspect, while the environment or the petasos
indicates their character with sufficient clearness. In all other
cases the god Apollo is distinguished from statues of human
beings by the ornamental treatment of his hair. He has long
curls. So in the above-mentioned Apollo of Kanachos, in the
similar marble head in the British Museum,3 on the numerous
vase pictures and reliefs,4 representing the contest between
Apollo and Heracles for the Delphic tripos; so also in the Eidolon
of Apollo on a bas-relief representing a 'fatto di Paride.'5 Frequently, especially when in action, Apollo wears the braid
twisted round his head, but this dry and ' every-day' appearance
is always mitigated either by a curl,8 however short, or by
a swelling mass of hair on the back of the head,7 a com1 Conze, Beitrdge zur Geschichteder
griechischenPlastik, p. 15 ; Braun, Vorschule der Kunstmythologie, taf. 5;
Kekul1, Bullettino dell' Inst. di Corresp.
arch., 1866, p. 71.
2 Miiller-Wieseler, Denkmdler d.
altev Kunst, ii. pl. 28, 302.
3 Overbeck, Geschichte der Griech.
Plastik, vol. i. p. 109; Miiller-Wieseler,
Denkmdiler, &c., i. pl. xv. 61; cf.
Millin, Pierres grawves,pl. 6.
4 Though many. of these representations may not be genuinely archaic,
but later imitations of the archaic,
what is called archaistic, this does not
affect their importance, as the imitator
had the archaic before him. I shall
deal with this question at greater
length in the course of our inquiry.
Monumenti antichi
5 Guattani,
inediti, Roma, 1784-5.
6 Archaic silver coins of Leontini,
v. laureate, hair short over forehead
in formal curls over temple, plaited
behind, with long curls falling behind
the ear. The curl is to be noticed in
coins even of later type. In the one
belonging to the best period the curl is
very short. Catal. coins in British
Museum. Sicily.
7 Lenormant and De Witte, klite
Ceramographique, ii. pl. 57, 55, 5.
A marble head recently found in Rome
represents the type of an Apollo with
the braid, but there is something soft
and luxurious in the rest of the hair,
and he has a curl on the side.

STATUES.
175
promise between short and long hair which counteracts the

compactness which we consider characteristic of early athlete
figures. Even in later art Apollo retains his long hair, which
varies in its arrangement with the fashions of different places.
But unless a fashion in head-dress, like that of the Apollo
Belvedere, prevail, or unless he is represented as a boy, as in the
Apollo Sauroktonos, the long curl generally remains his characteristic. It is Hermes, if any god, who in later times partakes
more and more of the athlete type, even in the arrangement of
the hair; but thlis not earlier than the age of Praxiteles.1
On the other hand, though we notice that while on festive
occasions (as may be seen on archaic vase representations) and
in solemn moments (as on the archaic Peloponnesian sepulchral
stele),2 men wear their hair long; yet in moments of physical
exertion or moments preceding it, in warlike contests, and
especially in athletic sports, the braid wound round the head
prevails.3 Athletes on black-figured vases, and even on the
red-figured of the severer order, all have this head-dress, though
the technical execution in indicating the details of the hair does
not belong to the earliest vase-painters, and is not added by
those who in later times imitated the conventionally archaic.
The drawings are merely in outline, and the braid is generally
indicated in the outline by an elevation in the back, or on the top
of the head. There are, however, many instances in which the
typical head-dress is clearly given. The finest instance of this
is the Achilles with Briseis on the beautiful vase in the Vatican
published by Gerhard (Plate VI.).4 Achilles stands in armour
without his helmet, the type of a strong youth, while the
artistic style of the work leads us to a period shortly before
Pheidias. We notice the same in an Achilles on another vase,
' Ira di Achille,' 5 formerly in the Campana collection, and now
1 On the Frangois vase all the
gods
have long hair.
2 Dressel and Milchhoefer, Mitth. d.
deutsch. arch. Instituts in Athen, Ll.,
p. 301, seq., Taf. 20 & 24; also Milchhoefer iii. p. 163; Overbeck, G.
d. Gr. Pl. i. p. 83, 84, 85.
3 I have
found one instance, in a
small bronze in the British Museum,
in which a youth is represented with
long hair, like the Apollo of Tenea,
holding a discus in his hand. In the

lighter sports there may not have been
the need of the typically athletic
arrangement of hair. This would even
tend to throw some doubt upon the
'Apollo character' of another group of
archaic statues.
4 Auserwdhlte Vasenbilder,iii.Tf. 184.
5 Monumentidell' Instit. di corr.arch.
vol. vi. tav. 19, also on tav. 20; E. Braun,
Annali dell' Inst. 1858, pp. 374-383.

176
at Paris. There is also a young man with arms, about to take

leave of his father; painted by the vase painter Duris.1 The
same occurs also on an Athenian Lekythos, published by
De Witte,2 on a vase picture published by Panofka,8 on several
others published by Gerhard,4and on many others.
In marble we meet with this mode of wearing the hair in the
pedimental statues from the temple of Athene of Aegina. Most
of the warriors wear helmets, but even then we can perceive this
arrangement, and it is especially clear in the forward-striding
nude figure without a helmet from the western pediment. The
two figures on either corner of the pediments, it is true, have
long hair, but then they are wounded and dying, and by their
action, as well as their position, are literally hors de combat.
Artistic reasons, such as variety and harmony in the relaxed
lines of the figures, must also have prompted the sculptor to
make this change. We have mentioned before that earlier
Greek art did not represent single statues of warriors, and that
we only meet with groups. The only single statues are gods and
athletes. Were the early artist to render a warrior in a single
statue, he would always represent him armed and with his
helmet. In active combat the warrior is an armed and seriously
aggressive athlete, and no doubt the sculptor studied in the
palaestra the attitudes he rendered in his group.
Besides the numerous vase pictures which represent athletes
with the braid, so numerous that it is needless to attempt at enumerating them, we also find a similar head-dress on a gem representing an athlete.5 But what is most conclusive is the evidence
afforded by statues. In the Palazzo dei Conservatori there is a
mutilated marble figure with braided hair, with legs drawn
up, and what remains of the arms extended, so that this figure
evidently represents a charioteer. This instance still admits of
debate, but not so two bronzes from the numismatic cabinet in
Vienna," one of which is reproduced on Plate V., Fig. 1.
Here we have a figure with a discus, undoubtedly an athlete,
1 Mon. vol. viii. tav. 41
; Roulez,
Annali, 1867, pp. 157, &c.
2 Gazettearchgologique,1867, p. 141,
pl. 34.
3
Vasenbilder,Taf. i. 1.
4 Trinkschalen und Gefdsse, Taf. 13,
14, 15.
5 Visconti, i. p. 276, and pl. A. iv. 7

Winckelmann, Mon. ant. inedit. No.
106 ; GemmeStockmar. p. 348.
6 Von Sacken, Die antiken Bronzen
des k6ngl. Miinzeabinets in Wien, Taf.
45, fig. i., und Taf. 37, fig. 4.

177
and with the head-dress most clearly indicated. Besides these

two bronzes I found several others corresponding exactly to
them in the bronze room of the British Museum. A similar
discobolos is also published by E. Braun.1 Single heads of this
type occur very frequently: the Neapolitan bronze head, a
marble head in the Sala Chiaramonti of the Vatican Museum,
another in the British Museum from Cyrene (Hellenic
Room No. 53), and two in the Museum of Berlin.2 One
of these two heads (Plate V., Fig. 5) is of special interest.
Conze says of it that there is great negligence in the
execution of the braid, that it can hardly be recognised as hair;
in fact it seems to me to be more of a mixture of a braid and
an ornamented band, almost partaking more of the character of
the latter. Now I venture to formulate an hypothesis in connexion with this head, but I must impress upon the reader the
purely hypothetical character of- it. The band was originally
not an essentially athletic attribute. The wreath, of which there
were different kinds for the different local games, and the palmbranch were the original prizes, while the band was a general
article of adornment used on many other occasions. It is only
in later times that it became so general in art as an athletic
attribute, and I believe that it was from a desire to compensate
the eye, which had grown accustomed to the line round the head
from the time of braids, that the band was freely adopted. The
Berlin head would be the monumental boundary-line of the
transition from one custom to the other, and though it has a
band, the band is decorated with a zig-zag line as a reminder
of the antiquated braid.
The evidence, both literary and monumental, which I have
adduced with regard to the head-dress of statues belonging to the
period previous to Myron leads us without fail to conclude that
if a statue has no long hair or ornamental attributes,such as curls,
it is in all probability not an Apollo ; and if the hair is arranged
in two braids on the back of the head, wound round and fastened
on the top, the statue is in all probability that of an athlete.
1 Mon. dell' Inst. vol. ii. tav. 29, and
Annali, 1836, p. 54.
&,s-VOL.
Conze, Beitrage, &c., Taf. viii.
I.

N'
178
II.
THEso-called Choiseul-GouffierApollo in the British Museum'
(Plate IV.), one of the finest Greek statues in the Museum,
evidences in its technical execution a style later than the
works of Kanachos. Upon examining this statue we are
first and chiefly impressed with the high muscular development, with the physical power of the youthful figure. Nay,
apart from the heavy youths considered to be replicas of the Polycletian Doryphoros and Diadumenos, there is hardly another
athlete statue which represents so strong a man. There can be
no doubt as to -the intention of the artist: he desired to fashion
a statue whose chief characteristic was to be physical strength.
The long hair is neatly and firmly plaited into two braids,
which are wound round the head and are tightly fastened
together on the top: the head-dress which we have found to be
typically that of an athlete before the time of Myron. This
suffices to show that the statue is not an Apollo, but an athlete."
It will become more evident the further we proceed. It is also
a signal confirmation that a statue on the staircase of the
Uffizi in Florence,3 stupidly restored with a short staff in the
one hand and a shield in the other, has been generally considered
an athlete, and by some even a Doryphoros of Polycleitos,
simply because it has a head with short hair, which does not
originally belong to the statue at all. Anybody with a trained
eye will immediately recognise that the body of this statue, so
far as it is genuinely antique, is exactly the same as the London
statue, and the other replicas which we shall consider hereafter.
The attitude, the outline of the figure, the bodily proportions,
the technical handling of the surface, the modelling of the
1 Specimens of ancient sculpture in
the British Museum, vol. ii. pl. v.;
Conze, Beitrage, Taf. vi.
2 Clarac (vol. ii4. pl. 482, 931H.
Text, vol. iii. p. 213), who is relatively
unprejudiced, expresses his doubt
whether this be an Apollo and not an
athlete : ' ce pourrait etre un athlete.'
The Capitoline replica he simply calls
an athlete.
SI)Diitschke, Antike Bildwerke in
Oberitaliem. GriechischeEphebenstatue,
p. 8, No. 27. I subsequently find that
Diitschke has also noticed that the
head does not belong to the statue,
and that he points to a relation
between this statue and the 'Apollo on
the Omphalos.'

STATUES.
179
muscles, down to the peculiar flatness of the abdomen and the

straight line that marks the beginning of the pubes, the back
and the strongly prominent nates, the peculiar form of the navel
and the strong accentuation of certain veins-all is identical
in both.
But that the London statue is an Apollo has been fastened
into the minds of archaeologists by the fact that it has been
published and discussed by Conze (Beitrage, ii.), in connexion
with the almost identical statue in the Patissia Museum of
Athens known as the Apollo on the Omphalos' (Plate V., Fig.
3), and that it has since then been looked upon as a kind
of replica of that statue. The truth is that the London, the
Athenian, and the Florentine statues are co-ordinate in artistic
excellence, and that they most probably are replicas of an
original which, to judge from traces in the marble in the treatment of the hair, from a certain sharpness in the modelling of
the brows and bones, and other subtle indications, was most
probably of bronze. The other replica mentioned by Conze2 is
in the Capitoline Museum,3 and is of inferior workmanship.
Now if the Athenian statue really was on an omphalos, then it
most likely was an Apollo, and at all events could not have been
an athlete. I was fortunate enough to find the statue and the
omphalos which is supposed to have served as its base separate
in the Museum, and I immediately convinced myself and others
by the simplest means (namely, by standing on the omphalos in
the position of the 'Apollo') that they do not belong together.
But as statements once printed have a strange power of clinging,
and as a mere personal assertion on my part will not suffice to
disprove an opinion now generally adopted,4 I hope to prove
1
3 Clarac,
Pervanoglu, Bull. dell' Inst. 1862,
Musde de Sculpture, 862,
2189.
Bull.
168,
Kihler,
1865,
;
p.
p.
seq.
4 Kbhler says,
134; Liitzow in L.'s Zeitschrift fiur
(.ce.): 'Un nuovo
esame dei due pezzi ci ha verificato
bildende Kunst, 1868, p. 24, 1869, p.
283; Kekuld, Beschreib. d. Theseions, pienamente questa congettura, di modo
che anche sulla denominazione della
p. 36, No. 70, in Neue Jahrbiicherfilr
alcun dubbio.'
statua non pub cadere
Philologie, 1869, p. 85, ff. ; also Die
pifi
This is a step from the probable to the
Gruppedes Kiinstlers Menelaos, &c., p.
41; Schwabe, De Apolline in Omphalo, certain; for Pervanoglu, who first
Programm. Dorpat, 1870; Bursian, wrote about the statue (see previous
Literarisches Centralblatt, 1869, p.
note), merely says, ' Al quale (Apolline)
592.
forse potrebbe aver appartenuto un
2 Ibid. taf. vii.
onfalo di marmo bianco,' &c.
N2

180
PYTHAGORASOF RHEGION
it conclusively with the assistance of the exact illustrations

(Plate V.).
Now, in the first place, the circumstances of the discovery are
far from furnishing any evidence that the statue and the
omphalos belong to one another. It is generally assumed that
they were found together. But Conze himself says (p. 14): 'Es
ist zuzugeben, dass eine volle durch aussere Umstinde erwiesene
Sicherheit flir die Zusammengehorigkeit nicht vorhanden ist.
Namentlich darf Kdhlers Ausdruck, der Omphalos sei nahe bei
der Figur gefunden worden, nicht dafiir geltend gemacht
werden. Der Vorsteher der Alterthiimer in Athen Eustratiadis
hat mir vielmehr auf meine Anfrage durch. Postolakkas mittheilen lassen, der Omphalos sei ausserhalb der Orchestra
zwischen den parallelen Mauern der westlichen Parados, die
Statuenstiicke seien hinter den mittleren Inschriftsesseln [of
the theatre of Dionysos], beide Theile also doch in einigem
Abstande von einander, aufgegraben.' If the Greeks who were
present during the excavations, and had the supervision over
them, state that the statue was found within, the omphalos without, the walls of the theatre, some distance apart, then no great
weight can be attached to the mere conjecture that they were
connected. It would be different if the foot-marks on the
omphalos did really, as has been asserted, correspond to the
position of the legs of the 'Apollo' so far as they are preserved.
But this is not the case. In the first place, the feet, as indicated
on the omphalos, would be too small for the statue, but furthermore, what is most manifest, the feet of the 'Apollo' could
not have stood in that position. On the omphalos the left
foot was nearer the centre than the right foot, while the left
leg of the statue is projected beyond the right leg, and so the left
foot would have been nearer the circumference of the omphalos
-nay, would have projected beyond it, that is, it would partly,
yet firmly, have rested on nothing. In the drawing (Plate V.,
Fig. 6), the outline shows the footprints as they are, the broken
line(-- -) the position of the right foot as it ought to be according to the position of the ankle of the statue as it is now placed
on the omphalos in the cast copies of many museums in Germany, the dotted line (
.) as the left foot ought to be, if
.... correspondedto the position of the
the right foot of the statue
right foot on the omphalos. At all events it becomes evident

181
that, if one of the feet of the statue held the position of the
corresponding foot on the omphalos, then the other foot could
not have corresponded.
It is difficult to see, moreover, how another circumstance did
not at once serve to show the impossibility of the received view.
On the right leg on the left side, somewhat towards the back, a
piece of marble runs from above the knee to below the middle of
the calf (Plate V., Fig. 4). Conze draws the following conclusion:
because the statue 'doubtless belongs to the omphalos, this addition can surely not have been the connection with the stem of
a tree attached to the statue' (as is the case with all the other
copies and with most marble statues of this kind), ' for there are
no traces of a tree stump on the omphalos behind the right foot.'
It is strange when we compare with the premiss to this conclusion the passage several lines below in which the author says,
that in placing the cast in the Museum of Halle, he followed
the assumption that the omphalos and the statue belonged
together, and that 'this attempt had made the assumption even
more probable.' Pervanoglu thinks it probable that the statue
and omphalos belong together; but he entirely forgets that he
before said, 'Le braccia pendevano allato del corpo, e da alcuni
vestigii riconoscibili dietro al piede destro risulta esser ivi stato
un tronco forse d' albero, come spesso lo troviamo in statue
reputate copie d' originali di metallo.'
Conze supposes this projection to have been the rest for an attribute which the statue held in its right hand, but it is too large
for this purpose and too far back. It decidedly was the bridge
which attached the statue to the stem of a tree, and which the
artist placed between the tree and the body (as is frequently
the case), to give as much as possible of the roundness of form.
But there is no room for a stem on the omphalos, apart
from there being no vestiges of such an appendage. This was
also seen by Bursian (1. c.); but he furnishes an instance of how
difficult it is to dissociate two things that have been bound
together with printed paper. Because the Apollo could not
have stood on the omphalos, therefore he assumes that the
Apollo stood beside the omphalos, and another statue, perhaps
an Orestes seeking propitiation, stood on the omphalos.
The statue has, in fact, nothing whatever to do with the
omphalos. The position of the legs is the same in the London

182
PYTHAGORAS
OF RHEGION
and in the Athenian statue; and I shall mention a final test,

which, together with what has been already said, will, I hope,
once for all clear the statue of any connexion with the representation of the sacred omphalos of the earth at Delphi. I
suspended a plumb-line from the parting in the hair on the forehead of the London statue, and found that the lead touched the
right half of the great toe of the right foot; the line applied to
the cast of the Athenian statue in Munich, here placed on the
omphalos, showed that the lead fell slightly over two inches from
the great toe of the right foot-mark on the omphalos towards
the mark of the left foot. As there might be some slight
difference in the position of the head in these two replicas, and
to verify any resulting inaccuracy, I let the perpendicular fall
from the middle of the navel in the London statue, which fell
about half an inch to the (our) right of the great toe of the right
foot, while applied to the Athenian statue it fell slightly over
three inches from the right footmark.
The omphalos is therefore fairly got rid of, and we may
now return to the consideration of this athlete statue. The
question now arises, to what class of athletes does this representation belong ?
The intention of the sculptor to present the heavy type of
strength is so manifest in the London statue that, negatively, we
cannot consider him to belong to the category of light athletes,
those, namely, of the pentathlon; and the sculptor who could make
such a statue undoubtedly had the power to distinguish different
types of men. This statue belongs to the heavier genus of
athletes, the boxer or the pancratiast. In the earliest period, as
we have mentioned before, the artists were not able to confer
individual character upon their statues, and the difficulty must
have been greatest in cases where a spear or a discus, or halteres,
could not be added as attributes to make the nature of the
athlete clear. This kind of athlete had to be expressed in the
figure itself. In reading Pausanias we notice that the greatest
number of statues of Olympian and other victors which he
mentions were pancratiasts and pugilists; but no pancratiast
and no early pugilist has as yet been identified, because they
were wanting in so simple an attribute as the discus. Such an
athlete could, however, clearly be indicated; not as the distortus
and elaboratusof some of the pugilist statues of later times, but by

STATUES.
183
the sculptor'spower of expression by means of the bodily rhythm

even in quiet attitudes. On vase figures we generally see them
in action, and there is no difficulty in indicating them; but these
very vase figures show us an attitude characteristic of these
games, one which is not restless and dramatic, but is most
suitable for plastic art. It is in figures representing the
ephedros. Before a contest the combatants drew lots, and each
pair that had drawn the same letter fought; but if there was an
uneven number of combatants, the third had to wait until the two
had finished, and then he fought the victor. This man was called
the ephedros (Plate VI., Fig. 2), and he is represented on vase
pictures' waiting, while two are boxing or wrestling, in a peculiar
attitude which seems to have been characteristic of a heavy athlete. This position is the same as in the statues we are discussing.
The ephedros stands firmly, while the upper part of the body,
chest, shoulders, and arms are especially accentuated. Involuntarily the eye of the spectator was drawn to those parts which
were of greatest importance in this sport, and when highly
developed were the chief characteristics of a pugilist or a pancratiast. The shoulders are drawn back and the chest protrudes,
while, by this movement, the skin is tightly drawn over the ribs,
which therefore become conspicuous. All lines of the statue
converge towards the chest, as in the Pallas of Velletri all lines
meet in the forehead. This will account for certain characteristics which KShler ascribes especially to the archaism in the
work, when he says (1. c.): ' I carattere arcaico si manifesta
sopratutto nell' attitudine della figura, che quella di un uomo,
che con stento torce le braccia e le spalle in dietro di modo che il
petto sporge al di fituori, mentre le parti di dietro fui la dove
finisce la schiena ononmolto incavate.' The veins, which are,
in any case, accentuated with a certain exaggeration, are most
visible and protruding on the shoulder and upper arm, a
means, in the early times, of indicating which parts are
momentarily or habitually more especially exerted. On the
1 Laborde, Vases de Lamberg, i. pl.
74; Gerhard, Antike Bildwerke, Taf.
vii. A relief in Clarac (i. pl. 200,
271), though very late in style, shows
how the chest was drawn back.-Mus.
Bouillon, t. iii. suppl. pl. 2. No. 15 ;
Jahn, Beschr.d. Vas. Sam. K. zLudw.I.,
No. 787, 497. The illustration which

we give of an ephedros does not correspond to the statue with regard to
the position of the feet; in the other
instances from vases which we quote,
and in many not quoted, the position
is the same even in this respect.

184
figures from the western pediment of the temple of Aegina the

veins are not generally indicated. But in a few instances, as the
so-called Achilles,1 as Brunn has remarked, they are indicated
on the right arm to suggest the exertion of the wounded
warrior who is struggling to rise.
The question then is narrowed to this: is this athlete a
pancratiast' or a pugilist ? At first I supposed that the statue
represented a victor in the pancration, the game which, as the
name indicates, demanded the greatest strength. The pancration 2 was a combination of wrestling and boxing: the combatants
could use their hands and feet, they fought standing, and continued fighting while on the ground; it was the most violent
of contests, easily became brutal, and not unfrequently brought
on the death of a combatant.3 A very favourite and advantageous method seems to have been for a pancratiast to get his
adversary in what is called with us 'in chancery,' to catch the
1 Brunn, Beschreibung der kgl.
Glyptothek zu Mitnchen, No. 60, p.
87.
2 Of. Annali, ii. 1830, Gerhard, p.
215, 216, &c. ; Monumenti, pl. xxii.
56, s. 6, also on bronze vase, Mon. v.
pl. 25 (1857); Clarac, ii. 616, 17, i.
pl. 200, 271 ; Bouillon, vol. iii. suppl.
pl. ii. No. 15. The Florence group of
'wrestlers' is also a scene from the
pancration, Reale Galleria di Fir. ser.
iv. vol. iii., pl. 122.
3 Paus. 1. 8, cap. 40.
4 On an archaic tazza, Annali, ib.
1878, p. 34, tav. D., Heracles has the
Titan Anteus in chancery; the same
Heracles and the lion (Gerhard,Auser.
Vasenb.iv. Taf. 266), and Theseus and
the Minotaur (Gerh. Auser. Vasenb.vol.
iii. Taf. 160 and 161). Prof. Colvin
directed my attention to a vase published by Heydemann (third in Hallisches Winckelmann's Programm) in
which a Lapitha holds a Centaur in a
Cf. also, Jahn,
similar position.
Beschreibung der Vasensamml. Kdnig
Ludwig's I., No. 307, 476, 1199, on
which vases with mythological combats
even the ephedros appears. Motives
from the palaestra were transferred to
mythological scenes to illustrate the

contest for which the vase was a prize.
I take this opportunity to make one
general hypothetical remarkwhich is of
importance for the general method of
vase interpretation, andwhich space will
not allow me to deal with? at greater
length. The Greek vases of better
quality may be classed, according to
their original destination, into two great
classes, sepulchral and agonistic. The
sepulchral vases were meant to be
placed within the graves; the agonistic
vases contained the oil which was
given as a prize to the victors in the
games. A third class may be added,
namely, those that were given as
presents between lovers. I do not
refer to common vessels that were used
to convey oil and merchandise. I
doubt whether these were ornamented
in an artistic style. Now the illustrations were influenced by their destination. A sepulchral vase destined
for the grave of a youth would be
decorated, e.g. on the one side with a
scene from the Triptolemos myth; on
the other side it may have genre-scenes
from the life of a Greek youth, as I
have shown in the Poniatowski vase,

STATUES.
185
opponent's neck in the one arm, and to strike with the fist of
the other hand. What chiefly distinguishes the pancratiast
from the pugilist is the caestus, which the boxer always has in
artistic illustrations, though there are a few cases in which
pancratiasts (evidently from the fact of their using their hands
to wrestle, and not only to strike) also have the caestus; but
these are quite exceptional. The pancratiast is distinguished
from the wrestler in that he strikes. A frequent motive is
that of one of the combatants catching the leg of his adversary
with the one hand, and giving him a blow with the other,
as, for instance, on the above quoted vase of Lamberg, published
by Laborde. The pugilist is typically indicated in illustrations,
in that he is merely striking, and has the caestus.1 In the earliest
times the caestus corresponded somewhat to our boxing-gloves;
it was called pelttX,2 and was not meant to enhance the severity
of the blow, but, as the name indicates, to avoid pain to the
striker, and perhaps even to weaken the blow for the one struck.
The next stage, still belonging to the early period, which probably
continued till near the decadence, was the stiff thong of hide,
tqpa @JvT,which doubtless more effectually spared the fingers
and knuckles of the boxer. The boxer generally covered his hand
and wrist with some soft material and fastened it by winding the
thong round: he placed one end of the thong longitudinally
along the wrist, and then wound it tight round the wrist and the
hand, passing the other end through the palm of the hand. On a
For the graves of warriors fallen in
battle, corresponding scenes from the
Trojan war, &c. In the case of
athletic vases, even in the mythological
scenes, attitudes and situations will be
chosen from the game for which they
were offered as prizes. Jahn etc. 584,
has a representation of the contest
between Peleus and Atalante, while
the back is decorated with a scene
. The iaxo's, or
from a wvy-yu
'raZs
KaXo's,seems to me to be a token
of approbation and congratulation for
the winner, the recipient of the vase.
Vases as gifts between lovers will also
be decorated with corresponding lovescenes and myths. Of course a KCxtL
given as a 'prize will appropriately be
ornamented with a convivial scene.

I do not mean that this is the only
and exhaustive point from which vasepictures ought to be viewed; but what I
here suggest is, that it is an important
point from which to view vase-pictures,
and that if it were carried out it would
no doubt throw much new light on
these representations.
1 For illustrations, cf. Inghirami,
Pitture di Vasi Fittili, vol. iii. tav.
232; Clarac, pl. 851, 2180 A; 1788,
855, 2182; 856, 2180, 858, 2181, 858
d, 2187 a, &c.; Gerhard, Auserw.
Vasenb. iv. Taf. 272 and 271; Jahn,
411.
2
Paus. viii, 40.

186
OF RHEGION
PYTHAGORAS
Panathenaic vase published by De Witte,' a 'rvy~ is represented,

and an ephedros is standing on one side of the combatants,
holding his hand to his lips, evidently in the act of pulling the
end of the thong between his teeth to tighten it round his
hand, which is covered with some cloth or skin. This kind of
caestus I believe to have been prevalent during the early Greek
age, while it is to the decadence and brutalisation of athletic
games that the barbarous caestus of Roman ages belongs, which
was furnished with leaden and iron balls,
'Terga boum plumbo insuto ferroque rigebant; '
(Verg. Aen. v. 405);
and with which defeat produced results as described by Vergil
(Aen. v. 468),
'Ast illum fidi aequales, genua aegra trahentem,
Iactantemque utroque caput, crassumque cruorem
Ore eiectantem,mistosquein sanguine dentes,
Ducunt ad naves.'
On the tree stump of the London statue there runs a band or
strap about half an inch in width, and about two and a half feet in
length. This strap puzzled archaeologists, especially as they considered the statue to be an Apollo. I at first supposed that it was
meant to represent a victor's band; but I found that the artist
of the statue could have indicated far more clearly the texture
of a band, and here there is a decided intention to render the
stiff texture of leather, while the thickness and narrowness
would not suit a band. It immediately became clear to me that
we here have to deal with the leather thong, the lpa'' 6,
which shows this athlete to be a pugilist.
If, finally, I were to attempt a restoration of this statue,
I should give him in his left hand a palm-branch, which
would account for the notch on the side of his left leg near the
knee. The Athenian statue has a similar remnant of marble,
which shows that he also held a long attribute in his left hand.
The palm-branch was one of the essential prizes awarded to
Monumenti delWInst. vol. x. tav.
48. The ephedros quoted above from
Gerhard'sAntike Bildwerke, Taf. vii. is
to the left of the two boxers who have
caestus ; on the right is the agonodikes.
1
This ephedros holds a thong in his

left hand (the tp&
s Ots), while his right
hand is violently drawn back as if
about to strike a heavy blow.

187
victors in all the games' and they are frequently represented on

vase-figures (e.g. on the one above-mentioned, published by De
Witte) bearing it. Though it could easily and lastingly be
given to bronze figures (of which material the athlete statues
generally were), it was most easily broken in marble statues.
But if a hand with a piece of a palm-branch was found by one
of the restorers during the Renaissance in Italy, and even were
found to-day, it would be considered a 'pezzo d'arco' of an
Apollo; for the tendency prevails to see in every youthful male
figure an Apollo, as nearly all the female figures are termed
Venere.
It now remains to ask, to what period does this pugilist belong ?
Several of the above mentioned writers on this statue have
considered the archaic elements in it to be conventional, and not
genuine; what is called archaistic, or' archaisirend,' in contradistinction to archaic.
Ever since statues like the Dresden Athene 2 and the Neapolitan Artemis3 have been found, in which the intentional
rendering of imperfections belonging to early art is manifestly
connected with considerable power of freedom in execution, and
especially since Kekul 4 has traced the eclectic style of Pasiteles
in the work of one of his pupils, Stephanos, these discoveries, as
is so frequently the case, have led to extremes, so that archaeo'
logists nowadays see 'carchaisiren and Pasiteles in a disproportionately great number of ancient statues. This exaggeration cannot but be harmful to the investigation of the style of
ancient works. Those who merely look for archaising forget
one important factor in the copies of the Greek originals from
the Roman era which have come down to us-namely, what
may be termed modernising. Anybody at all acquainted with
the peculiarities of 'old masters' knows how difficult it is for
artists of a later time to copy exactly the works of their fore1 Paus. viii. 48; Vitruv. Preface to
lib. ix. In the Patissia Museum at
Athens there is an unfinished marble
statue of a young athlete who holds a
palm-branch in his hand. In this
case the palm has withstood the
effect of time, because the statue is
merely blocked out, and all presented
one firm mass.
2
Overbeck, Gesch. d. Gr. Pl. i. p.
195.
3 Raoul Rochette, Peintures de Pompeii, pl. 5, and Overbeck, Gesch.d. Gr.
Pl. i. p. 194.
4
Annali, 1865, p. 56 seqq., 'Statua
Pompeiana di Apolline,' and in his
above-quoted work on the Gruppe des
Kiinstlers Menelaos.

188
OF RHEGION
PYTHAGORAS
fathers: modern and subjective elements will invariably creep

into the work of the copyist. This is most evident in copies
from the paintings of old Italian masters. But it can be seen
even if we compare the various replicas of the same work in
ancient marbles which lead back to a common original, as, for
instance, the Discobolos of Myron, the Boy with the Goose, the
Thorn-Extractor, &c. We then see how they vary, how the
hair-nay, even the position of the head, varies in the Discobolos
in the Palazzo Massimi in Rome, and the one in the British
Museum. And these works in the original moreover did not
belong to the markedly archaic class whose characteristics are so
difficult to imitate, because they belong to a period so remote
and essentially different in spirit from the age of the copyist.
A very clever copyist will be able to avoid to some degree this
discord between the modern and the ancient. A comparison,
even hasty, between our statue and the ephebe by Stephanos
and the manifestly Pasitelean statues will immediately show that
there is not the slightest relation between them.
The simple fact that there exist four replicas of this work
proves that it could not have come from the studio of an
obscure imitator, but leads us back, in all probability, to a
famous Greek original. An archaeologist in whose artistic tact
and thoroughness I have the greatest faith objected to me that
be found a lack of unity in the 'Apollo of the Omphalos' which
made him doubt its genuine archaism. With this feeling I can
thoroughly sympathise, and it can readily be accounted for.
Thus an athlete on an omphalosis in itself a contradiction which
robs the statue of its unity of composition. The first stimulus
to this inquiry was the feeling of incongruity which I experienced
upon seeing the London statue with the subscription 'Apollo.'
Then again the head-dress, which was not accounted for, and
furthermore, the attitude, which seems constrained unless we
recognise the intention expressed in it, must produce such an
impression. And finally, this statue, as will become clearer,
belongs to that very period of transition from the archaic to the
greatest freedom, in which we necessarily must assume a
mixture of the two elements. On the one hand the head-dress,
the peculiar formation of the navel (not perpendicular, but the
lower half running inward, and furnished, as it were, with an
eyelid-this peculiarity is in all the replicas), the flatness of the

189
abdomen, the straight line of the pubes, the swelling glutaei,

&c.,-all these are archaic elements. On the other hand, the
general modelling and the rhythmical treatment of the whole
figure are not far from the perfection of the masterpieces of
Pheidias. Whoever has studied the anatomical proportions of
the human body cannot fail to see that there is the greatest
organic unity in this work.'
According to its execution it cannot be of earlier origin than
the Aeginetan marbles, and not later than the Discobolos of
Myron. Conze and several other archaeologists have thought it
probable that the Apollo was the work of the sculptor Kalamis,
whose life falls within this epoch, and he conjectures that it may
be a replica of the Apollo Alexikakos 2 in Athens by that
a o-evbov Ka&
sculptor. But this statue has not the AtLSt&ala
not
the
softness
and
sweetness
which
is chiefly
XeXrO60,3
characteristic of this sculptor. A small Athenian altar with
relief, which Overbeck4 believes to illustrate the style of
Kalamis, together with a Calabrian terra-cotta representing
Hermes and Aphrodite with Eros in her arms, published by
Michaelis,5may give us an impression of what the style of Kalamis
was like. Far more unfounded is the recent assertion of
Furtwaengler6 that the "Omphalos Apollo correspondsto the style
of Alcamenes." In fact the style of our statue is not purely
Attic; it has a large admixture of the Peloponnesian severity and
dryness, while again it cannot be classed among the Peloponnesian
works, and cannot be ascribed to any of the artists of Argos and
Sikyon. By this negative method of exclusion there remains
but one sculptor in this age, Pythagoras of Rhegion, famous for
his athlete statues, who was neither an Attic nor a Peloponnesian
sculptor.
1 I cannot refrain from quoting the
exclamation of an artist of repute upon
examining the London statue in my
presence; it was: 'Mantegna 1'
2 Paus. i. 3, 4.
3 Lucian, Imagg. 6. Cf. Overbeck,
Antiken Schriftquellen zur Gesch. d.
bild. Kiinstler bei den Griechen. Pp.
95, 98.
4 Gesch.d. griech. Plastik, i. p. 219.
s Annali dell' Inst. 1867, tay. d'agg.
D.
6 Mittheilungen des deutschen archaeolog. Instituts in Athen, 1880, p. 37.

190
III.
of Rhegion1 flourished between the 70th and
PYTHAGORAS
80th Olympiad. We have two fixed dates on his works, 01. 73,
and 01. 77. Pliny's statement that he flourished in the 90th
Olympiad, is decidedly an error,and is to be attributed (as Brunn
has shown) to his assumption that, as Pythagoras was contemporary with Myron, and Myron with Polycleitos, Pythagoras
lived as late as the latter.' According to Pausanias,2 he was a
pupil of Klearchos, who again was a pupil of Eucheiros of
Corinth, whose master was Syadras of Sparta. He is chiefly
known and praised for his athlete statues. And that this was
his strong point is evident from the simple fact that of his
fourteen statues which are mentioned by ancient authors, eight
were of athletes, while of the remaining six, two again, the
winged Perseus3 and the contest between Eteokles and Polyneikes,4 were athletic in character. Only one female figure is
mentioned as by him, the Europa on the Bull5; here we do not
know enough to form any opinion. The remaining statues were
probably all nude men.
It appears that he excelled in rendering the nude male form.
How excellent his work was and how highly it was appreciated
becomes evident not only from the fact that, as has before been
quoted from Pliny, he gained a victory over Myron with his
statue of a pancratiast, but from the praise which classical authors
bestow upon him. If we bear in mind how sober an author
Pausanias was, and how sparing he is with his praise, we can
appreciate the weight of his remark on the statue of the
d
pugilist Euthymus by Pythagoras, 6 as 6-dc
Xtora
and when we bear in mind that, a few lines after his highitLo9;6
praise
of the artist Pythagoras with regard to his statue of the
1 Brunn, Geschichte der Griech.
Kibzstler, i. pp. 132, et seq.; Beul6,
Histoire de l'Art grecqueavant PHricles,
p. 405; Overbeck, Gesch. d. griech.
Pl. i., p. 202.
2 vi. 13.
4 Tatian, c. Graec. 54, p. 118 (ed.

North).
5 Tatian, c. Graec.53, p. 116; Varro,
de Ling. Lat. v. 31; Cic. in Verr. iv.
60, 135.
6 vi. 6, 4.
3 Dio Chrysost. Orat. 37, 10.

191
Leontislos 1 (el7rep
TL9
al 'XXo0 alyaO9 Tab E
he simply says of Pheidias, Eveca Kal T7E7de
wrXaCrtx)v),
ctdXuaaa To cPet&ov ro-ob'av,-we can then see in what high
wrestler
appreciation this artist was held.

But we know that he was not merely a clever follower of his
masters, but that he greatly contributed to the advancement of
art, that he was an innovator. So we learn from Pliny: 2 IHic
primus nervos et venas expressit capillumque diligentius. The
ov in such a context is not always to be transprimus and
7rpTc
lated literally
'the first,' or ' the first time,' but it means that
something has been done with full consciousness, that it is a
marked step in advance. The hair of our pugilist is more carefully worked out than in similar earlier or contemporary works,
e.g. the Aeginetans. Nervos really means sinews, and Pliny
means that he essentially advanced in the rendering of muscles
and sinews. The way in which the muscles and sinews are
treated in the pugilist we are dealing with is unprecedented in
early art. Finally, I have already mentioned the veins as
peculiarly pronounced in all the four replicas of this statue.
They are no doubt exaggerated, and I have attributed this to the
desire of the artist to express the habitual exertion of the upper
part of the body in this person; yet even with this consideration there remains a degree of clumsiness and exaggeration in
the pronounced indication of veins in this statue which points
to the fact that it is a new thing. Moderation is a result of
maturity. A beginner in art is apt to exaggerate in drawing and
in colour; an artist who begins to indicate that which was not
indicated before will render it more pronouncedly than he will
later on, when he is accustomed to it. From the way in which
the veins are here indicated, not only on the shoulder and the
upper arm, but on the inner side of the arm down to the wrist,
and on the foot (sometimes not quite with anatomical correctness) we feel that this was an early attempt. On earlier archaic
statues there is no indication of veins. I have carefully
examined the Aeginetan marbles, and have found that on the
western pediment the indication of veins is very rare, and so
to say, timidly ventured upon. Besides the Achilles there are
three others who have very slight indications on parts that are
1
vi. 4, 3.
2 34, 59.

192
strained.' On the eastern pediment, however, the figures have a

highly-developed system of veins, as clear as in the case of the
pugilist. It is universally accepted that the temple of Athene
at Aegina was built about the 75th Olympiad. Now it is also
accepted that the style of the eastern pediment is far more
advanced than that of the western pediment. Either there
was a great revolution, or rather reformation, within the style
of the artist after he had completed the western pediment, or
else the older artist died before the temple was completed,
and one of his younger pupils or sons who was of the 'more
modern' school, completed the work of his father or master in
the eastern pediment, while he in general retained the style of
the western pediment, but especially in the execution of details
gave way to his later acquisitions. Pythagoras was already an
artist of repute in the 73rd, or at least the 74th 01., and the
striking difference in the eastern and western pediment with
regard to the expression of veins justifies the hypothesis that
in the western pediment the artist was not wholly under the
influence of the innovation of Pythagoras, while in the eastern
pediment he freely laid himself open to it.2
But this passage in Pliny is not restricted to the three points
(nervos, venas, capillum) which he enumerates, but seems to
express the general excellency of the modelling, the indication
of texture in the statues of Pythagoras. And the whole weight
of this dictum can only become clear to us when we bring this
passage into connexion with what Diogenes Laertius says
of Pythagoras:s 'rptTrov 8oicovr"Pa
ical o-v/.leTrpiav
u91po.i
60TOXaocOat.
I believe that those 4 who formerly commented on this passage,

though they justly conceived its weight, were more or less
unconsciously biassed by the application of the word rhythm to
poetry. Rhythm, as here applied to plastic art, is not imme1 The dying one to the left, the arm
on which he rests; so also Achilles;
also the second figure to left, and on
the foot of the kneeling hoplite on
the right side.
2 Instances in which
younger artists
have influenced the style of their older
contemporaries are frequent. I need
only adduce Raphael and Francia. To
make a clear but simple chronological

statement, I may merely say that
Pythagoras was to his older contemporary, Onatasof Aegina, as Myronwas
to Pythagoras, and as Polycleitos and
Pheidias were to Myron.
3 viii. 46.
4 Brunn and
Overbeck, I.e.

STATUES.
193
diately connected with rhythm in poetry,' and at all events

plastic rhythm does not derive its meaning from poetic rhythm
with the Greeks.
The word lp6vq, in the first instance, is to be translated
simply by ' flow.' While symmetry is an architectural idea, the
exact accordance between the two halves of one body, which
forms the essential quality of architecture, rhythm is a plastic
idea, has its essence in a certain deviation from this absolute
equality, and is the characteristic of sculpture. Symmetry
implies and expresses the lasting, uniform and inorganic; rhythm
implies change, the organic, as sculpture deals with animal life.
Life manifests itself to our senses in motion, flow, and change;
life is individual, and the individual consists in a deviation from
the absolutely regular. Archaic sculpture was too architectural,
and in the regularity of its figures it counteracted all appearance
of individuality, and the statues did not produce the effect of
vitality. It expressed symmetry to the exclusion of rhythm.
The innovation of Pythagoras was, that he added this flowing,
irregular element to art, and thereby contributed to the appearance of vitality. But he kept within the bounds of what is
pleasing to the human eye, which demands a certain regularity;
and though he furthered rhythm, he did not do it to the exclusion of symmetry. While infusing the greatest life into his
statues, he kept within the bounds of what we should call
plastic composition,in which certain elements of living nature
are eliminated, others accentuated, and all are bound together
by the unity of form. This harmony between life and form is
the most characteristic feature of Greek art.
Now within this general definition of rhythm and its relation
to symmetry, we can distinguish several stages:
a. Vitality is in the first place given to the statue by means of
the continuous flow of the surface. Each smallest part of the
surface in a good statue must have the resemblance of moving
and vibrating like the skin of a real body, which never
presents a geometrically straight line, but is a continuous
succession of elevations or recessions, arsis and thesis-that is,
it flows. Vitality must, as it were, stream into the clay through
1 Aristotle (Rhetor. 3, 8) distinguishes between Cjrpov and v0Eldr,in
assigning the former to poetry and the
H. S.-VOL.
1.
latter to prose.-Cf. Plato, Leg. 2,

init. Dionys. Hal. De Comp. Verb., ch.
ii. p. 56, ed. Reiske.
O

194
PYTHAGORASOF RHEGION
the fingers of the modelling artist. The difference in this respect

between Greek works and Roman copies that were made to
order like mechanical ware will illustrate the difference between
a statue possessed of this vitality of texture and one which is
wanting in this first requisite. The statue we are dealing with,
though a copy from the bronze original, is still an excellent
Greek copy. Each part of the surface is carefully and
thoroughly executed, and the difference in texture between the
hair, the skin, and the stem of the tree is clearly indicated.
To attain this effect, besides the feeling of form which must be
inherent in the artist, much and intense work is needed. Hasty
modelling (unless it is meant to be a sketch) can never convey
The same holds good in all arts. The organic
vitality.
the
quality,
continuity of composition in literary work can only
be attained when the subject has been thoroughly and for a long
while revolved in the brain of the author, or has been modelled
and remodelled during the process of fixing it on paper. But
the texture of the surface varies in appearance in accordance
with what is below it, which it covers. As it covers bone or
muscle or softer material, so will its appearance be different. This
difference the sculptor must indicate by means of modelling, he
must look deeper than the mere superficial appearance to what
anatomically lies below, as the cause of the phenomenal difference.
But in poor work the muscles, joints, &c., are indicated by
means of simple elevations that do not gradually rise and fall,
are not intermediated-they seem put together; while. in good
work the transition is gradual, the lines are not torn asunderall flows together,as in nature. An excellent instance of this
is furnished by our statue, the earliest statue in which we notice
this quality. Finally, each distinct part of the body has a
character of its own: an arm, a leg, the neck-all have a
distinguishable character in their form and texture from the
torso itself, and this difference of appearance must be rendered
in a good statue. The artists who made the earliest works
which have come down to us could not do this. What Pliny
says of Pythagoras, that he was the first clearly to express
sinews and veins, and that he rendered hair more carefully, is
an incomplete way (by enumeration of a few attributes for the
essence of the thing) of expressing, that Pythagoras was the first
to infuse vitality into his statues by means of the indication of

195
natural texture in the surface of the human body. And this is

the first stage in the realisation of plastic vttO6s.
b. Rhythm, the organic quality of a work of sculpture, is
furthermore to be found in the relation which subsists between
the parts of the body among each other and between the parts
and the body as a whole. Here symmetry begins to be manifestly and organically connected with rhythm. In the first
place, no part must be out of proportion with the whole. The
leg must be of a certain dimension in proportion to the arm,
the neck of a certain thickness and length in comparison to the
width of the shoulders, &c., and all members must bear a
certain relation to the size and physical character of the whole
figure. But in the second place this well-proportioned figure
must not appear architectural, but must impress us with the
life which is essential to the animal organism which it represents. Such life manifests itself to us in the moving power of
the organism. An architectural edifice must above all impress
us with its immovability; its power of lasting and remaining
unchanged. This quality becomes manifest to our senses, e.g.
in that the columns are all parallel and of equal height, so that
the roof rests firmly on them. But movement in nature,
physical motion, is a deviation from this absolute regularity and
sameness; it is not represented by a straight line, but a spiral,
wavy line-it flows. We notice this throughout nature; in its
grosser appearance it is the system of alternation. A diagram
of the succession of the branches of a tree shows us a-spiral
growth. Animals and human beings in walking move their
legs alternately; nay, in walking we move the arm and the
corresponding leg in an opposed direction, and this very
opposition between the upper and lower half of our body
is one of the chief causes of progression in walking. Now
the Archaic statues of a date before our athlete have both
legs firmly planted, the one before the other, and the body is
equally balanced between the two. It is the same principle
as that which subsists in the columns in architecture, and this
adds to the impression of lifelessness which these early works
convey to us; they do not suggest movement. In our
statue, however, the weight is thrown upon the right leg,
while the left leg is comparatively unfreighted. This is the
plastic rhythm which has been introduced into this work, and
o2

196
has superseded the autocracy of architectural symmetry which

reigned supreme previous to this epoch. This gives the statue
the potentiality of moving, and actually gives it the appearance
of inner movement to and fro, and from one leg to the other (as
in the indication of texture the skin seems to vibrate), while the
restful firm position on the one leg gives the monumental quiet
which works of sculpture need. We shall presently see how
this position of the legs in connexion with the attitude of the
upper part of the body serves to give expression to a still
higher stage of rhythm. The Germans express this in distinguishing between Standbein and Spielbein, the leg of rest and the
leg of play; and it was generally believed, from a note in Pliny,
that this was an innovation of Polycleitos. But this cannot
possibly be so; for the violently moving figures of Myron, and
even the Aeginetan marbles, are a stage further in the expression
of motion. And yet, when Pliny says of Polycleitos, Proprium eius
est uno crure ut insisterent signa excogitasse,'there must be some
meaning and truth in what he says, though again we need here
not conceive this as if literally for the very first time such a
thing had been done, but as habitually, with full consciousness
and accentuation. It is clear that some innovation must have
been introduced. The mere resting on one leg it cannot mean.
As is so frequently the case, the monuments lead us to the
correct interpretation of the literary passage. All the numerous
replicas of the Doryphoros and Diadumenos of Polycleitos
represent the figure as striding forward. The one leg is placed
forward, while the other, merely touching the ground with the
toes, is dragged behind. This is no doubt a step in advance in
the expression of motion, and is much more 'uno crure insistere,' than in our statue, where the left leg, though relatively
free, still fully touches the ground and bears some part of the
weight. Michaelis,"I am pleased to find, has given exactly the
same interpretation to this passage.
c. The third stage, in which rhythm and vitality are expressed
in statues, is in the harmony between all parts and the uniform
physical character and the situation of the figure. This would
be, for instance, if all the parts united to convey the impression
1 N. H. xxxiv. 56.
2 Annali
and 29.
dell' Instit.
1878, pp. 28
Cf. Blhinner in Rhei'a.
Museum, vol. 32, p. 593, and Petersen,

Arch. Zeit. 1864, p. 131.

197
of a strong or a weak man in relaxation or exertion. This

statue of a pugilist must represent a strong man, and so each
part of the body is in keeping with this salient feature; an arm
or leg, or a foot found alone could immediately be identified as
belonging to a strong man. But it is in the way in which the parts
combine to one attitude that the special nature of this athlete
is expressed. He stands firmly, and we almost feel how he
presses the ground with his right foot; and this is indicated in
the way in which the muscle above the knee stands forth
markedly, and the ankle is curved,-he is pressing back the
knee. The muscles of the calf are also strongly pronounced.
The shoulders are pressed back in the position of the ephedros,
while the chest is pressed forward. The more the chest is
pressed forward, the more must the lower part of the back and
the spine recede. This position, however, if we stand equally
on both feet, becomes stiff and unnatural; but the exertion of
the upper part of the body is compensated as soon as we throw
the weight more on one leg.1 This compensation of rhythm is
carried still further in what may be called 'crossed rhythm'
(Xlao~uc), to which Brunn has drawn attention in: his recent
article on a 'Tipo statuario di atleta.' 2 This rhythmic compensation becomes still more evident in the fact that, while below the
waist the balance of our figure dips towards the right, that of
the parts above draws towards the left. The palm-branch he
held in his hand no doubt added to this effect, and counteracted
the heaviness in composition produced on the right side below by
the tree-stem. Were we to imitate an orator projecting his left
hand, we should naturally throw the weight of the body on the
right leg. This is in figures in rest. In actual movement in a
forward direction, the right arm will recede while the right foot
advances, and vice versd. This, as Brunn has pointed out, is not
to be found in the earliest works. We meet this expression of
rhythm for the first time in our statue. How far Pythagoras
had advanced in rhythmical expression becomes evident
when Pliny3 tells us that the spectator almost felt the pain of
1 It is most important for one
who studies these questions to imitate
himself the position of statues. In
many cases this is the simplest method
of recognising how a statue must
have been, which we see in a very
fragmentary condition.
2 Annali, 1879, p. 201, seqq.
' Syracusis autem
S xxxiv. 59.
claudicantem, cujus ulceris dolorem
sentire etiam spectantes videntur.'
Overbeck, Schriftquellen, &c. No. 499.

OF RHEGION
PYTHAGORAS
198
the 'limping one' (Philoctetes) by Pythagoras. But this

merely means physical pain, and not moral grief. And here we
have the limit of the artistic powers of Pythagoras.
There are still higher stages in the development of plastic
rhythm,1 to which Pythagoras did not attain; but these belong
to a later period. They are the expression of moral character
and individual mood in plastic rhythm.
The statue of the pugilist which we have been considering
affords the best illustration for the various stages of rhythm, so
far as we have traced them. At the same time the pleasing
outline of the composition, the symmetry of the whole, is
blended in harmQny with its flowing vitality. And thus
the positive evidence also leads us to assign this work to
Pythagoras.
If, finally, we look amongst the recorded works of this
sculptor for one which corresponds to this statue, we find that
we can, with the greatest hypothetical probability, consider this a
copy of the statue of the pugilist Euthymos,2 which Pausanias
considered so worthy of admiration; we know that this statue
existed in many copies.
To account for the great strength of very famous athletes, the
Greeks in several instances ascribed to them divine origin. So
the Thasians maintained that Heracles took the form of the
1 The completion of the examination
of this most important factor of plastic
art I must defer to a special inquiry
on rhythm.
2 Since the above was written Mr.
Percy Gardnerhas drawn my attention
to an inscription from a base at Olympia, published by E. Curtius, Arch.
Zeit. xxxvi. p. 83. This base belonged
to the statue of Euthymos :
E6Ovos
AoKps 'AvTrLYXEov' 'rp1s

'OAt.rL'
EVLKWV,
eltdva a' rrqrevT vVfBEBporo07sE'opav.

E60v/uos AoKp6s M70'ZetpUplouV&V0Ke1E
lnvOaydpas YLwos erorlUerv.
Dr. Weil mentions a cavity on the

top of the base, 0,41 metres in length
probably admitting a plinth. If anything could be ascertained with regard
to the position of the feet of the statue
that stood on this pedestal, my hypo-
thesis would be finally verified or disproved. Pythagoras here calls himself

a Samian. Pliny (xxxiv. 60) is the
only author who makes two persons
of the Samian and Rhegian. Urlichs
has shown some time ago (Chrestomathian
Pliniana, p. 320) that Pythagoras belonged to the Samian emigrants who
were induced by Anaxilas the tyrant of
Rhegion to settle in Zankle (subsequently called Messana). This town
came under the sway of Anaxilas, and
so Pythagoras could naturally call
himself a Samian or a Rhegian. This
may have induced a Syracusan comic
writer to make a jest of 'the two
persons who looked so very much alike,'
and this was probably the source from
which Pliny gathered his information
regarding the two sculptors and the
striking resemblance between them.

STATUES.
199
father of the famous athlete Theagenes1 and begot him. Euthymos 2 was reputed to be the son of the river-god Kaekinos.
After death they became heroes: so the pugilists Kleomedes,3
Theagenes, and Euthymos. They were then adored, as was
natural, as a kind of minor gods who bestowed physical
strength upon their adorers. Their statues were placed
all over the country, at the roadsides, on public places, and
in the gymnasia. Pausanias says of Theagenes: 'I also
know that statues of Theagenes are erected in many places
within and beyond Greece, and that he heals sicknesses and
receives adoration as a god. The statue which he has in the
Altis is by Glaukias of Aegina.' I think it not improbable
that the so-called Strangford 'Apollo,' 4 which is doubtlessly an
athlete, and in the style of work corresponds exactly to Archaic
Aeginetan art of the time of Glaukias, may be a copy of the
statue of Theagenes. Now Euthymos is held in equal honour.
Fabulous feats, such as the expulsion of the Black Spirit who
haunted Temessa (or Thempsa), are ascribed to him. Pausanias
also saw an illustration of this feat on the copy of a painting.
'He arrived at a very advanced age (so Pausanias proceeds), and
left this earth, without dying, in a peculiar manner.' He was
worshipped as a hero, and, as we know from a passage in Pliny,
there must have been many copies of his statue scattered
about, for Pliny tells us of two that were struck by lightning on
the same day.5
All these circumstances make it highly probable that the
so-called Choiseul-Gouffier Apollo, together with the so-called
Apollo on the Omphalos and the other replicas of this statue,
are copies of the statue of the pugilist Euthymos by Pythagoras
of Rhegion.
In the beginning of this inquiry I pointed to the fact that
before Greek art could arrive at the height in which in Athens
1
Paus. vi. 11.

vi. 6.
2 Paus.
- Paus. vi. 9.
4 Said to come from the island of
Anaphe.-Newton, Essays on Art and
.Archaeology, London, 1880, p. 81.
5 N. H. vii. 152. 'Consecratus est
vivos sentiensque eiusdem oraculi iussu
et lovis deorum summi adstipulatu

Euthymus pycta, semper Olympiae
victor et semel victus. Patria ei Locri in
Italia. Ibi imaginem eius et Olympiae
alteram eodem die tactam fulmine
Callimachum ut nihil aliud miratum
video,' &c. Overbeck, Schriftquellcn,
No. 494.

200
Pheidias infused with ideal forms the figures which he rendered

true to nature, perfection in the technical handling of the
material had to precede. The history of Archaic art in Greece
is the history of the struggle of the artistic spirit with the
reluctant material, and its final victory over it. Now if we
consider the sculptor Pythagoras in this connexion we find that
he holds the most prominent position in the consummation of
this end. The earliest works are architectural, to the exclusion
of vitality. And the struggle will now be for a combination of
vitality and regularity of form in the full harmony of the
organic body. But the progression was not simple; we find
extreme action in one direction, and reaction back to another.
And yet the whole movement is progressive. Greek art
was not like Oriental art in clinging to fixed forms. The
Greeks clung to nature, and learnt from her. In the seated
figures of the Branchidae from the Sacred Way near Miletus
we have this want of vitality, and the extreme reaction to a
formless attempt at imitating nature sets in in works like the
earlier metopes from the temple of Selinus. In Athens there will
be this harmony; but the Athenian spirit, with its keen sense
for movement and vitality, will transgress the bounds of the law
of form which we notice in the dry and stern figures of early
Peloponnesian reliefs. And so, though a keen sense for rhythm
and texture is already manifest in the archaic seated Athene
on the Acropolis, still there is an absence of the stern regularity
which exists in Archaic Peloponnesian work to the exclusion of
vitality. The Athenian spirit for rhythm will have to be transfused with the Peloponnesian spirit for symmetry. Symmetry
and rhythm were first combined .by Pythagoras of Rhegion, and
it is more than mere chance that Rhegion, originally a Chalcidian settlement, received a large body of Messenians at the
close of the Messenian war, and that the teacher of Pythagoras
held Peloponnesian traditions in his art. No fitter person
could have effectuated this final step. But Pythagoras was not
universal. He did not excel in rendering the female figure, and
though he was proficient in the correct modelling of the form
and the manifestation of masculine strength, he was wanting in
the power to give expression to grace and sweetness. The
female form and the treatment of drapery were also neglected by
him. This gap was filled by Kalamis. Now the soil is prepared

201
for the richest fruit. But again the restless Athenian spirit is
about to transgress in the direction of rhythm, to the detriment of symmetry, in the distorta and elaborata (as Quintilian
would call them) figures of Myron. But the artistic tact and
the power and genius of Pheidias are a safeguard against any
violent reaction, and the highest period of artistic manifestation
is arrived at, in which great and beautiful ideas and natural
and pleasing forms are united in the harmony of one work
of art.
CHARLESWALDSTEIN.

PL.IV.

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Pythagoras of Rhegion and the Early Athlete Statues

Author(s): Charles Waldstein

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PYTHAGORAS OF RHEGION AND THE EARLY

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AND THE EARLY ATHLETE STATUES.

We also meet with an Apollo with a lamb or a Hermes with

express the subjective nature of the

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the luxurious, effeminate softness which pleased the taste and

griech. Kiinstlergeschichte, Wilrzburg,

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AND THE EARLY ATHLETE

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Eustath. 11. xii. 311, p. 967, 18 ; cf.

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AND THE EARLYATHLETESTATUES.

to epochs previous to the Persian wars we shall expect to find

Hist. xxxiv. 59.

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The one instance is the youthful Apollo on a relief in the

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promise between short and long hair which counteracts the

holding a discus in his hand. In the

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at Paris. There is also a young man with arms, about to take

5 Visconti, i. p. 276, and pl. A. iv. 7

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and with the head-dress most clearly indicated. Besides these

Conze, Beitrage, &c., Taf. viii.

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muscles, down to the peculiar flatness of the abdomen and the

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it conclusively with the assistance of the exact illustrations

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and in the Athenian statue; and I shall mention a final test,

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the sculptor'spower of expression by means of the bodily rhythm

No. 787, 497. The illustration which

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figures from the western pediment of the temple of Aegina the

mythological scenes to illustrate the

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ornamented with a convivial scene.

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Panathenaic vase published by De Witte,' a 'rvy~ is represented,

This ephedros holds a thong in his

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victors in all the games' and they are frequently represented on