Читать книгу Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art онлайн

3 страница из 104

To the archæological sources, on the other hand, belong, first and foremost, the remnants of victor statues in stone and metal which have long been garnered in modern museums or have come to light during the excavation of the Altis. To this small number I hope I have added at least one marble fragment found at Olympia, the head of a statue by Lysippos, the last great sculptor of Greece (Frontispiece and Fig. 69). To this second kind of sources belong also the statue bases just mentioned, on many of which the extant footmarks enable us to determine the poses of the statues themselves which once stood upon them. Furthermore, an intimate knowledge of Greek athletic sculpture in all its periods and phases is, of course, essential in treating a problem of this nature. Here, as in the study of Greek sculpture in general, where the destruction of original masterpieces, apart from the few well-known but splendid exceptions, has been complete, we are almost entirely dependent upon second-hand evidence furnished by the numerous existing antique copies and adaptations of lost originals executed in marble and bronze by more or less skilled workmen for the Roman market.