Читать книгу Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art онлайн

87 страница из 104

ssss1

In this chapter we shall confine ourselves almost entirely to the statues of victors represented at rest, discussing those represented in motion chiefly in the next. Most of the oldest statues at Olympia, dating from a time when there were few variations in the sculptural type, must have been represented at rest and in the schema of the so-called “Apollos.” Ever since the discovery of the Apollo of Thera in 1836 (Fig. ssss1), this genre of sculpture, the most characteristic of the early period, extending from the end of the seventh century B.C. to the time of the gable groups of Aegina, has been carefully studied. Though we now know that the type passed equally well for gods and mortals,818 we still keep the name, because of its familiarity and for the sake of having a common designation. That this type actually represented Olympic victors we have indubitable proof. Pausanias mentions the stone victor statue of the pancratiast Arrhachion, dating from the first half of the sixth century B.C., which stood in the agora of his native town Phigalia. He describes it as archaic in pose, with the feet close together and the arms hanging down the sides to the hips—the typical “Apollo” schema.819 Moreover, this very statue has survived to our time (Fig. 79).820 A study, therefore, of this type of statue will give us an idea of how some of the early statues at Olympia looked.