76 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF VICTOR STATUES AT OLYMPIA. 
the pankration at unknown games, dedicated a thank-offering to the 
two.!. Hermes was early the god of youthful life and sports, especially 
those of the palzstra. He is said to have founded wrestling? and 
inaugurated the sports of the palzstra.? Pausanias mentions a 
Gymnasion of Hermes at Athens‘ and an altar of Hermes évaywrios 
together with one of Opportunity (Karpés) at the entrance to the 
Stadion at Olympia.®. He says that the people of Pheneus. in Arkadia 
held games in his honor called the Hermaia,® and he records the 
defeat of the god by Apollo in running.” With such an athletic 
record there is little wonder that the Greek sculptor would often 
take his ideal of Hermes from the god of the palestra and gymnasium, 
representing him as an athletic youth harmoniously developed by 
gymnastic exercises. It was but natural that a victor at Olympia or 
elsewhere should wish to have his statue—which rarely could be a 
portrait—conform with that athletic type. 
An excellent instance of this tendency seems to be afforded by the 
so-called Standing Diskobolos in the Sala della Biga of the Vatican 
(Pl. 6),8 known since its discovery by Gavin Hamilton in 1792. It 
represents a youth who is apparently taking position for throwing the 
diskos, the weight of the body resting on the left leg, the knees slightly 
bent, the feet firmly planted, and the diskos held in the left hand, 
just prior to its being passed to the right. This position is one 
which immediately precedes that of Myron’s great statue. ‘The bronze 
original dates from the second half of the fifth century B. C., and has 
been variously assigned to Myron by Brunn, to Alkamenes by Kekule, 
followed by Overbeck, Michaelis and Furtwaengler,? and to Naukydes, 
the brother and pupil of Polykleitos.!° The head of the Vatican statue 
shows no trace of Peloponnesian art, but rather resembles Attic types 
Unschr. Gr. Insul., 1 (Thera), 390; cf. Cougny, Epigr. Anth. Pal., III, 1890 (Appendix nova), 
p. 26, no. 168. 
*Schol. on Pindar, O/., VI, 134, Boeckh, p. 148. He is represented as a wrestler in a bronze 
group from Antioch, with wings in his hair: R. Foerster, /b., XIII, 1898, pp. 177 f., and Pl. XI 
(to be discussed infra., p. 233 and note 2). 
3Servius on Virgil’s 4en., VIII, 138. APR 
5V, 14.9 (‘Epyod....’Evaywviov). 
6VITI, 14.10. An inscription (Inschr. v. Ol., 184) records that a certain Akestorides of Alex- 
andria Troas (whose name is left out of the text of Pausanias, VI, 13.7) won a victory at Pheneus, 
and this was probably at these games; on this victor, see Hyde, 119, and pp. 49-50. 
™, 710. 
8Helbig, Fuchrer, I, no. 324; Guide, 331; B. B., 131; Bulle, 54; von Mach, 126 b;'Baum., I, 
p. 458, fig. 503; esteyate Rép., I, 526,8; Collignons Il, p. 124, fig. 60; Overbeck, I, pp. 380f. and he 
102; F. W., no. 465; 4. Z:, XXIV, 1866, Pl. CCIX, 1-2, pp. 169 f. (Kekulé) and Pl. 209, 1, 2; 
Annali, LI, 1879, pp. 207 f. (Brunn); Jb., XIII, 1898, pp. 57 f. and fig.. 1 (Habich); J. ZH. S., 
na een 1907, p. 25, fig. 13; 4. J. 4., VII, 1903, pp. 445 f. (von Mach); Springer-Michaelis, 
268, fig. 482; replicas in the Pores (photo Giraudon, no. 1209), London (B. M. Sculpt 
IIT. no. 1753), Dagcunbe Park, England (Michaelis, p. 295, no. 2), and elsewhere; for series, 
see J. Six, Gaz. arch., 1888, pp. 291 and Pl. 29, fig, 10 ny 
°*Mw., p. 122; also Smith, B. M. Sculpt., III, no. 1753. 
First by Visconti, Mus. Pio Clem., III, p. 130; lately by G. Habich, /. c., and others. 
