78 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF VICTOR STATUES AT OLYMPIA. 
masters. Presumably, then, in the original of this fragment and its 
replicas, we have a famous statue—the one by Naukydes mentioned 
by Pliny. 
A more important question for our discussion is whether the Vati- 
can statue represents a victor (diskobolos) or Hermes. G. Habich has 
argued that the pose of the statue, standing with the right foot ad- 
vanced, is not that of a diskobolos taking position. He quotes Kietz? 
to the effect that no vase-painting or other monument has the exact 
position of this statue, and that the natural position for such a motive 
is to advance the left foot. Moreover, the fingers of the right hand, 
which are supposed especially to uphold the diskobolos theory, are 
modern in all the replicas. On a coin of Amastris in Paphlagonia, 
dating from the Antonines, and on one of Commodus struck at Philip- 
popolisin Thrace, a igure of Hermes is pictured, which, in all essentials, 
reproduces the Vatican statue.* Since the figure on the coins has a 
kerykeion or training-rod in the right hand and a diskos as a minor 
attribute in the left—merely a symbol of the god’s patronage of ath- 
letics—we should see in the Vatican statue a representation of Hermes 
as overseer of the palestra. Pliny’s words—if we omit or transpose 
the first et—refer, therefore, to a statue of Hermes-Diskobolos and 
to the Ram-offerer which stood on the Athenian Akropolis, to two, 
therefore, and not to three different monuments. We should restore all 
the replicas of the statue, then, with the caduceus, to represent Hermes 
as gymnasiarch. ‘Though this interpretation of the statue has found 
opponents,° the evidence is strong that in it and its replicas we have an 
athlete in the guise of Hermes. If we think that the caduceus can not 
be brought into harmony with the chief motive of the statue, we must 
conclude with Helbig that the copyist in one isolated case—the one 
copied on the coins—changed an original victor statue into Hermes 
by adding the herald staff. This would make it an instance, not of 
assimilation of type, but of conversion. 
A small bronze statuette standing upon a cylindrical base, which 
was found in the sea off Antikythera (Cerigotto), reproduces almost 


1H, N.. XXXIV, 80: Naucydes Mercurio et discobolo et immolante artetem censetur, etc. 
2Ueber den Diskoswurf bei den Griechen, 1892, p. 55. However, von Mach discusses a r.-f. 
deinos in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which resembles the pose of the statue: 4. J. 4., 
VII, 1903, p. 447, fig. 1. 
3As ina vase by Douris: 4. Z., 1883, Pl. I]; Furtw., Berliner Vasen, no. 2283 A; also ona Hel- 
lenistic gem in Berlin: Furtw., Gemmen Katalog, no. 6911. Philostr., Imag., I, 24, says that the 
left foot was advanced. 
.4Coin of Amastris: Schlosser, Numism. Zeitschr. (Vienna), XXIII, 1891, p. 19, Pl. 2, no. 35;a 
better reproduction by Imhoof-Blumer, in Sallet’s Zeitschr. f. Numism., XX, 1897, p. 269, Pl. 10, 
n. 2 (=Habich, p. 58, fig. 2); another in B. M. Coins (Pontus), Pl. XX, 7, pp. 87 and 21. On 
this and the Thracian coin, see also Habich, Hermes Diskobolos auf Muenzen, in Journ. in- 
ternat. d’arch. num., II, 1898, pp. 137 f. Habich gives a gem showing the god with a kerykeion in 
the left hand, and a diskos in the right and with the right foot advanced: p. 61, fig. 3. 
5E. g.. Michaelis, /b., XIII, 1898, pp. 175-6. He looks upon the statue simply as that of a 
diskobolos. 
