82 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF VICTOR STATUES AT OLYMPIA. 
Herakles (Pl. 30, Fig. 71,), which he ascribes to Skopas.!' He saw in its 
labored and even anatomical modeling similarity to the 4poxyomenos of 
the Vatican and concluded that it was, therefore, later than the fourth’ 
century B.C., being an eclectic piece disclosing influences of several 
fourth-century sculptors, the work of an imitator especially of Praxiteles 
and_Skopas. K. T. Frost also assigned the work to the Hellenistic 
age, but believed it was the statue of a god and not of a mortal, and 
so followed Kabbadias and Waldstein in interpreting it as a Hermes 
Logios.2, Gardner had interpreted it as probably the statue of an 
athlete “fin a somewhat theatrical pose,’ though admitting it might 
be a genre figure representing an athlete catching a ball, even if its 
pose were against such an interpretation. In any case he was right 
in saying that the pose, even if incapable of solution, was chosen by the 
sculptor with a desire for display, as the centre of attraction is in and 
not outside the statue, and so 1s against the a’rapkera of earlier works. 
More recently, Bulle has asserted that it is not an original work at all, 
but, as evinced by the hard treatment of the hair, merely acopy. He 
also interprets it as a Hermes, restoring a kerykeion in the left hand, 
and he likens its oratorical pose to that of the Etruscan Orator found 
near Lago di Trasimeno in 1566 and now in the Museo Archeologico in 
Florence, or the Augustus from Primaporta inthe Vatican.’ Forits date 
he believes the statue marks the end of the Polykleitan “ Standmotif”’ 
(the breadth of the body showing Polykleitan influence, the head, 
however, being too small and slender for the Argive master), and 
the inception of the Lysippan (the free leg not drawn back, but 
placed further out), as we see it in the 4poxyomenos. He concludes 
that its author can not have been a great master. Doubtless, the: 
statue, which is the pride of the Athenian museum, is merely a 
representative example of the kind of bronze statues made in great 
numbers in the early Hellenistic age; but it shows the high degree of 
excellence attained at that time by very mediocre artists.® 
Apart from its period, our chief interest in the statue is to determine 
whether a god or a mortal is portrayed. As there are no certain 
remnants of the round object held in the right hand, and no other 


1]. H.S., XXIII, 1903, pp. 152 f.; cf. Sculpt., pp. 244 f.; Hbk., pp.532f. In Chap. VPot the 
present work we shall follow the view which ascribes the Herakles to Lysippos: infra, pp. 298, 311. 
The Praxitelean and Lysippan influences in the bronze under discussion are noted by Richard- 
son, p. 276. 2Ibid., pp. 217 f. 
3For the former, see Amelung, Fuehrer, 249; von Mach, 327; Reinach, I, 452, 2. On the hem 
of the cloak is an Etruscan dedicatory inscription to one Metilius by his wife, containing the 
name of Tenine Tuthines as the bronze-caster: see Corssen, Sprache d. Etrusker, I, pp. 712 f. 
(quoted by ven Mach). For the latter, see Helbig, Fuehrer, I, no. 5; Guide, 5; Mon. d. I., VI and 
VII, 1857-63, Pl. 84, 1; Annali, XXXV, 1863, pp. 432 f. (Koehler); Rayet, II, Pl. 71; B. B., 225; 
Bernouilli, Roem. Tkonogr., II, 1, pp. 24f., fig. 2; etc. 
*Text on pp. 115 f.; Klein, op. cit., pp. 403 f., believes that the enigma of its interpretation 
remains unsolved. He looks upon it as, perhaps, a pre-Lysippan work, a sort of Vorstufe to 
the Apoxyomenos. 5Cf. Gardner, Hbk., p. 534. ‘ 
