ASSIMILATION OF OLYMPIC VICTOR STATUES. 87 
question as to who is represented by the type is worthy of careful 
consideration. The statue in the Louvre at first was believed to 
represent Cincinnatus called from the plough, but Winckelmann, 
without evidence, gave it its present name of Jason. In recent 
years it has been interpreted as Hermes tying on his sandals, his 
head raised to hearken to the behest of Zeus before going forth 
from Olympos on his duties as messenger. This interpretation was 
based on the description of a statue of the god by Christodoros,! and 
the fact that the type conforms with a representation of Hermes on a 
coin of Markianopolis in Meesia.?, Arndt has argued from the coin 
and from the motive of the statue that Hermes and not an athlete 
is intended; thus the inclination of the head, he thinks, is not that of 
an athlete looking out over the theatre, since the regard is not far off, 
but merely upward; the presence of the chlamys and the sandals 
also fits the god. He therefore refers the copies to a Hermes-type 
originated by Lysippos. But Froehner’s idea that they represent 
athletes, even if the type were invented for Hermes, is in line with 
our idea of the assimilation of athlete types to that of Hermes. In 
this connection it may be added that the head of an athlete in Turin,’ 
dating from the late third or early second century B. C., is very similar 
to that of the Louvre figure, and especially to the Fagan head in Lon- 
don. The pose of an athlete binding on a sandal was doubtless chosen 
by the sculptor merely to show the play of the muscles. 
_ Heads of Hermes are often found with victor fillets, and some of 
these doubtless are from statues of victors. The beautiful fourth- 
century B.C. Parian marble head of a beardless youth in the Brit- 
ish Museum, known as the Aberdeen head,> which resembles so 
strongly the Praxitelean Hermes, although lacking its delicacy, may 
be from a victor statue assimilated to the god, for holes show that 
it once wore a metal wreath. In Roman days the Doryphoros 
of Polykleitos, as we have seen, was adapted to represent Hermes, 
and was set up in various palestre and gymnasia. The Naples 
copy of the Doryphoros stood in the Palaistra of Pompeu,® and statues 
of ephebes carrying lances (hastae, dépara) and called Achilleae by 
Pliny,’ which must have been largely copies of Polykleitos’ great 
statue, were set up in gymnasia. A later type of Hermes-head often 
1From the Ekphrasis of Christodoros, 4. G., II, vv. 297-302. It was first shown to be a statue 
of Hermes by Lambeck, de Mercurti statua, Thorn, 1860. 
 ?Pick, Die antiken Muenzen Nordgriechenlands, I, Pl. XVI, 25; cf. Froehner, p. 211. 
8Duetschke, IV, no. 151; J. H. S., XXVI, 1906, Pl. XVI, pp. 239 f. (Wace). 
4F. g., B. M. Bronzes, nos. 1200, 1202, 1207; for a herm in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican, 
after a fourth-century B. C. type, see Amelung, Vat., I, p. 84, no. 65 and Pl. X. 
°B. M. Sculpt., II], no. 1600 and PI. III; /d., I, 1886, p. 54, and Pl. 5, and fig. 1 (Wolters); 
Kalkmann, Proport. d. Gesichts, pp. 41 and 98; Furtw., Mp., Pl. XVIII, opp. p. 346; for a full dis- 
cussion of this head, see the note by translator in Mp., pp. 346-7. The head is 11% inches high 
(B. M. Sculpt.). 
®Nissen, Pompey. Stud., p. 166. THON YS XARALY, 18; 
