158 VICTOR STATUES REPRESENTED AT REST. 
Helbig later (inthe Fuehrer) explained the motive as that of a boy setting 
a crown on his head, as in the bronze Eros already mentioned. ‘This 
interpretation, first suggested by Winnefeld,! has been the favorite one 
among archeologists. But all sorts of other explanations of the mo- 
tive of the original have been offered, as that the athlete was scraping 
his forehead or shoulders with the strigil,? that the statue represented 
Narkissos looking into the pool and shading his eyes with his right 
hand,’ that it was an athlete standing at rest and holding an akontion 
in his right hand—a theory harmonizing with the poise of the head, 
but not with the turn of the wrist, wihch shows that the hand was 
held downwards*—and that it was, in fact, the nudus talo incessens of 
Pliny.’ On the head of the Eleusis statue there is a mass of marble 
left over the right ear just opposite the place where the hand would be, 
if it were setting a wreath on the head. ‘The fact that no marks are 
visible where the crown was attached is explained by the assumption 
that the wreath was of metal even in the marble copies. That this 
motive, moreover, was known to both Attic and Peloponnesian art 
in the second half of the fifth century B.C. is well attested. “Thus we 
see on the Parthenon frieze a youth crowning himself with one hand, 
while holding the horse’s bridle with the other.6 The pose of this 
figure—especially the legs—recalls the Myronian Ozl-pourer already 
discussed (PI. 11). On the other hand, one of the figures of the Ilde- 
fonso group in Madrid, which is Polyklercanis in style, represents a boy 
wearing a wreath, a esate: closely akin to the Westmacott Athlete, the 
leg position being one same in both and the poise of the head nearly so, 
although the arms are different, the left one being raised and the right 
hanging down.’ It is probable that the raised right hand of the origi- 
nal of the Westmacott and other replicas touched the wreath and 
the lowered left held a fillet. The best explanation, then, of the West- 
macott Athlete and kindred works is that the motive of the original 
was allied to that of the Diadoumenos of Polykleitos, though the model- 
ing is too soft for Polykleitos, showing that the copyists changed the 
original of the Argive master to suit a later and different taste. Whereas 
the Diadoumenos is tying on a victor’s fillet, the other is presumably 
placing a victor’s wreath on his head. Certainly no better restoration 
1Hypnos, pp. 30 f.; accepted by Wolters (apud Lepsius, Griech. Marmorstudien, p. 83, no. 164), 
Treu (4. 4., 1889, p. 57), Collignon, Petersen, J. c., Kekulé (Idolino, p. 13), Furtwaengler (Mp., 
pp. 252-3, Mw. , pp. 458-9 and 747), and others; see Philios, op. cit. 
2E. g., by Philios (0p. cit.), Amelung (Berl. Phil. Wochenschr., XXII, 1902, p. 273). This 
scraping motive is seen in the bronze statuette in the Bibliothéque Nationale, no. 934. 
’This is inconsistent with the position of the hand in the Barracco copy, which is too far from 
the head. This was an older view of Helbig, Rendiconti della Reale Accad. dei Lincei, 1892, 
pp. 790 f.; refuted by Furtwaengler, Petersen, Helbig himself later (in the Fuehrer), and others. 
‘Quoted by E. A. Gardner, J. H. S., XXXI, pp. 25-6, as the theory of E. N. Gardiner. 
°H. N., XXXIV, 55; for this theory, see Mahler, Polyklet u. s. Sch., p. 50. 
®Michaelis, Der Parthenon, 1870, Block 131 (from the North frieze). 
"F. W., 1665; Furtw., Mp., p. 256, fig. 106; Mw., p. 463, fig. 76; M. W., Pl. 70, 879; etc. 
