STATUES OF BOY RUNNERS. 201 
Spinario( Thorn-puller) portrays arunner (Fig.40).! It represents aboy, 
from twelve to fifteen years old, seated upon a rock bending over and 
engrossed in extracting a thorn from his left foot, which rests upon the 
right knee. The severe hair treatment, low forehead, full cheeks, and 
strong chin appear to show the ideal beauty of a boy of the period of 
about 460 B.C. ‘The motive seems to have been inspired directly by 
nature—witness the supple bend of the back, the delicate arms, the 
naive, though not too realistic, concentration of interest in the act por- 
trayed. Few pieces of ancient sculpture have given rise to more discus- 
sion and extraordinary difference of opinion than this popular work. 
One school of archzologists? believes it a late adaptation of a Hellenistic 
original, amore accurate copy being the one in the British Museum, and 
consequently views it as a purely genre statue impossible of conception 
before Alexander’s time. According to this view the London copy was 
an archaistic work of the time of Pasiteles. Another school, however, 
including Helbig, Wolters, Kekulé, and many others, sees in the Roman 
statue an original work of 460to450 B.C., chiefly because the face shows 
great similarity to those of the statues of the Olympia gables (especially 
to that of Apollo)’. According to this view the statue can not have 
been a genre work, as such works of decorative character were of later 
origin, but the motive must be sought in some definite incident—in 
some myth or historical event. “Thus it has been referred to the coloni- 
zation of the Ozolian Lokroi, whose ancestor Lokros is said to have got a 
thorn in his foot and.to have founded cities near where this occurred in 
fulfilment of an oracle. Many others, on the other hand, have seen in 
its motive that of a boy victor in running, who has gained his victory 
despite a thorn, which he is now pulling out, and who has dedicated his 
statue to commemorate both the victory and the untoward circum- 
stances under which it was won. It has been assigned to various 
sculptors and schools—to Myron, Pythagoras, and Kalamis, and to 
Peloponnesian, Beeotian, and even Sicilian art.4. The boy’s absorption 
in his task certainly reminds us of the concentration so characteristic 
of the Diskobolos of Myron. In determining its age and artistic 
1B. B., no. 321; Bulle, 164, and fig. 93 on pp. 361-2 (cast on round base in Erlangen); von Mach 
72; Collignon, I, p. 417, fig. 215; Rayet, I, Pl. 35; Helbig, Fuehrer, I, 956; Guide, 617; Zielinski, 
Rhein. Mus., XX XIX, 1884, pp. 116f. (who refers the original possibly to Strongylion); F.W., 215. 
For replicas, see Gaz. Arch., 1881, p. 130; Rayet, text to Pl. 35; and Furtwaengler, Der Dornaus- 
zieher und der Knabe mit der Gans, 1876, pp. 7 f; Reinach, Rép., 1, 344, 6. It was called a runner 
first by Visconti, Opere varie, 1827-31, IV, Pl. XXIII, pp. 163 f., who has been followed by 
Collignon, Zielinski, Rayet, Reisch (p. 46), Richardson (p. 144), and others. It is 0.80 meter 
high (Bulle). 
2F. g., Overbeck, II, pp. 182-185, and notes 10-24 on p.186. Onp. 183, fig. 186, he gives illustra- 
tions of the three principal copies—the marble one in the British Museum (a), the bronze statu- 
ettein Baron Rothschild’s collection in Paris (b), and the Capitoline bronze in Rome (c). He 
brings it into relation with the sculptor Boéthos, who is known to have made seated genre figures 
of boys, ¢. g., one in the Heraion at Olympia, P., V, 17.4 (= S.Q., 1596). 
8Von Mach, no. 86; cf. Kekulé, 4. Z., XLI, 1883, p. 244, and F. W., 215. 
4See B. M. Sculpt., III, pp. 109-110. 
