HOPLITODROMOI. 209 
devoted to athletic sculpture.!_ Since the statue has no helmet, there 
seems to be no valid reason for not adhering to the usual interpretation, 
according to which it represents a warrior—by restoring the lost right 
arm and hand with a sword—who is defending himself against a foe 
above him, conceived of as seated upon a horse. The attitude and the 
upward gaze are certainly not those of a runner. Though Collignon, 
following Visconti, believes the figure to be one of a group, the man 
actually defending himself against a horseman and covering himself 
with his shield as he looks up, it is doubtful whether a second figure 
ever existed. The artist seems to have contented himself with rep- 
resenting, not a fight, but only a fighting pose. We are beginning to 
understand that the Greek sculptor left something to the imagination 
of the beholder. 
An attempt has also been made to see a dying hoplite runner in the 
Parian marble archaic grave-relief in the National Museum in Athens, 
which has already been mentioned as an example of the archaic scheme 
of representing running.? It represents a beardless youth running in 
a half-kneeling posture, even though the head is bent and turned in the 
opposite direction. The eyes appear to be closed—due, perhaps, to the 
faulty sculptor— and the two hands are touching the breast. While no 
shield is represented (it is contended that its presence would nearly hide 
the figure), still, because of the helmet and the position of the arm, which 
latter is obviously that of a long-distance runner, Philios, followed by 
Perrot-Chipiez and Bulle, explained it as the representation of a hoplite 
runner who is expiring at the end of his course. They date it about 520 
B.C.,* the date of the introduction of this race at Olympia. However, the 
absence of the shield, to say nothing of the greaves, seems an insuper- 
able objection to such an hypothesis, as the shield was never omitted 
in this race, but was invariably its symbol. Svoronos is therefore 
more probably right in interpreting the relief as the monument of a 
military runner (dpouokjpvé), even if his dating (490-480 B. C.) 1s some- 
what too late,* andif his identifying it with some particular messenger 
(such as the Athenian runner Pheidippides, who ran to Sparta for aid 
just prior to the battle of Marathon) is fanciful. 
1Bulle, and also Klein (III, pp. 265 f.), believe that Agasias was no mere copyist, while Ame- 
lung (Becker-Thieme, Lex. d. bild. Kuenstler, 1, 113) classes him as one. The inscription on the 
base of the statue dates it about 100 B. C. 
2No. 1959; Arch. Eph., 1904, pp. 43-56 (Philios) and Pl. I; Perrot-Chipiez, VIII, pp. 648-51 and 
fig. 333; Stais, Marbres et Bronzes, P\. on p. 20; Svoronos, I, pp. 89-96, and Tafelbd., I, Pl. XXVI 
(upper left corner); Bulle, 263; E. Schmidt, Muenchner archaeol. Stud. zum Andenken A. Furt- 
waengler, p. 254 and fig. 351; Lechat, p. 206, fig. 25. Its dimensions are 1.01 meters high and 0.72 
meter broad. See p. 194. 
3Bulle dates it loosely after the middle of the sixth century B. C. 
4He shows that a similar type appears on Athenian dekadrachmai, which were struck soon after 
the date of the battle of Marathon, in any case before 480 B. C.; cf. Babelon, Journ. Int. 
d’arch. Num., 1905. 
