288 TWO MARBLE HEADS FROM VICTOR STATUES. 
THE APOXYOMENOS OF THE VATICAN, AND LYSIPPOS. 
But another statue, the Jpoxyomenos, of the Vatican (Pl. 29),! ever 
since its discovery by Canina in 1849, had held the honored place 
of being regarded as the centre of the stylistic treatment of Lysippos. 
Seldom has the discovery of a Roman copy of a Greek original proved 
so important for the study of ancient sculpture as this athlete statue, 
which was found in an appropriate place, in the ruins of a building, 
which almost certainly was a Roman bath. Despite unimportant 
restorations, the statue is well preserved. ‘The fingers of the right hand 
holding the die were wrongly restored by the sculptor Tenerari at the 
suggestion of Canina who wrongly interpreted the passage in Pliny 
(XXXIV, 55), which refers to two works by Polykleitos, destringentem 
se et nudum talo incessentem, as meaning one and the same monument.” 
This slightly over life-size statue represents a nude athlete, who is stand- 
ing with legs far apart, employed in scraping the sand and oil from his 
extended right arm with a strigil held in the left hand. ‘This, as we saw 
in Chapter III, was a common palestra motive.* Despite certain por- 
trait-like features, this statue may not represent an individual victor, 
but, like Myron’s great work, an athletic model. The words of Pliny,’ 
which mention one of the best-known works of Lysippos in antiquity— 
it heads the list in his account of the sculpto 
gentem se, and his statement in another passage’ that Lysippos intro- 
duced a new canon into art capita minora facrendo quam antiqut, 
corpora graciliora siccioraque, per quae proceritas signorum major vid- 
eretur, 1. €., a canon of bodily proportions essentially different from 
that of Polykleitos, seemed to have their best illustration in the slender 
and graceful body and limbs, and noticeably small head of this statue. 
It was, therefore, though admittedly a Roman work, long regarded 
as a Arrece copy of the Lysippan original, and as faithfully representing 
his style in every detail.6 Such a view, of course, was founded entirely 
on circumstantial evidence, and could not survive any positive evidence 
to the contrary which might come to light in the future. G. F. Hill, in 
speaking of the insufficient evidence on which the A poxyomenos had 
been accepted as the key to Lysippan style, rightly remarks: “It is more 
scientific, until we acquire documentary evidence of excellent character, 

1In the ates Nuovo: Amelung, Vat., I, p. 86, no. 67 and Pl. XI; Helbig, Fuehrer, I, no. 23; 
Guide, I, no. 31; B. B., 281 (head =487); Bulle, 62 (head =213); and reconstruction in a bronzed 
cast on a high pedestal in the Museum of the University of Erlangen, zbid., pp. 117-18, fig. 22, a, 
b, ¢ (cf. Muenchner Jb. f. bild. Kunst., 1906, p. 36); von Mach, 235; Baum., II, p. 843, fig. 925; 
Mon. d. I., V, 1849-53, Pl. XIII; Rayet, II, Pl. 47 (text by Collignon); Overbeck, II, p. 157, 
fig. 182; Collignon, II, p. 415, fig. 218; Furtw.-Urlichs, Denkm., Pl. XXXIV and pp. 107-10; 
ST eae p. 337, fig. 603; Reinach, Rép., II, 2, 546, 2; Clarac, V, 848B, 2168A; F. W., 
1264; etc. 
°Cif. F. W., p. 449, paragraph 2 of the notes. E. Braun (Annali, L, 1850, pp. 223 f.) first iden- 
tified the statue with Lysippos’ Apoxyomenos; cf. also Brunn (Bulletino d. Inst., 1851, p. 91). 
3Cf. Becker, Gallus,’ III, p. 108; and especially J. Kueppers, Der Apoxyomenos des Lysippos, in 
Progr. des Bonner Gymnas., 1869. 47. Ny XX NIV, 62, 5Ibid.,. XXXIV, 65. 
®Especially its surface modeling was supposed to confirm Pliny’s criticism of the master: 
op. cit, XXXIV, 65. 
