THE SPARTA HEAD COMPARED WITH THAT OF THE PHILANDRIDAS.
As the _Agias_ is considered by most critics to be a contemporary copy of the original statue at Pharsalos, perhaps it will be more just to compare the head from Sparta under discussion with the original marble head from Olympia, which we have ascribed in the earlier part of the present chapter to the statue of Philandridas by Lysippos. Such a comparison will, of course, show certain differences, but marked resemblances as well. We shall see that these resemblances are confined to the upper part of the face. In both we note the same low forehead with a corresponding depression or crease across the middle; the similarly bulging brow which breaks very perceptibly the continuous line from forehead to nose, concave above and below and convex at the swelling itself; the same powerfully framed and deep-set eyes thrown into shadows by the projecting bony structure of the brows and the overhanging masses of flesh. The eyeballs in both are similarly long and narrow, though they are slightly arched in the _Philandridas_ just as in the Tegea heads, and not so close together as in the _Agias_, but their inner angles are farther apart and not almost hidden by the flat bridge of the nose when viewed straight from the front. In this respect they are strikingly like those of the Sparta head.[2162] The raised upper lids in both form symmetrically narrow and sharply defined borders over the eyeballs. These borders, in each case, are not partially hidden by the folds of skin at the outer corners, as they are in the Tegea heads; and yet the masses of flesh projecting from the brows are almost as heavy as in the latter. In both the heads from Olympia and Sparta the upper lids slightly overlap the under at the outer corners. The eye-sockets in both seem to be equally deep and the cheek-bones similarly high and prominent. We remark in the _Philandridas_ the gradual converging of the sides of the face toward the middle, a trait which we have already observed in the head from Sparta as in contrast with the more angular formation with lateral planes so characteristic of the Tegea male heads. The flatness of the nose and the curves which it makes with the brow on either side are very similar in the two heads under discussion. In both, the hair is treated in the same simple and sketchy manner, being fashioned into little ringlets ruffled back from the temples in flat relief quite in the Skopaic manner, even if the curls seem shorter and more tense.