In a previous section we discussed the _apobates_ chariot-race run at the Panathenaic games in Athens, in which the _apobates_ leaped down and ran to the goal abreast of the chariot. We shall now briefly speak of a similar race at Olympia (the κάλπη) in which the rider leaped from his mare in the last lap and ran with her to the goal.[1991] There is no certain illustration in sculpture or on vase-paintings of this race, but Gardiner believes that something like it appears on coins of Tarentum, on which a nude youth, armed with a small round shield, is represented in the act of jumping from his horse.[1992] The military character of this race, like that of the _apobates_ chariot-race discussed, is shown by the shield held in the left hand of the dismounting horseman. Helbig has shown that the Greek knight of the sixth century B. C. was merely a mounted infantryman, the successor of the Homeric warrior who used his chariot merely for pursuit or flight, while actually fighting from the ground.[1993] Just so the knight rode to battle on his horse, but dismounted when near the enemy, leaving the horse in charge of his squire, as the Homeric chieftain left his chariot in charge of his charioteer. This old custom of the heroic age survived not only in the Panathenaic chariot-race, but also, for a few years in the fifth century B. C., in the Olympic mare-race known as the κάλπη. It seems to have been instituted there for military reasons in order to revive the old form of fighting that had gone out of use just at the close of the sixth century B. C., but it endured for only a half century, from Ols. 71 to 84 (= 496 to 444 B. C.). The corresponding chariot-race at Athens and elsewhere continued at least to the end of the fourth century B. C.
DEDICATIONS OF MUSICAL VICTORS AT OLYMPIA AND ELSEWHERE.
In closing this chapter we shall say a few words about monuments erected to trumpeters, heralds, and musical victors at Olympia, though such contests had nothing to do with athletics.
Contests for trumpeters and heralds were held in many parts of Greece.[1994] They were introduced at Olympia in Ol. 96 (= 396 B. C.), when Timaios of Elis won as trumpeter and Krates of Elis as herald.[1995] Pausanias mentions an altar, near the entrance to the stadion, upon which trumpeters and heralds stood when competing.[1996] Such contests seem to have been mere displays of lung power. Herodoros, for example, who won as trumpeter at Olympia ten times in the last quarter of the fourth and beginning of the third century B. C.[1997], could blow two trumpets at once so loud that no one could stand near him.[1998] To perform such a feat he was said to be a very large man.[1999] Diogenes, son of Dionysios of Ephesos, won five victories in trumpeting at Olympia. He was twice _periodonikes_ and also won many other victories at the Isthmus, Nemea, and elsewhere—eighty in all.[2000] We have an excellent bronze statuette of a trumpeter, which was found in the Hieron of Athena Chalkioikos at Sparta, dating from the middle of the fifth century B. C., about a century and a half before the event was introduced at Olympia.[2001] This “little masterpiece of Spartan art,” whose style resembles that of the Olympia pediment sculptures, represents a nude man standing, the left arm hanging by his side, while the right is bent upwards to the mouth, where it held a tubular object pointing upwards. Since the lips are tightly compressed, Dickins has interpreted the object as a trumpet. A much damaged bronze statuette in the British Museum represents a man playing on a long trumpet-shaped instrument.[2002] Trumpeters also appear now and then on r.-f. Attic vases of the middle of the fifth century B. C.