Bronze Statue known as the _Idolino_. Museo Archeologico, Florence.]
[Illustration: FIG. 26.—Marble Statue of an Athlete(?). National Museum, Athens.]
A statue in Athens, which was found in 1888 in the Roman ruins at the Olympieion, may represent a boy victor pouring a libation (Fig. 26).[1088] It is a poor Roman copy, dry and lifeless, of a bronze original of the middle of the fifth century B. C.[1089] In this statue Mayer has seen the motive, and probably the copy, of the _Splanchnoptes_ (Roaster of Entrails) by the sculptor Styphax (or Styppax) of Cyprus, which, according to Pliny,[1090] represented Perikles’ slave “roasting entrails and blowing hard on the fire, to kindle it, till his cheeks swell.” He thinks that the position of the broken arms and a comparison of the figure with similar ones on vases make the identification possible. Von Salis concurs in his restoration and interpretation and publishes a small statuette in Athens from Dodona,[1091] which has a similar pose, and holds a three-pronged fork in the left hand, which he believes should be restored in the statue. Although statue and statuette have much in common (_e. g._, the position of the breast and shoulders, the treatment of the hair, etc.), which shows that both may be copies of one original, the conception of the two is somewhat different. The statue from Athens represents a boy standing busily engaged at the altar; the statuette represents one standing at rest merely looking on, the fork not being held in position for use.[1092] In any case the face of the Athens statue can not correspond with Pliny’s description—_ignemque oris pleni spiritu accendens_. Quite a different explanation of the statue is possible—one which Mayer thought improbable. The right arm—broken above the wrist—was raised to the height of the shoulder and may have held an object in the hand; the left arm—broken off below the shoulder—seems to have been held close to the body and appears to have corresponded in movement with the other. The boy, therefore, may have held a cup in the right hand and a branch or a victor fillet in the left. Thus it may merely be another example of a boy victor pouring a libation.
Certain other statues have been mistaken either for libation-pourers or oil-pourers, when they are really wine-pourers and have nothing to do with the athletic motives under discussion. A good example is the marble statue of a _Satyr_ in Dresden,[1093] which represents the youthful demi-god lifting a can with his right hand, out of which he is pouring wine into a drinking-horn held in the left. There are many copies of this work,[1094] a fact which shows that the original bronze was famous. An attempt has therefore been made to identify it with the bronze _Satyr_ of Praxiteles mentioned by Pliny as the _Periboëtos_ or “far-famed,”[1095] which seems to have been grouped with a _Dionysos_ and a figure of _Drunkenness_—a grouping which might fit the Dresden _Satyr_, since a second figure should be imagined, for which the horn is being filled. However, it differs stylistically so much from the _Hermes_ of Olympia that the ascription has been given up, though its graceful form shows Praxitelean influence and certainly emanates from the fourth century B. C.