[Illustration: FIG. 45.—Statue of a Boy Victor (the _Dresden Boy_). Albertinum, Dresden.]
That statues of pentathletes at Olympia were also represented in motion is shown by the footmarks on the recovered base of one of the two statues mentioned by Pausanias as set up in honor of the Elean Aischines, who won two victories some time between Ols. 126 and 132 (= 276 and 252 B. C.).[1516] These marks show that the statue represented the victor in violent movement, since the left foot was turned outwards and the right one was brought almost to the edge of the base.
We shall next consider in some detail how the pentathlete may have been represented at Olympia in the three characteristic contests of jumping, diskos-throwing, and javelin-throwing. We have already discussed the runner, and in a future section we shall discuss the wrestler, both of whom contended in these events not only in the pentathlon, but also in the corresponding independent competitions.
Jumping was a well-known contest in heroic days. In Homer, however, it did not take place at the games of Patroklos, but only at those held by King Alkinoos.[1517] Quintus Smyrnæus has the Trojan heroes contend in jumping,[1518] and the contest goes back to mythology.[1519] Though Plato does not mention it, Aristotle does.[1520] Later it became an essential part of the pentathlon, though never an independent contest at the great games. It was probably considered to be the most representative feature of the pentathlon, perhaps because of the customary use of the _halteres_ in the physical exercises of the gymnasium. Jumping-weights were, in fact, the special symbol of the pentathlon, and, as we saw in the preceding chapter, were often the definitive attributes indicated on statues of pentathletes.[1521] We shall next discuss the appearance and use of such jumping-weights. Their form is often a sure indication of the date of a statue.
Juethner has made a careful study of the different shapes of _halteres_ and his conclusions have been followed, for the most part, by Gardiner.[1522] The _halteres_ do not appear in Homer, but were in existence at least by the beginning of the sixth century B. C., and a little later they probably appeared on pentathlete statues. To this period belongs the lead weight from Eleusis now in Athens, whose inscription records that it was dedicated by one Epainetos to commemorate his victory in jumping.[1523] On vase-paintings of the sixth and fifth centuries B. C., we see numerous types, but two main ones. Early b.-f. vases show a semicircular piece of metal or stone with a deep depression on one side for a finger grip, the two club-like ends being equal (as in Figs. 36A and 44). In the early fifth century B. C., a club-like type came in, which shows many modifications in the size and shape of the ends.[1524] In the fifth century B. C., the second main type appeared, of an elongated semispherical form, thickest in the middle and with the ends pointed or rounded. These correspond with the “archaic” ones, which Pausanias saw on the figure of _Agon_ in the dedicatory group of Mikythos at Olympia[1525] and describes as forming half an elongated circle and so fastened as to let the fingers pass through. We have two stone examples of this type: one found at Corinth, now in the Polytechnic Institute in Athens,[1526] in which a hole is cut behind the middle for the fingers and thumbs, and a more primitive single one from Olympia.[1527] Philostratos divides the Greek jumping-weights into “long” and “spherical,”[1528] which Juethner identifies with the two types just discussed. Gardiner, however, finds this impossible, since Pausanias speaks of one type as “archaic,” and he consequently thinks that these were no longer in use in the time of Philostratos. After the fifth century B. C. we have little evidence about _halteres_ until Roman days, when a cylindrical type appears on Roman copies of Greek statues of athletes, on mosaics and wall-paintings.[1529] Thus it appears on the tree-trunk in two athlete statues in Dresden[1530] and the Pitti Gallery in Florence,[1531] and on the Lateran athlete mosaic from Tusculum of the imperial period.[1532] In Roman days jumping-weights were used for the most part in medical gymnastics, like our dumb-bells.[1533]