Hartwig has published a bronze statuette from Capua,[1491] now in the Imperial collection at Vienna, representing a nude youth with a crested helmet on his head. There is no trace of a shield, but the helmet and the similarity of the pose to that of the Tuebingen bronze make it probable that this statuette also represents a hoplitodrome starting. The so-called _Diomedes_ of Myronian style in the Palazzo Valentini, Rome,[1492] whose stooping posture recalls the _Diskobolos_ and accordingly has been interpreted as one by Matz and von Duhn, more probably also represents a hoplite-runner, as Furtwaengler maintained, because of the similarity of its pose to that of the Tux bronze and because of its helmeted head.[1493]
[Illustration: FIG. 43.—Statue of the so-called _Borghese Warrior_. Louvre, Paris.]
Some other attempts to see hoplite runners in existing works of sculpture have not been so successful. Thus Rayet’s attempt to resuscitate the old interpretation of Quatremère de Quincy, who had explained the statue of the so-called _Borghese Warrior_ by Agasias of Ephesos (Fig. 43) as that of a hoplitodrome just before reaching the goal, has been recently revived again by Six.[1494] This famous marble statue of the Louvre, belonging to late Greek art, is an example of the last development in the Argive-Sikyonian school, which for centuries had been devoted to athletic sculpture.[1495] Since the statue has no helmet, there seems to be no valid reason for not adhering to the usual interpretation, according to which it represents a warrior—by restoring the lost right arm and hand with a sword—who is defending himself against a foe above him, conceived of as seated upon a horse. The attitude and the upward gaze are certainly not those of a runner. Though Collignon, following Visconti, believes the figure to be one of a group, the man actually defending himself against a horseman and covering himself with his shield as he looks up, it is doubtful whether a second figure ever existed. The artist seems to have contented himself with representing, not a fight, but only a fighting pose. We are beginning to understand that the Greek sculptor left something to the imagination of the beholder.