[Illustration: Fig. 9. Choiseul-Gouffier Apollo. British Museum.]
[Illustration: Fig. 10. Figure from E. pediment at Aegina. Munich. (_Greek Sculpture_, Fig. 41.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 11. Bronze Statuette from Ligourio. Berlin. (_Greek Sculpture_, Fig. 39.)]
In the early part of the fifth century we still find a variety of physical type. On the one hand we have the Choiseul-Gouffier Apollo (Fig. 9) with his broad square shoulders, powerful chest and back—essentially a big man, and therefore identified by Dr. Waldstein with the boxer Euthymus, though recent evidence tends to show that the statue really represents the god and no mortal athlete. At the other extreme we have the neat, small, sinewy forms of the warriors on the Aeginetan pediments (Fig. 10). Between the two come a number of types. Unfortunately we have no extant examples of the great Argive school. The bronze in which the Argive sculptor worked was too valuable to escape the ravages of the plunderer, and a certain monotony, which must have characterized purely athletic sculpture, prevented the later copyist from reproducing these works. But if we may argue from the Ligourio bronze (Fig. 11), the Argive type was short like the Aeginetan but heavier and more fleshy. On the other hand, the statues which are recognized as copies of the famous group of Critias and Nesiotes[104] representing Harmodius and Aristogeiton show a taller, larger-boned type, more approaching that of the Choiseul-Gouffier Apollo, which may perhaps be recognized as Athenian.[105] But in all this diversity of physical type we ask ourselves in vain what class of athlete is represented in any particular statue, whether a boxer, a wrestler, a pentathlete, or a runner. The reason seems to be that in all these statues the ideal element is strong; there is a difference of build, but each build is shown with the fullest all-round development of which it is capable. Certainly there is not in this period a single figure that represents a typical runner so clearly as does the Apollo of Tenea. Perhaps the nearest type to that of the runner is the Aeginetan; but unfortunately we know that the events in which Aegina won most distinction were wrestling and the pankration, winners in which we should expect to find characterized by a heavier build. The fact is that the real specialization of the athlete was only just beginning, and the universal athletic training had produced in the first half of the fifth century so uniform a standard of development that, runners perhaps excepted, it must have been difficult to distinguish between the representatives of other events, in all of which strength was more important than pace. Hence the earlier sculptors, in order to indicate an athlete’s victory, were forced to attach to his statue some special attribute, a diskos, or a pair of jumping weights for a pentathlete, a boxing thong for a boxer.[106] As their technical skill increased they began to represent the athlete in some characteristic position. Glaucias of Aegina showed the famous boxer Glaucus of Carystos sparring with an imaginary opponent.[107] At Athens Pausanias saw a statue of Epicharinus by Critius in the attitude of one practising for the hoplite race, perhaps in the attitude of the well-known Tübingen bronze, which represents a hoplitodromos practising starts[108] (Fig. 12).