Mitchell, Lucy M.: A history of ancient sculpture (New York, 1883)

554

THE HELLENISTIC AGE OF SCULPTURE.

him was owned later by Asinius Pollio ; his Eurotas in bronze was praised,
because of its art, and was said, though in harsh metal, to have been more
flowing even than the river itself; a boy victor, Timosthenes, from his hand,
stood in Olympia.1102 Of his Tyche with the River Orontes, executed for
Antioch, echoes are preserved to us in Antioch coins, and in a small marble
statuette in the Vatican (Fig. 227).II03 Here the city goddess rests negligently
on a rock, a graceful, gentle figure, quite different from the dignified god-
desses of olden times ; while the river, a vigorous youth, seems to swim out
from under her feet.

But Lysippos' most famous scholar was Chares from Lindos, on the wealthy

island of Rhodes, which was destined
now to take a leading part in the
development of Greek sculpture.
Chares will be considered later when
treating of the art of Rhodes, to
which island lie must have carried
the perfected traditions, developed
by the hoary Argive-Sikyon school
which now should yield the field of
creative activity to the younger, more
vigorous Greek states of the East.

Turning from Sikyon to other
parts of Greece, we find that artists
were still active for Olympia; but
that its prominent patrons were now
the powerful successors of Alexander,
and their immediate descendants,
of whom many statues were put up,
but unhappily known only through
fragmentary inscriptions.'IO-* Statues to victorious athletes, according to the
testimony of numerous inscriptions, still continued to be erected in the altis,
all through the Hellenistic age, and even down to the third century A. D. ;
proving, that, during a period long thought to have been unproductive in this
kind of art, there was constant activity.110; Very few fragments of these
numerous statues to athletes have come down to us ; but one magnificent
life-size bronze head has been preserved, of such power and naturalism as to
make us doubly regret the loss of the remainder (Fig. 228). This head was
found in a part of the sacred grove, far removed from the great temple, near
which the statue to which it belonged had doubtless stood."06 The neck
shows signs of having been roughly cut away from the trunk; and the site,
and mode of concealment, of this fragment in coveted bronze, indicate the
intention to hide it, on the part of the plunderer. As the wreath in the hair

Fig. 228. Bronze Head of a Victor in the Olympic Games
Olympia.