DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52591#0112
9β
THE DELPHIAN TWINS
the remainder of the names Cleobis and Biton, one recovers
the inscription, which is the foundation of the legend.
The main inscription, with dedication to Apollo, was pro-
bably placed in front on a base common to both figures.
This much in any case is true, that the two youths showed
their strength and filial piety by drawing at full speed the
heavy carriage from Argos to the Heraeum, and therefore
the city put up this memorial of them at Delphi. Pro-
bably the Delphic guides invented later the pious story of
their gentle death in full vigour of youth. It is possible
that a representation of the carriage also formed part of the
group, on a separate plinth, and then we can better under-
stand the energetic posture of the arms with bent elbows in
both figures, if they were represented drawing the carriage.
Thus Herodotus long ago stood face to face with these
Delphian twins and listened to their story, and drew out of
their forms and aspect his melancholy view of the happiness
of dying young. Involuntarily we wonder that the youth,
which in the sentimental myth blooms and dies, is not more
tender, graceful, and touching. But the Greek spectator
was certainly satisfied in seeing in the statues of Cleobis
and Biton the bold, proud male ideal expressed which the
poet Simonides so vigorously characterized in his lines :
” It is difficult to become a good man, four-square in arms
and legs and mind.”1
1 For τετράγωνο! see Jul. Lange’s quite correct treatment in Billedkiinstens
Fremstilling af Menneskeskikkelsen, i. 262 (378).
THE DELPHIAN TWINS
the remainder of the names Cleobis and Biton, one recovers
the inscription, which is the foundation of the legend.
The main inscription, with dedication to Apollo, was pro-
bably placed in front on a base common to both figures.
This much in any case is true, that the two youths showed
their strength and filial piety by drawing at full speed the
heavy carriage from Argos to the Heraeum, and therefore
the city put up this memorial of them at Delphi. Pro-
bably the Delphic guides invented later the pious story of
their gentle death in full vigour of youth. It is possible
that a representation of the carriage also formed part of the
group, on a separate plinth, and then we can better under-
stand the energetic posture of the arms with bent elbows in
both figures, if they were represented drawing the carriage.
Thus Herodotus long ago stood face to face with these
Delphian twins and listened to their story, and drew out of
their forms and aspect his melancholy view of the happiness
of dying young. Involuntarily we wonder that the youth,
which in the sentimental myth blooms and dies, is not more
tender, graceful, and touching. But the Greek spectator
was certainly satisfied in seeing in the statues of Cleobis
and Biton the bold, proud male ideal expressed which the
poet Simonides so vigorously characterized in his lines :
” It is difficult to become a good man, four-square in arms
and legs and mind.”1
1 For τετράγωνο! see Jul. Lange’s quite correct treatment in Billedkiinstens
Fremstilling af Menneskeskikkelsen, i. 262 (378).