DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52591#0192
i76 THE TREASURY OF THE ATHENIANS
technical name “ wrestling stairs ” (άμφίπλεκτοι, κλίμακες)
is found in a passage of Sophocles' Trachiniae (250). He-
racles puts one knee on the back of the stag and twists its
head back and down. In the metope the composition is
still quite primitive, for Heracles hovers unnaturally high
above the hind, that has fallen on its knees, the body of the
animal alone being preserved. His one shoulder with the
raised arm, which probably brandished the club, thus
Fig. 72.—Heracles and the Ceryneian stag (Fouilles
de Delphes, iv, plate xli).
intersects the upper frame of the field. Behind him hang
quiver and chiton, while the lion’s skin, “ whose fiery-red
throat gapes over the hero's fair locks,” and whose paws,
fastened before his breast, are executed in great detail,
almost as if they were chiselled in bronze, is thrown over
his back. The hero’s nude body is finely developed in
the relief. The chest is stretched tight, with all the ribs
and saw-muscles lying hard under the skin, and its high
technical name “ wrestling stairs ” (άμφίπλεκτοι, κλίμακες)
is found in a passage of Sophocles' Trachiniae (250). He-
racles puts one knee on the back of the stag and twists its
head back and down. In the metope the composition is
still quite primitive, for Heracles hovers unnaturally high
above the hind, that has fallen on its knees, the body of the
animal alone being preserved. His one shoulder with the
raised arm, which probably brandished the club, thus
Fig. 72.—Heracles and the Ceryneian stag (Fouilles
de Delphes, iv, plate xli).
intersects the upper frame of the field. Behind him hang
quiver and chiton, while the lion’s skin, “ whose fiery-red
throat gapes over the hero's fair locks,” and whose paws,
fastened before his breast, are executed in great detail,
almost as if they were chiselled in bronze, is thrown over
his back. The hero’s nude body is finely developed in
the relief. The chest is stretched tight, with all the ribs
and saw-muscles lying hard under the skin, and its high