Smith, Arthur H. [Hrsg.]; British Museum <London> / Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities [Hrsg.]: Catalogue of sculpture in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities (Band 1) (London, 1892)

MYRON. PHEIDIAS.

91

A young athlete is represented in the act of hurling the
disk. Ho has swung it back, and is about to throw it to
the furthest possible distance before him. The head, as
here attached, looks straight to the ground, but in the
original it looked more backwards as in a copy formerly in
the Massimi palace at Borne. (Cf. Lucian, Pliilopseud, 18.)
Compare a gem in the British Museum (Fig. 5; Gat. of Gems,
No. 742, pi. Gr), which is inscribed YAKIN0OC.
According to a judgment of Quintilian, the
laboured complexity of the statue is extreme,
but any one who should blame it on this
ground would do so under a misapprehension
of its purpose, inasmuch as the merit of the
work lies in its novelty and difficulty. " Quid
tarn distortion et elaboratum, quam est ille discobolos
Myronis ? si quis tamen, ut parum rectum, improbet opus,
nonne ab intellectu artis abfuerit, in qua vel praecipuo
laudabilis est ipsa ilia novitas ac difficultas ? "—Quint. Inst.
Orat., ii., 13. 10. — Found in 1791 in Hadrian's Villa at
Tivoli. Townley Coll.

Marble ; height, 5 feet 5 inches. Restorations :—Nose, lips, chin, piece
in neck, part of disk and r. hand ; 1. hand ; piece under r. arm ;
pubis; r. knee ; a small piece in r. leg, and parts of the toes.
Specimens, I., pi. 29 ; Mus. Marbles, XI., pi. 44; Clarac, V.,
pi. 860, No. 2194 B ; Ellis, Townley Gallery, I., p. 241 ; Guide to
Graeco-Roman Sculptures, I., No. 135; Stereoscopic, No. 149 ;
Wolters, No. 452.

PHEIDIAS AND THE SCULPTURES OF THE

PARTHENON.

The sculptures of the Barthenon illustrate the style of
Bheidias, the greatest of Greek sculptors.

Pheidias, son of Charmides, the Athenian, was born about
500 b.c. He was a pupil of the sculptor Ageladas, of Argos,
or, according to others, of Hegias or Hegesias, of Athens.