" We may be reminded that in the first mention of
athletic contests in Greek literature--in the twenty-third book of
the Iliad--they form part of the funeral rites of the hero Patroclus.
It is thus, though but in the faintest degree, even with the
veritable prince of that world of antique bronze and marble, the
Discobolus at Rest of the Vatican, which might well be set where
Winckelmann set the Adorante, representing as it probably does, the
original of Alcamenes, in whom, a generation after Pheidias, an
earlier and more earnest spirit still survived. Although the crisply
trimmed head may seem a little too small to our, perhaps not quite
rightful, eyes, we might accept him for that canon, or measure, of
the perfect human form, which [298] Polycleitus had proposed. He is
neither the victor at rest, as with Polycleitus, nor the combatant
already in motion, as with Myron; but, as if stepping backward from
Myron's precise point ofinterest, and with the heavydiscusstill in
the left hand, he is preparing for his venture, taking stand
carefully on the right foot. Eye and mind concentre, loyally,
entirely, upon the business in hand.
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