Base for a dedication depicting athletes
The base’s three sides are decorated with relief scenes featuring athletes. The best-preserved scene is one of the narrow sides depicting six athletes standing in pairs. Some converse with each other and others remove sweat, dust, and oil from their bodies with the strigils after their participation in the contest.
On a band below the relief scene, the names of three of these athletes and their municipalities are inscribed. They were from the deme of Lakiades, Oe, and Acharnes, all three belonging to the Oineis tribe.
The base supported more than one statue and was erected after a tribe’s victory in a torch-relay race or a contest of euandria (physical fitness) held perhaps during the Panathenaia. We do not know if the dedication was made by the winning team or one particular athlete, gymnasiarch or sponsor since the dedicant’s name hasn’t survived.
The base has been attributed to Daippos, son and disciple of Lysippos’ workshop.
- Acropolis Museum, inv. n. Acr. 3176+
- After 350 BC
- H. 0.48 m. L. 1.62 m. W. 0.91 m.
- Marble from Penteli
- Provenance: Located in 1858 during the Acropolis excavations, near the Propylaia.
Bibliography
- Bieber. M, (1981). The sculpture of the Hellenistic Age, pp. 32, fig. 77, New York: Hacker Art Books.
- Goette. H.R., (2007). "Choregic '' or Victory Monuments of the Tribal Panathenaic Contests, In Ο. Palagia, Α. Choremi-Spetsieri (Eds.), The Panathenaic Games. Proceedings of an International Conference held at the University of Athens, May 11-12 2004, pp. 119-120, fig. 2, pl. 10, Oxford.
- Inscriptiones Graecae II2, 3134
- Rausa. F, (1998). Due donari agonistici dall' Acropoli, Athenische Abteilung, Band 113, pp. 192-217, tafel 34-35, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts.
- Χωρέμη. Ε. Λ., (2015). Λίθινα Ενεπίγραφα Αναθήματα του 4ου αι. π.Χ. από την Ακρόπολη των Αθηνών: ο αναθέτης και το μνημείο, σσ. 65-66, 357-362, Διδακτορική διατριβή, Πανεπιστήμιο Ιωαννίνων, Ιωάννινα.
