left hand, one from the head to the right knee), creating the impres-
sion of a tightly stretched bow a moment before the string is re-
leased. This tension is not, however, mirrored in the athlete’s face,
which remains expressionless. Once again, as in the warrior statue
(FIG. 5-29) from the Aegina temple’s east pediment, the head is
turned away from the spectator. In contrast to Archaic athlete stat-
ues, the Classical Diskobolos does not perform for the spectator but
concentrates on the task at hand.
POLYKLEITOS,DORYPHOROSOne of the most frequently
copied Greek statues was the Doryphoros (Spear Bearer) by the
sculptor Polykleitos,whose work epitomizes the intellectual rigor
of Classical art. The best marble replica (FIG. 5-40) stood in a
palaestra at Pompeii, where it served as a model for Roman athletes.
The Doryphoros was the embodiment of Polykleitos’s vision of the
ideal statue of a nude male athlete or warrior. In fact, the sculptor
made it as a demonstration piece to accompany a treatise on the
subject.Spear Bearer is a modern descriptive title for the statue. The
name Polykleitos assigned to it was Canon (see “Polykleitos’s Pre-
scription for the Perfect Statue,” page 124).
The Doryphoros is the culmination of the evolution in Greek
statuary from the Archaic kouros to the Kritios Boy to the Riace war-
rior. The contrapposto is more pronounced than ever before in a
standing statue, but Polykleitos was not content with simply render-
ing a figure that stood naturally. His aim was to impose order on hu-
man movement, to make it “beautiful,” to “perfect” it. He achieved
this through a system of cross balance. What appears at first to be a
casually natural pose is, in fact, the result of an extremely complex
and subtle organization of the figure’s various parts. Note, for in-
stance, how the statue’s straight-hanging arm echoes the rigid sup-
porting leg, providing the figure’s right side with the columnar sta-
bility needed to anchor the left side’s dynamically flexed limbs. If
read anatomically, however, the tensed and relaxed limbs may be
seen to oppose each other diagonally—the right arm and the left leg
are relaxed, and the tensed supporting leg opposes the flexed arm,
which held a spear. In like manner, the head turns to the right while
the hips twist slightly to the left. And although the Doryphoros seems
to take a step forward, the figure does not move. This dynamic asym-
metrical balance, this motion while at rest, and the resulting har-
mony of opposites are the essence of the Polykleitan style.
The Athenian Acropolis
While Polykleitos was formulating his Canon in Argos, the Athenians,
under the leadership of Pericles, were at work on one of the most am-
bitious building projects ever undertaken, the reconstruction of the
Acropolis after the Persian sack of 480BCE. Athens, despite the damage
it suffered at the hands of the army of Xerxes, emerged from the war
with enormous power and prestige. The Athenian commander
Themistocles had decisively defeated the Persian navy off the island of
Salamis, southwest of Athens, and forced it to retreat to Asia.
In 478BCE, in the aftermath of the Persians’ expulsion from the
Aegean, the Greeks formed an alliance for mutual protection against
any renewed threat from the east. The new confederacy came to be
known as the Delian League, because its headquarters were on the sa-
cred island of Delos, midway between the Greek mainland and the
coast of Asia Minor. Although at the outset each league member had
an equal vote, Athens was “first among equals,” providing the allied
fleet commander and determining which cities were to furnish ships
and which were instead to pay an annual tribute to the treasury at
Delos. Continued fighting against the Persians kept the alliance in-
tact, but Athens gradually assumed a dominant role. In 454BCEthe
Delian treasury was transferred to Athens, ostensibly for security rea-
sons. Pericles, who was only in his teens when the Persians laid waste
to the Acropolis, was by midcentury the recognized leader of the
Athenians, and he succeeded in converting the alliance into an Athen-
ian empire. Tribute continued to be paid, but the surplus reserves
were not expended for the common good of the allied Greek states.
Instead, Pericles expropriated the money to pay the enormous cost of
executing his grand plan to embellish the Acropolis of Athens.
The reaction of the allies—in reality the subjects of Athens—
was predictable. Plutarch, who wrote a biography of Pericles in the
early second centuryCE, indicated the wrath the Greek victims of
Athenian tyranny felt by recording the protest voiced against Peri-
cles’ decision even in the Athenian assembly. Greece, Pericles’ ene-
mies said, had been dealt “a terrible, wanton insult” when Athens
used the funds contributed out of necessity for a common war effort
to “gild and embellish itself with images and extravagant temples,
like some pretentious woman decked out with precious stones.”^1
The source of funds for the Acropolis building program is important
to keep in mind when examining those great and universally ad-
mired buildings erected in accordance with Pericles’ vision of his po-
lis reborn from the ashes of the Persian sack. They are not the glori-
ous fruits of Athenian democracy but are instead the by-products of
tyranny and the abuse of power. Too often art and architectural his-
torians do not ask how a monument was financed. The answer can
be very revealing—and very embarrassing.
PORTRAIT OF PERICLES A number of Roman copies are
preserved of a famous portrait statue of Pericles by Kresilas,who
was born on Crete but who worked in Athens. The bronze portrait
was set up on the Acropolis, probably immediately after the leader’s
death in 429BCE, and depicted Pericles in heroic nudity. The statue
must have resembled the Riace warrior (FIG. 5-35). The copies, in
marble, reproduce the head only, sometimes in the form of a herm (a
bust on a square pillar,FIG. 5-41), a popular format in Roman times5-41Kresilas,
Pericles. Roman marble
herm copy of a bronze
original of ca. 429 bce.
Full herm 6high;
detail 4 61 – 2 high.
Musei Vaticani, Rome.
In his portrait of Pericles,
Kresilas was said to
have made a noble man
appear even nobler.
Classical Greek portraits
were not likenesses but
idealized images in
which humans appeared
godlike.Early and High Classical Periods 1251 ft.