Zanes
The statues of Zeus at the entrance to the stadium in Olympia were atonements from athletes who bribed the rules of the ancient Olympic Games . These atonement statues were called Zanes (Ζᾶνες, plural for Zeus ).
history
In the fifth book of his description of Greece, Pausanias narrated several cases in which athletes were sentenced to fund Zanes:
Eupolus from Thessaly , a boxer , bribed in 388 BC. Three of his opponents during the 98th Olympiad. Among them was Phormion from Halicarnassus , who had won the 97th Olympiad. The other two athletes who responded to Eupolos' dishonest offer were Agetor and Prytanis. After Eupolos' machinations came to light, all four involved were sentenced to donate six life-size bronze Zanes. According to Pausanias, two of these statues were made by Kleon from Sikyon , the artists who had created the other four Zeus statues were already unknown in Pausanias' time. Four of the Zanes carried epigrams. In the first epigram it was pointed out that Olympic victories are not due to money, but to the speed and strength of the athletes. The inscription on the second statue mentions fear of God as a deterrent for athletes with an outrage in mind. The two central statues were unlabeled, the fifth had an epigram that pointed to the punishment of this donation for Olympia, and the sixth an indication that all Greeks should take the case to heart as a lesson and never try again to win Olympic victories with money to buy.
Apparently this warning was not always taken seriously, because six more statues of Zeus had to be erected after Callippus from Athens had reached an agreement with corrupt opponents about the outcome of the pentathlon at the 112th Olympiad and this scandal had also become known. However, Kallippus was not able to finance this gift himself, which is why this obligation actually had to be assumed by his hometown Athens . Athens refused, however, and sent the speaker Hyperides to Elis to change the mind of the judges. However, the city was unsuccessful. As a next step, the Athenians decided to boycott the Olympic Games. However, after the Delphic Apollo allegedly threatened to refuse them any oracle from now on, the Athenians agreed to pay the Zanes for Olympia. All these six statues in turn bore epigrams similar in nature to the earlier ones. Possibly, the epigrams can also be seen as references to the rituals and oaths that the athletes took before the competitions.
The thirteenth and fourteenth statues of Zeus were added after wrestlers broke the rules. One was paid for by Rhodes ; Overall, however, there was already a certain confusion of sources here in Pausanias' time. The declaration that at the 178th Olympiad a Philostratus bribed a Eudelus to achieve victory contradicts the record that Straton of Alexandria won in both pankration and wrestling.
A scandal also occurred at the 192nd Olympiad when the fathers of the wrestlers Polyktor and Sosandros from Smyrna manipulated the outcome of the fight. They too were punished; The statues they had to donate were not placed in the row of Zanes in front of the stadium entrance.
In contrast, the row of atonement statues at the stadium entrance in Olympia was expanded by two copies after the 226th Olympiad, after the pugilists Deidas and Sarapammon from the Egyptian Gau Arsinoites had previously agreed on the outcome of the fight.
An athlete who fled during the 201st Olympiad was also punished: Sarapion from Alexandria preferred not to face his opponent in pankration .
comment
In total, around 16 statues of Zeus came together, which were placed in a row on pedestals in front of the passage to the stadium. They were marked with the names of the athletes and were intended to remind the incoming athletes to obey the rules.
At least the first twelve statues must have looked very similar to one another. The human-sized Zeus used his right leg as a standing leg, the left leg as a free leg. His posture could be reconstructed on the basis of traces on the second base. The statues themselves are all lost; the row of plinths was uncovered during excavations by the Germans. Pausanias' description led the archaeologists to the foundations of the Metroon , the smallest temple in Olympia, in May 1878 . Scientists tried to determine its construction time by referring to the Zanes bases.
The increased emergence of corruption scandals in the fourth century BC is commented on a page of the Greek Ministry of Culture and Tourism: “It is not surprising that penalties appeared in the fourth century BC, a time of change in moral values, when the games lost their sacred character and became more of a social event. However, the occurrence of an athlete's name on such a pedestal was shameful both for him and for his city. "
Web links
- Zanesbasen, Pausanias' description in Greek (PDF file; 269 kB)
- Pausanias' description in English translation
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gottwein glossary
- ↑ a b c Pausanias: Description of Greece. 5, 21, 1–18 in the translation by Ernst Meyer
- ↑ See Nigel B. Crowther: Olympic Rules and Regulations . In: Peter Mauritsch et al. (Hrsg.): Ancient worlds: Constance - change - effectiveness: Festschrift for Ingomar Weiler on his 70th birthday . Harrassowitz 2008, ISBN 978-3-447-05761-5 , p. 47.
- ↑ a b c Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Tourism
- ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: Schulsport Hamburg (PDF file; 110 kB) names the number 17, but apparently only 16 bases have been preserved. With Jörg Weilhartner: Pausanias and the Aeginian sculptors. Vienna 2008 on p. 57 speaks of 18 Zanes.
- ↑ Konrad Hitzl: The imperial statues of the Metroon . Berlin / New York 1991, ISBN 978-3-11-012569-6 , p. 2 ff.
- ↑ “It is not surprising that the punishments in the fourth century BC Appeared at a time when moral values were changing, when the games lost their sacred character and became more of a social event. Yet the name of an athlete on such a pedestal was shameful, both for him and for his hometown. "