CIRCA 1ST CENTURY B.C.-1ST CENTURY A.D.

Polykleitos was one of the most famous and influential Greek sculptors of the High Classical Period. A native of Argos in the Peloponnesus, his artistic career flourished circa 460-420 B.C. The Roman writer Pliny tells us that Polykleitos wrote about his theories of rhythm and proportion. This sculptural Canon emphasized the juxtaposition of antithetical pairs, such as right and left, straight and curved, relaxed and tensed, rest and movement. One of the most famous works universally associated with Polykleitos is the so-called Diskophoros, even though no ancient source assigns such a statue to him. The type was identified as a Diskophoros from a single copy in the Museo Torlonia in Rome that preserves the vestiges of a discus on the upper left thigh. However, the attribution of this type to a discus-carrying athlete may be erroneous. The type was very popular with the Romans, as evinced by the numerous copies in marble that survive, some of which were used as portrait statues. Some small-scale bronze versions and one marble head carry the attributes of Mercury (see Bol, "Diskophoros" in Beck, Bol and Bückling, Polyklet, Der Bildhauer der griechischen Klassik, p. 111-112).