Now these two works represent different persons, the
Riccardi head being probably copied from the statue of some ideal
hero. And the point to be especially illustrated is that in the
Discobolus we have not a realistic portrait, but a generalized
type. This is not the same as to say that the face bore no
recognizable resemblance to the young man whom the statue
commemorated. Portraiture admits of many degrees, from literal
fidelity to an idealization in which the identity of the subject
is all but lost. All that is meant is that the Discobolus belongs
somewhere near the latter end of the scale. In this absence of
individualization we have a trait, not of Myron alone, but of
Greek sculpture generally in its rise and in the earlier stages of
its perfection (cf. page 126).
Another work of Myron has been plausibly recognized in a statue of
a satyr in the Lateran Museum (Fig. 106). The evidence for this is
too complex to be stated here. If the identification is correct,
the Lateran statue is copied from the figure of Marsyas in a
bronze group of Athena and Marsyas which stood on the Athenian
Acropolis The goddess was represented s having just flung down in
disdain a pair of flutes; the satyr, advancing on tiptoe,
hesitates between cupidity and the fear of Athena's displeasure.
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