Marathon Boy
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The Marathon Boy or Ephebe of Marathon is a Greek bronze sculpture found in the Aegean Sea in the bay of Marathon in 1925; it is conserved in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens,[1] where it is dated ca 325-300BCE. The Museum suggests that the subject may be a youthful depiction of Hermes, though none of the god's attributes are present. Its style manifests the influence of Praxiteles on his contemporaries; it is the closest contemporary reflection of Praxiteles' manner[2] Its soft musculature and exaggerated contrapposto are Praxitelean characters.
Before the advent of scuba diving its recovery suggested the possibility that artistic as well as archaeological treasures had been preserved from human destruction in underwater sites. Other well-known underwater bronze finds have been retrieved, generally from shipwreck sites, in the Aegean and Mediterranean: the Antikythera mechanism, the Antikythera Ephebe and the portrait head of a Stoic discovered by sponge-divers at Antikythera in 1900, the Mahdia shipwreck off the coast of Tunisia, 1907; the standing Poseidon of Cape Artemision found off Cape Artemision in northern Euboea, 1926; the horse and Rider found off Cape Artemision, 1928 and 1937; the Getty Victorious Youth dredged up off the coast of Fano, Italy; the Riace Warriors, found in 1972; the Dancing Satyr of Mazara del Vallo, near Brindisi, 1992; and the Apoxyomenos recovered from the sea off the Croatian island of Lošinj in 1999.
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[edit] External links
- (Hellenic Ministry of Culture) Collection of bronzes, National Archaeological Museum, Athens
- "The Marathon Boy and the Satyr" Comparable Roman marbles of a Satyr pouring wine]
