Note 22: — V.—RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION. (Wall-Cases 98-106.)

Other objects illustrating the frequency and variety of Greek and Roman dedications may best be described in approximately chronological order. Two objects, which are more fully dealt with in other sections, may here be mentioned. In the sixth century B.C. the athlete Exoidas dedicated to the Dioscuri, patrons of athletic exercise, the bronze diskos (fig. 50; No. 157) with which he had conquered "the high-souled" Kephallenians in athletic contest. The helmet, dedicated by Hieron after his naval victory off Kyme, has been already described (p. 8). Other votive helmets are shown in Cases 114-5. For the votive spearheads (?) see p. 9. The huntsman, no less than the athlete and the warrior, felt that the gods took an intimate part in his successes. This is illustrated by the inscribed bronze model of a hare in Case 103, with its head thrown back in the death agony (No. 124; fig. 38). The Ionic letters, of about 480 B.C., read: "Hephaestion dedicated me to Apollo of Priene."22 This offering reminds us of another exhibited in the left-hand wall-case in the Greek Ante-Room downstairs. A small limestone statuette, found on the site of the Greek settlement of Naukratis in Egypt, represents a young huntsman with two boars and two hares slung over his shoulders. It is inscribed "A dedication by Kallias"—probably to Aphrodite, since it was found within her precinct (Cat. of Sculpt., I., 118).