Note 2169 — Chapter VI · TWO MARBLE HEADS FROM VICTOR STATUES.2022

I need hardly add that such an idealizing tendency should be carefully distinguished from the deification of mortals which came into prominence after the time of Alexander, but existed in Greece from the early fifth century B. C., at least. The case of heroizing the Thasian Theagenes, who won at Olympia in boxing and the pankration in Ols. 75 and 76 ( = 480 and 475 B. C.), has been discussed with similar ones in Ch. I, p. 35. But the fact that a victor wanted his statue to be more or less assimilated to the ideal type of the hero, whom he regarded as his athletic prototype and ideal, does not mean that he had any idea of looking upon himself as a god.