The statues of Cynisca (also spelled Kyniska from the ancient Greek Κυνίσκα) were two ancient Greek statues which commemorated Cynisca of Sparta’s Olympic victory in chariot racing at the 396 B.C. and 392 B.C. Olympic Games. Cynisca was the first woman to win at the Olympic Games. According to Pausanias of the 2nd century A.D., two statues were erected to commemorate her victory.
Cynisca’s Olympic background
Cynisca’s birth and death dates are unknown. However, her brother, Agesilaus, king of Sparta, was around 48 years old in 396, placing Cynisca in roughly the same age range. Thus, she was no longer a young princess, but she also never married.
It is also likely that Cynisca was not actually present for her own Olympic victories. She did not ride the chariot herself. Rather, she was the owner and trainer of the horses, and the rider functioned like a modern-day jockey in horse racing.
Further, women were not allowed in Olympia during the celebration (specifically gynaikes which is in contrast to parthenoi, or young, unmarried women). The punishment for women caught at an Olympic gathering was to be “hurled from Mount Typaion.” As such, Cynisca during her victories was most likely not at the event or at the Olympia at all. But this should not diminish her role in the victory, as she was “an expert in equestrian matters.”
Historical complications: “Proud pioneer or political pawn?” Whether the statues of Cynisca and Pausanias's later interpretations of Cynisca as a self-motivated, inspired competitor is up for scholarly debate. Other evidence shows that Cynisca played little role in deciding to compete, and was set up to compete by her wealthy family (most notably, her king brother Agesilaus) to invalidate previous winners of chariot racing by showing that “the victory there was not a mark of any great excellence but simply of wealth and lavish outcry” while subsequently aiming to show off Sparta's wealth by succeeding at the event. The best source of this comes from the writing of Xenophon, a long-time friend of Agesilaus. He wrote: “But he [Agesilaus] persuaded his sister Cynisca to breed chariot horses, and showed by her victory that such a stud marks the owner as a person of wealth, but not necessarily of merit.”
Pausanias, writing about these events nearly five centuries later, was building off of more accelerated myths about Cynisca, grounded in different cultural contexts and without the full historical record of the correspondence between Agesilaus and others. As scholar Donald Kyle writes, “He recounted inflated traditions…” and explains how the sporting world of the 2nd century had grown to accept female sport, at least more than Classical Greece. This places into doubt whether Cynisca was self-motivated and competing for her sake, or whether it was more set up by her family. This distinction is important especially in light of the inscriptions on the statues commemorating her victories, which explicitly boasted of Cynisca's triumph as the first woman to win in all of Greece, leaving out the possible behind-the-scenes influence and true motivations of Cynisca's family, Spartan royalty.
Details and inscription of the sculptures
One sculpture, erected in the Altis, considered the heart of the Olympic sanctuary, was composed of bronze statues of Cynisca, the charioteer (jockey), the horses and chariot itself.] Pausanias records that there was a smaller than life-size bronze horses of Cynisca and was found in the Pronaos Temple of Zeus as an offering to the god along with along with a throne of Arimnestus, king of Etruria, which may be related to Cynisca's honor. Both victory monuments were costly.
The monuments had an epigram inscribed:
Kings of Sparta were my fathers and brothers,
and I, Cynisca, winning the race with my chariot
of swift-footed horses, erected this statue.
I assert that I am the only woman in all Greece who won this crown.