That Pythagoras did make statues in motion is proved by his statue of a limping man at Syracuse mentioned by Pliny[1343] in very realistic terms. We know of other statues by him representing athletes in motion only by inference. Thus, in the passage just quoted, Pliny says that he surpassed Myron with his Delphian pancratiast, which appears, inasmuch as Pliny merely calls the statue a pancratiast without mentioning any attribute, to have been represented in the characteristic lunging pose.[1344] However, we can not say definitely, since the contemporary statue of the pancratiast Kallias, by Mikon of Athens, was represented in the attitude of rest, as we learn from the footprints on its recovered base.[1345] Pliny also says that Pythagoras surpassed with his Delphian pancratiast his own statue of Leontiskos,[1346] a statement which similarly appears to mark the latter as a statue in motion. Reisch assumes that the statue of Euthymos was in motion, since Pausanias says it was an ἀνδριὰς θέας ἐς τὰ μάλιστα ἄξιος.[1347] On the whole, then, we may assume that Pythagoras was a sculptor who represented many of his victors in the attitude of motion.
Love of movement also characterized the artistic temperament of Myron, even though we know that he represented gods, heroes, and even athletes, at rest. Thus coins show that Athena in his _Marsyas_ group was represented as standing in a tranquil pose.[1348] Similarly the Riccardi bust in Florence, already discussed, which may be Myronian, comes from a statue of a hero shown in an attitude of rest. Myron was the first Greek sculptor to make his statues and groups self-sufficient,[1349] that is, he gave to them a concentration which does not allow the spectator’s attention to wander. We readily see this new principle in art when we compare the _Diskobolos_ and the group of the _Tyrannicides_. In the latter our attention is not concentrated, for a third figure, that of the tyrant on whom the onset is being made, is required in imagination to complete the group. We have no originals from Myron’s hand, but we are in far better case in regard to his work than in regard to that of Pythagoras, since we have unmistakable copies of two of his greatest works, the _Marsyas_ and the _Diskobolos_. In them there is little trace of the archaic stiffness that is still visible in the _Tyrannicides_. Both of these works are represented in violent action, and in both there is complete concentration. While the _Diskobolos_ represents a trained palæstra athlete executing a graceful movement, the _Marsyas_ represents a wild Satyr of the woods, wholly untrained and controlled by savage passions, in the moment of fear.[1350] In the _Diskobolos_ the face is impassive, being little affected by the violent movement of the body—a contrast only partly to be explained as due to the copyist; in the _Marsyas_, on the contrary, there is complete harmony between the facial expression and the violent action of the body.