The palm-trunk in the Westmacott copy certainly argues that the original was an athlete statue. The gesture of the right hand has given rise to different interpretations. The Barracco copy furnishes the best evidence, as on it the right arm is preserved to the wrist, the hand only being lost. Helbig at first (in the Barracco Catalogue) expressed the opinion that the right hand might have held an oil-flask, from which oil was being poured into the left. However, the position of the left hand, as shown by the _puntello_ on the left hip, must have been the same as that on the Westmacott copy, _i. e._, hanging close to the left side. Helbig later (in the _Fuehrer_) explained the motive as that of a boy setting a crown on his head, as in the bronze _Eros_ already mentioned. This interpretation, first suggested by Winnefeld,[1178] has been the favorite one among archæologists. But all sorts of other explanations of the motive of the original have been offered, as that the athlete was scraping his forehead or shoulders with the strigil,[1179] that the statue represented Narkissos looking into the pool and shading his eyes with his right hand,[1180] that it was an athlete standing at rest and holding an akontion in his right hand—a theory harmonizing with the poise of the head, but not with the turn of the wrist, which shows that the hand was held downwards[1181]—and that it was, in fact, the _nudus talo incessens_ of Pliny.[1182] On the head of the Eleusis statue there is a mass of marble left over the right ear just opposite the place where the hand would be, if it were setting a wreath on the head. The fact that no marks are visible where the crown was attached is explained by the assumption that the wreath was of metal even in the marble copies. That this motive, moreover, was known to both Attic and Peloponnesian art in the second half of the fifth century B. C. is well attested. Thus we see on the Parthenon frieze a youth crowning himself with one hand, while holding the horse’s bridle with the other.[1183] The pose of this figure—especially the legs—recalls the Myronian _Oil-pourer_ already discussed (Pl. 11). On the other hand, one of the figures of the Ildefonso group in Madrid, which is Polykleitan in style, represents a boy wearing a wreath, a figure closely akin to the _Westmacott Athlete_, the leg position being the same in both and the poise of the head nearly so, although the arms are different, the left one being raised and the right hanging down.[1184] It is probable that the raised right hand of the original of the Westmacott and other replicas touched the wreath and the lowered left held a fillet. The best explanation, then, of the _Westmacott Athlete_ and kindred works is that the motive of the original was allied to that of the _Diadoumenos_ of Polykleitos, though the modeling is too soft for Polykleitos, showing that the copyists changed the original of the Argive master to suit a later and different taste. Whereas the _Diadoumenos_ is tying on a victor’s fillet, the other is presumably placing a victor’s wreath on his head. Certainly no better restoration can be made for the Barracco copy. Furthermore, many other monuments, which show a similar attitude, and which must be regarded as very free imitations of the original, seem to show that the boy was represented as placing a wreath on his head.[1185]