兵士，あるいは運動選手？

アルカイック時代のアッティカ墓碑における裸体像解釈

抄録

The nude youths holding a javelin or spear that appear on the Archaic Attic funerary stelae from about 560-550 B. C. (e.g., Metropolitan Museum 12.158) have often been considered to be nude soldiers. Nobutoshi Fukube, on the other hand, interprets them as athletes, i.e., javelin throwers. Scholars have not stated the basis for their interpretations. But neither soldiers nor athletes had been depicted on Attic funerary stelae until this period, so whichever these youths are, interpreting them is essential for understanding the development of Greek grave reliefs.
 It seems that the reason why some scholars have interpreted these figures as soldiers is that the composition is similar to that of the heavily armed soldiers which appear in later decades. For example, Friis Johansen says, “Soldiers were represented in nude at first, but later they were fully armed.” But in contemporary Greek art, there were no nude soldiers. The soldiers wore armour—at the least, helmets and greaves. As Matthias Raecke has indicated, in the vase painting during the 6th century the armour of the soldiers became more heavy and luxurious, but at about 500 B. C. the soldiers suddenly came to be represented fully nude, just like the youths on the grave stelae. Therefore, if we take the youths to be soldiers, their nudity contradicts the general development of the representation of the soldier.
 On the other hand, a few contemporary stelae depict a naked figure holding a discus. Since the discus throw was one of the pentathlon contests, we can conclude that these are pentathlon athletes. Javelin throwing was also included in the pentathlon. Indeed, among the late Archaic and early Classical grave stelae there are examples showing a nude man with both a discus and a javelin. I therefore conclude that the nude figures with spears represent javelin throwers, and that the pentathlon player was a popular image at the beginning of the history of the Archaic Attic grave reliefs.