Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Discobolus

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

DISCOB'OLUS (δισκοβόλος). One who throws the discus; the manner of doing which is shown by the subjoined engraving (Discobolus/1.1), from the celebrated statue of Myron (Quint. ii. 13. 10. Plin. H. N. xxxiv. 19. § 3.), a copy of which is preserved in the British Museum. The very remarkable attitude and position of this figure are characterized by Quintilian as "laboured and distorted" — distortum et elaboratum — but these words are to be understood with reference to the usual practice of the Greek artists who were extremely chary of representing their figures in violent action, such as occurs in ordinary nature, and not as intended to imply that the figure in question does not truly express the real posture which every player with the discus actually assumed at the moment of discharging his disk; for a passage of Statius (Theb. vi. 646 — 721.), descriptive of a contest between two discoboli, enumerates one by one all the particular motions and poses observable in this statue. The player first examines his discus to find which part of the edge will best suit the gripe of his fingers, and which will lay best against the side of his arm, — quod latus in digitos, mediae quod certius ulnae, Conveniat; he then raises up his right arm with its weight, — Erigit adsuetum dextrae gestamen, et alte Sustentat; bends both his knees downwards, and swings the disk up above the general level of his body, — humique Pressus utroque genu, collecto sanguine discum, Ipse super sese rotat; and then discharges the mass by swinging his arm downwards, which acquires a double impetus from the resistance in a contrary direction, produced by the rising up of the bent body, as the arm descends, — ahenae lubrica massae Pondera vix, toto curvatus corpore, juxta dejicit. This passage, while it illustrates the meaning and intention of the different attitudes exhibited by the above figure, also clearly explains the manner in which the discus was cast.

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  Discobolus/1.1