The Hermes and Dionysos of Olympia

Extract

Mr. H. W. Law's suggestion, made as a note in the last number of the Journal (p. 236), that the statue of the Hermes and Dionysos from the Heraeum was moved to that building from elsewhere in 146 B.C. is interesting. It would, of course, without doubt authenticate the statue as an original by Praxiteles, if its processes of reasoning could be considered as acceptable. Mr. Law, not doubting any more than I do, that the basis can be assigned to a second-century B.C. date, as Professor Dinsmoor has shown, assumes that therefore the statue must have been placed upon that basis at the time when that basis was made. That assumption obviously rules out the possibility of the statue having been carved in the second century A.D.