The starting point in any study of Myron must be his Discobolus
(Discus-thrower). Fig. 104 reproduces the best copy. This statue
was found in Rome in 1781, and is in an unusually good state of
preservation. The head has never been broken from the body; the
right arm has been broken off, but is substantially antique; and
the only considerable restoration is the right leg from the knee
to the ankle. The two other most important copies were found
together in 1791 on the site of Hadrian's villa at Tibur (Tivoli).
One of these is now in the British Museum, the other in the
Vatican; neither has its original head. A fourth copy of the body,
a good deal disguised by "restoration," exists in the Museum of
the Capitol in Rome. There are also other copies of the head
besides the one on the Lancellotti statue.

The proof that these statues and parts of statues were copied from
Myron's Discobolus depends principally upon a passage in Lucian
(about 160 A. D.). [Footnote: Philopseudes, Section 18.] He gives a
circumstantial description of the attitude of that work, or rather
of a copy of it, and his description agrees point for point with
the statues in question. This agreement is the more decisive
because the attitude is a very remarkable one, no other known
figure showing anything in the least resembling it. Moreover, the
style of the Lancellotti statue points to a bronze original of the
"Transitional period," to which on historical grounds Myron is
assigned.

Myron's statue represented a young Greek who had been victorious
in the pentathlon, or group of five contests (running, leaping,
wrestling, throwing the spear, and hurling the discus), but we
have no clue as to where in the Greek world it was set up. The