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LOT 0107
Roman Bronze Strigil
2ND CENTURY B.C.-1ST CENTURY A.D.
7 1/2 in. (46 grams, 19 cm).
With C-section profile to the blade, rectangular handle with flare to the upper end, old notch to one edge, repaired.
ProvenanceEx collection Dr. Kuhn-Lucht, Germany.
with Kölner Munzkabinett, Cologne, before 2016.
Private European collection.
An emblematic instrument of the ancient sporting world, the strigil was mainly used by athletes as a scraper for personal hygiene. After training, which took place in the gymnasiums on tracks and arenas covered with sand, athletes and young people rubbed their skin with olive oil. They then used one of these distinctive scrapers remove the sand-oil mixture before washing in water. These actions are reproduced on famous statues (including Apoxyomenos, one of Lysippus’ masterpieces), on reliefs (such as funerary steles) as well as on countless vase paintings. In Attic and Italian red-figure imagery, the strigil is often depicted on perfume vases, like the aryballos and alabastron.
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AUCTIONS:
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Opening Bid: £222
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From a German collection. Ex Cambridge, UK, collection, 1980s.
The two gladiators seem to be wearing the armaturae of murmillones. All gladiators began their career as provocatores; the learning of their combat technique was polyvalent and allowed the fighters to specialise as a large shield-bearer (the scutati) like murmillones, or as a small shield-bearer, parmati, like the oplomachus. -
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