Onatas - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

ONATAS, a Greek sculptor of the time of the Persian wars, a member of the flourishing school of Aegina. Many of his works are mentioned by Pausanias; they included a Hermes carrying the ram, and a strange image of the Black Demeter made for the people of Phigalia; also some elaborate groups in bronze set up at Olympia and Delphi. For Hiero I., king of Syracuse, Onatas executed a votive chariot in bronze dedicated at Olympia. If we compare the descriptions of the works of Onatas given us by Pausanias with the well-known pediments of Aegina at Munich we shall find so close an agreement that we may safely take the pedimental figures as an index of the style of Onatas. They are manly, vigorous, athletic, showing great knowledge of the human form, but somewhat stiff and automaton-like.