Statuette of a heavy athlete; Bronze; cast; Bronze; Total: Height: 11;7 cm; small sculptures; human body/figure/nude; Early Imperial Period; Flavian Dynasty; The statuette shows a figure with a strong upper body and slightly protruding breasts. She is dressed with a triangular apron tied together at the sides and high laced boots. The knee is laced above and below. The right leg was set a little sideways to the back. The right arm hangs down loosely; the left one is raised and stretched to the side. The left hand holds a sickle-shaped curved object. The head is turned to the left shoulder and slightly tilted. The long hair is tied up above the forehead; placed around the ears; tied together at the back and falls curled down to the shoulders. Quite different interpretations were suggested for this bronze statuette: Attis; the son of the river nymph Nana; was remembered. The goddess Kybele had fallen in love with the beautiful young man; but when he was to marry the daughter of the Phrygian king Midas; she drove him mad; so that he emasculated himself. Following the myth; the violet was born from the drops of blood. Attis did not survive and turned into the pine tree. Eugen von Mercklin; on the other hand; proposed in 1930 to recognize in the statuette a juggler holding a curved knife in her raised left hand. The triangular apron and the lacing above and below the knee are comparable to the statuette of a dancer in the museum of Rennes. But an interpretation as a sportswoman was also put forward. The curved object interpreted as strigilis or possibly a victory branch. Alfonso Manas on the other hand considers the statuette to be one of the rare images of a Roman gladiator. Especially the long hair and the breasts he cites as arguments. But the strong body shape and posture still make one think of a heavy athlete - possibly a pancratist.