«In Medio Stat Virtus»: Virtue stands in the middle.

The Javelin-Bearer, with his beautifully toned body, tensed muscles and sober expression, is a tribute to ancient sculpture, which imitated the motion of the human body. He is an idealised figure placed to offer inspiration to athletes, an image of beauty to aspire to, without being overly muscular and god-like as to be unachievable. He is perfectly balanced in body and movement.

The ideal of balance in all things was central to Greco-Roman world. The ancients aimed at a proper balance of spirit and body. Aristotle defined a virtue as a balance point between two extremes. For example, courage lies between cowardice and recklessness. The courageous person will be virtuous and happy because he has found the “Golden Mean”.

Balance means also doing the right thing in the right amount in the right way. In classical antiquity, a man became a hero because he possessed certain qualities, among which there was heroic balance: this quality required a hero to insist upon his greatness and at the same time maintain a proper modesty before the gods. 

In mythology, a hero during a battle always had two choices: he could follow the Gods, or he could make his own personal decisions. He had to recognize the time when the gods withdrew their help, and at that time the hero had to withdraw from battle. If he failed to follow the gods and made his own decisions, he lost his heroic balance and made a tragic error, which caused him shame and lost of approval and honour.

In our society people tend to forget the principle of balance. They often succumb in the extreme of excess, which can take form in the accumulation of wealth, food or drugs. Also, there is a tremendous imbalance between consuming and producing: too many people consume TVs, media, news, etc. instead of producing things themselves. This causes a lot of frustration amongst people who do not seem to find a way to produce valuable things. 

Once again, we can learn from the past.