Greek Spectacles and Games 2.0

Siobhán McElduff

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

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Table of Contents

Timeline

Greek Sports I: Athletic Events: a. Nudity and Equipmentb. Athletics and Greek Identitya. Types of Greek Athletics

Heavy Non-heavy

Greek Sports II: Equestrian Eventsa. Chariot Racingb. Other Equestrian Events

Greek Sports III: Athletes and their Reputationsa. Honours b. Legendary Athletes

The Olympic Games a. Foundation Mythb. Structure of the Gamesc. The Athletesd. Celebrating Victory

The Heraia, and Women and Athletics

Beyond the Olympics: the Circuit of Gamesa. The Pythian Gamesb. The Isthmian Gamesc. The Nemean Gamesd. The Panathenaea

Appendix

Figures

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Timeline for Greek athletics (with some other dates for context)

776 BCE: First recorded Olympic Games are held at Olympia, aholy site dedicated to the worship of the god Zeus. Sole eventis the stadion, a sprint race the length of the stadium.

724 BCE: Diaulos (double stadion) added to Olympics games

720 BCE Dolichos (long distance race) added to the Olympics;Orsippos first nude runner in stadion?

708 BCE pentathlon and wresting added to the Olympics

688 BCE boxing added to the Olympics

680 BCE four horse chariot race added to the Olympics

648 BCE pankration and horse racing added to the Olympics

632 BCE stadion and wrestling for boys added to the Olympics

628 BCE pentathlon for boys added to the Olympics; droppedimmediately

616 BCE boxing for boys added to the Olympics

586 BCE First Pythian Games held in Delphi (or possiblerelaunch). Events are singing to the lyre, playing the aulos(flute), singing to the aulos (dropped at once as toodepressing); stadion, diaulos, dolichos, pentathlon, boxing,wrestling, horse-racing, stadion for boys (along with boxing,dolichos, diaulos for boys)

582 BCE: four horse chariot race added to the Pythian Games

580 BCE First Isthmian Games held

573 BCE First Nemean Games; hence start of the periodos, thecircuit of crown games.

560s BCE Panatheniac Games first celebrated

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558 BCE: lyre playing added to the Pythian Games

540–516 Milo of Croton wins wrestling six times at the 60th and62nd–66th Olympic Games.

520 BCE Hoplitodromos added to the Olympics

500 BCE: Apene (cart race for mules) added to the Olympics.

498 BCE: Hoplitodromos added to the Pythian Games

496 BCE Kalpe added to the Olympics

492-490 BCE: 1st Persian War and invasion of Greece; Battle ofMarathon won by the Greeks led by the Athenians

480 BCE: 2nd Persian War and invasion of Greece; victory ofthe Athenians and their allies at the naval battle of Salamis

444 BCE: Apene and kalpe dropped from the Olympics

431-404 BCE: Peloponnesian War between Athens and her alliesagainst Sparta and hers; Sparta wins

416 BCE: the Athenian aristocrat Alcibiades enters 7 chariotteams in the four horse chariot at the Olympic Games

408 BCE: Two-horse chariot race added to the Olympics

398 BCE: Two-horse chariot race added to the Pythian Games

396 BCE: Contests for heralds and trumpeters added to theOlympics. Cynisca of Sparta becomes the first woman to win atthe Olympic Games (in the four horse chariot race).

392 BCE: Cynisca wins again in the four horse chariot race

356 BCE: Philip II of Macedon wins the four horse chariotrace at the Olympics

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336 BCE: Death of Philip II of Macedon; Alexander (not yetthe Great) ascends the throne of Macedonia

334 BCE: Alexander the Great invades Persia

323 BCE: death of Alexander the Great

279 BCE: The Ptolemaia, modelled after the Olympics, is firstcelebrated in Alexandria. These are the first so-called ‘Iso-Olympic Games’, games directly modelled on the Olympics.

264 BCE: four horse chariot race for foals added to theOlympics

256 BCE: horse race for foals added to the Olympics

c. 250s BCE: Nemean Games are moved from their original siteto the city of Argos

200 BCE: pankration for boys added to Olympics

197 BCE: Romans defeat the Macedonians in the SecondMacedonian War

196 BCE: Titus Quinctius Flaminius, victor over theMacedonians, declares Greece free at the Isthmian Games

168 BCE: Romans defeat the Macedonians at the battle ofPydna; Greece divided into four regions

149 BCE: Greece becomes a Roman province

146 BCE: Corinth burned to the ground by the Romans; controlof the Isthmian Games moves to Sicyon.

c. 40 BCE: Control of the Isthmian Games is transferred backto Corinth (now a Roman colony)

4 BCE: Emperor Tiberius wins the 4 horse chariot race atOlympia

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65 CE Nero participates in the Olympic Games and the circuitof crown games (Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian); games areheld out of sequence.

393 CE: Final Olympic Games are held in Olympia. Theodosius Ibans all pagan festivals, including the Olympics, the next year.

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Greek Sports I

a. Nudity and equipment

Greek men competed naked, although they had not always done so, a fact which theywere aware of. In Homer’s epic poem the Iliad (23.685) the athletes at the funeralgames for Patroclus wear clothes; this epic, however, dates from the 8th century BCE,long before the rest of our historical records. At some point in the 7 th century clothingwas abandoned and, eventually, not only did the Greeks train and compete naked inall spores (with the exception of some equestrian events and races where wearingequipment was part of the race), but nudity in athletics became a marker of Greekidentity: barbarians might wear clothes, but Greeks stripped to train and to compete.

The first man who undertook to strip and ran naked atOlympia, at the fifteenth Olympiad, was Acanthus theSpartan. Before that time, it seems, all the Greeks had beenashamed to appear entirely naked in the games, as Homer, themost credible and the most ancient of all witnesses, showswhen he represents the heroes as wearing clothes aroundtheir loins. At any rate, when he is describing thewrestling-match of Ajax and Odysseus at the funeral ofPatroclus, he says: “and then the two with their loins wellcovered stepped forth into the ring.”

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 7.72.2-3.

The Athenian historian Thucydides agreed that the Spartans were the first to runnaked:

The Spartans were the first who stripped naked and rubbedthemselves over with olive oil for their athletic exercises.But this was not the ancient custom; athletes formerly, evenwhen they were competing at Olympia, wore loin-cloths, apractice which lasted until quite lately, and still prevailsamong barbarians, especially those of Asia, where thecombatants at boxing and wrestling matches wear loin-cloths.

Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, 1.6.

However, some argued that the first person to run naked was Orsippos from Megara:

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Near Koroibos1 is the grave of Orsippos. When the athletes,following an ancient custom, wore loin-clothes at the games,he won the Olympic stadion while naked. They also say thatlater, when Orsippos was a general he cut off land fromneighbouring people. I think that he deliberately droppedhis loin-cloth at Olympia, realizing that a naked man canrun easier than a man with a loin-cloth.

Pausanias, Description of Greece, 1.44.1

This is the funeral inscription that Pausanias saw at Megara recording Orsippos feat:

For the clever Orsippos of Megara they have erected me here,

a beautiful monument, obeying the word of Delphi.2

He liberated the farthest boundaries of his fatherland,because the enemy had cut off large parts of land.He was the first of the Greeks to win the victory crown at Olympia naked since before everyone competed in loin-cloths in the stadion

IG VII 52

As he begins discussing his laws about women Plato in the Republic (4 th century BCE)has one of the characters talk about how recently the Greeks had adopted nudity:

“You're right,” he said. “But since we have begun we mustgo forward to the rough part of our law, after begging thesefellows…to be serious, and reminding them that it is notlong since the Greeks thought it disgraceful and ridiculous,as most of the barbarians do now, for men to be seen naked.And when the practice of athletics began, first with theCretans and then with the Spartans, the hipsters of thattime could make fun of these practices, don't you think so?”

1 The first winner of the stadion at the Olympic Games.2 In addition to being the home of the Pythian Games Delphi was also the location of the oracle of Apollo, which was often consulted by Greek and other states.

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“I do.” “But when, I take it, experience showed that it isbetter to strip than to hide all things of this sort, thenlaughter faded away before that which reason revealed to bebest.

452C

The Romans did not exercise naked, which Dionysius of Halicarnassus attributed tothem keeping alive the ancient Greek custom. The following describes theprocession before games

After them came the contestants in both the light and theheavy games, their whole bodies naked except for theirloins. This custom continued even to my time at Rome, as itwas originally practised by the Greeks; but it is nowabolished in Greece, the Spartans having put an end to it.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 7.72.2.

The Greeks used relatively little equipment in their athletics. Below I’ve listed some ofthe standard equipment you would find Greek athletes using in a gymnasium.

aryballos: vase for holding your olive oil for oiling upbefore exercisingcaestus: a hard version of the himantes (see illustration inboxing section)discus: originally made of stone; later made of bronze oriron. No standard weighthalteres: weights for the long jumphairnets: used for preventing your hair getting tangled,especially if you were throwing the javelin, where thethrowing strap might get caught in your hairhimantes: leather strips (c.4 metres in length) wrappedaround hands and wrists for protection. These were made ofox-hide; pigskin was forbidden because it left wounds thatwould not close easily and were too painful.javelins: for the javelin throw. c. 2 metres long with athrowing strapkonis: a type of dust that you used after you had cleaned upafter exercising

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olive oil: this was rubbed on your body before exercisingstrigil: a tool with which to scrape off oil, sweat, anddust after exercising (oil scrapings from famous athletesfetched high prices). Usually bronze, but could be made ofiron or even precious metals

b. Athletics and Greek Identity

Athletics were central to Greek identity, and were one activity that they felt separatedthem from the barbarians (all non-Greeks were barbarians to the ancient Greeks)around them. In the following fictional dialogue set in the 7 th century BCE between theAthenian lawmaker Solon and a Scythian called Anacharsis, the satirist Lucian (whowas himself Syrian in origin) uses athletics to compare Greek and non-Greek culture.Of course, what Solon does not say is that there were distinct monetary and personaladvantages to winning at games like the Olympics: they might only give you a crownbut many cities gave bonuses to athletes who won at major games, and some got todine for free for life in the city’s dining halls. Winning at a major set of games couldalso make your political career for life:

An.3 Why do your young men behave like this, Solon? Some ofthem grappling and tripping each other, some throttling,struggling, mixing it up in the dust just like a crowd ofpigs wallowing. And yet when they first strip naked (Inoticed that) they oil and scrape each other quite amicably.But I do not know what comes over them after that: theylower their heads and begin to push, and crash theirforeheads together like a pair of rams battling. Look - thatone has lifted the other right off his legs and dropped himon the ground; then he jumps on top of him and will not lethim get his head up, but presses it down into the dust; andto finish him off he twines his legs tight round his belly,thrusts his elbow hard against his throat, and throttles thewretched victim, who meanwhile is patting his shoulder; thatwill be a form of supplication; he is asking not to be quitechoked to death. Regardless of their fresh oil, they get allfilthy, smother themselves in mud and sweat till they might

3 An = Anacharisis; So = Solon.

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as well not have been anointed, and present, to me at least,the most ludicrous resemblance to eels slipping through aman’s hands. Then here in the open court are others doingjust the same, except that, instead of the clay, they havefor floor a depression filled with deep sand, with whichthey sprinkle one another, scraping up the dust on purpose,like chickens; I suppose they want their interfacings to betighter; the sand is to neutralize the slipperiness of theoil, and by drying it up to give a firmer grip. And here areothers, sanded too, but on their legs, kicking and punchingeach other. We shall surely see this poor fellow spit outhis teeth in a minute; his mouth is all full of blood andsand; he has had a blow on the jaw from the other’s fist,you see. Why does not the official there separate them andput an end to it? I guess that he is an official from hispurple; but no, he encourages them, and praises the puncher.Wherever you look, every one is busy - rising on his toes,jumping up and kicking the air, or something. Now I want toknow what is the good of it all. To me it looks more likemadness than anything else. It will not be very easy toconvince me that people who behave like this are not wrongin their heads.

So. It is quite natural it should strike you that way, as itis new to you and absolutely not the way Scythians behave.Similarly you have no doubt many ways of behaving andcustoms that would seem extraordinary enough to us Greeks,if we saw them as you see ours. But be reassured; theseproceedings are not madness; it is no spirit of violencethat sets them hitting each other, wallowing in clay, andsprinkling dust. The thing has its use, and its delight too,resulting in admirable physical condition. If you make somestay, as I imagine you will, in Greece, you are bound to beeither rolling around in clay or dust before long; you willbe so taken with the pleasure and profit of the pursuit.

An. Hands off, please. No, I wish you all joy of yourpleasures and your profits; but if any of you treats me likethat, he will find out that we do not wear swords for show.

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But can you tell me what this is called? What are theydoing?

So. The place is called a gymnasium, and is dedicated toLycian Apollo. You see his statue there - the one leaning onthe pillar, with a bow in the left hand. The right arm bentover the head indicates that the god is resting after somegreat exertion. Of the exercises here, that in the clay iscalled wrestling; the youths in the dust are also calledwrestlers, and those who strike each other standing areengaged in what we call the pankration. But we have othergymnasia for boxing, discus-throwing, and the halma; and inall these we hold contests, the winner in which is honouredabove all his contemporaries, and receives prizes.

An. What do they win?

So. At Olympia a wreath of wild olive, at the Isthmus one ofpine, at Nemea of parsley, at the Pythian games some of thegod’s sacred apples,4 and at our Panathenaea5 oil pressedfrom the temple olives. What are you laughing at,Anacharsis? Are the prizes too small?

An. Oh dear no; your prize-list is most imposing; the giversmay well plume themselves on their generosity, and thecompetitors be incredibly keen on winning. Who would not gothrough this amount of preparatory toil, and take his chanceof a choking or a dislocation, for apples or parsley? It isobviously impossible for any one who has a fancy to a supplyof apples, or a wreath of parsley or pine, to get them

4 The four great stephanitic/crown games, so called because the winners did not win money, but were awarded crowns. Some of the crowns’ materials changedover time, though that at Olympia was always olive.5 The Panathenaea was an annual festival in Athens; every four years there was an especially elaborate festival which had international appeal. The prizes were amphorae of olive oil – which held considerable monetary value both because of the oil and the quality of the vases (the Athenians did a thriving trade in ‘fake’ Panatheniac vases, such was the appeal of the design).

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without a mud plaster on his face, or a kick in the stomachfrom his competitor.

So. My dear sir, it is not their intrinsic value that welook at. They are the symbols of victory, labels of thewinners; it is the fame attaching to them that is worth anyprice to their holders; that is why the man whose quest forhonour leads through toil is content to take his kicks. Notoil, no honour; he who covets that must start with enduringhardship; when he has done that, he may begin to look forthe pleasure and profit his labours are to bring.

An. Which pleasure and profit consists in their being seen in their wreaths by every one, and congratulated on their victory by those who before commiserated their pain; their happiness lies in their exchange of apples and parsley for toil.

So. Ah, you certainly do not understand our ways yet. Youwill change your opinions before long, when you go to thegreat festivals and see the crowds gathering to look on, thestands filling up, the competitors receiving their ovations,and the victor being idolized.

An. Why, Solon, that is just where the humiliation comes in;they are treated like this not in something like privacy,but with all these spectators to watch the affronts theyendure — who, I am to believe, consider them happy when theysee them dripping with blood or being throttled; for suchare the happy accompaniments of victory. In my country, if aman strikes a citizen, knocks him down, or tears hisclothes, our elders punish him severely, even though therewere only one or two witnesses, not like your vast Olympicor Isthmian gatherings. However, though I cannot helppitying the competitors, I am still more astonished at thespectators; you tell me elites from all over Greece attend;how can they leave their serious concerns and waste time onsuch things? How they can like it passes my comprehension —to look on at people being struck and knocked about, dashedto the ground and pounded by one another.

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So. If the Olympic, Isthmian, or Panatheniac games were onnow, those lessons might have been enough to convince youthat our keenness is not thrown away. I cannot make youunderstand the delights of them by description; you shouldbe there sitting in the middle of the spectators, looking atthe men’s courage and physical beauty, their marvellouscondition, effective skill and invincible strength, theirenterprise, their emulation, their unconquerable spirit, andtheir unwearied pursuit of victory. Oh, I know very well,you would never have been tired of talking about yourfavourites, backing them with voice and hand.

An. I dare say, laughing and celebrating too. All the finethings in your list, your courage and conditions, yourbeauties and enterprises, I see you wasting for no greatpurpose; your country is not in danger, your land not beingravaged, your friends or relations not being dragged away.6

The more ridiculous that such patterns of perfection as youmake them out should endure the misery all for nothing, andspoil their beauty and their fine figures with sand andblack eyes, just for the triumphant possession of an appleor a sprig of wild olive. Oh, how I love to think of thoseprizes! By the way, do all who enter get them?

So. No, indeed. There is only one winner.

Lucian, Anacharsis 1-14

Because of the centrality of athletics to Greek identity, gymnasia were social centresin Greek towns, and served as places where men could forge relationships, bothsexual and non-sexual. They were often places where art was displayed and those inricher cities had beautiful paintings and mosaics – in fact, one of the first places theGreek travel writer Pausanias went in a city was its gymnasium. Some came just tolook at and lust for the athletes; we have a number of ‘kalos’ cups, cups whichwill say something like ‘so and so is kalos’, ‘handsome’ or ‘lovely’. We have about 200names listed on these cups: one we have is that of Leagros, a famously beautiful

6 This was a common complaint about athletics by some Greeks as well – that it did not train people for war and fighting to protect their cities.

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man who also went on to become a general for the Athenians.7 The cup was foundin Capua, in Southern Italy, which testifies to the wide appeal of the body beautiful.However, despite the fact that gymnasia were places to meet and woo other men (orperhaps because of it) there were restrictions on entering many gymnasia whenyouths and children were exercising there. This prosecution speech from 346 BCErefers to these laws in Athens; we also know they were in place in other cities aroundthe Greek world:

In the first place, consider the case of the teachers.Although the very livelihood of these men, to whom we mustentrust our own children, depends on their good character,while the opposite conduct on their part would mean poverty,yet it is plain that the lawgiver8 distrusts them; for heexpressly states, first, what time of day the free-born boyis to go to the school-room; next, how many other boys maygo there with him, and when he is to go home. He forbids theteacher to open the school-room, or the gymnastic trainerthe wrestling school, before sunrise, and he commands themto close the doors before sunset; for he is extremelysuspicious of their being alone with a boy or in the darkwith him. He says what children can be admitted as pupilsand their age at admission. He provides for a publicofficial who shall superintend them, and for the oversightof slave-attendants of school-boys. He regulates thefestivals of the Muses in the school-rooms and of Hermes inthe wrestling-schools. Finally, he regulates thecompanionships that the boys may form at school, and theircyclic dances. He states, namely, that the choregus, a manwho is going to spend his own money for your entertainment,9

shall be a man of more than forty years of age when heperforms this service, in order that he may have reached themost temperate time of life before he comes into contactwith your children. These laws, then, shall be read to you,to prove that the lawgiver believed that it is the boy whohas been well brought up that will be a useful citizen when

7 The Panathenaea also had a male beauty competition as one of its events.8 Solon, an Athenian statesman and lawmaker of the 7th-6th century BCE.9 This was a form of taxation in Athens: rich citizens had to provide choruses and pay for putting on plays out of their own incomes.

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he becomes a man. But when a boy's natural disposition issubjected at the very outset to vicious training, theproduct of such wrong nurture will be, as he believed, acitizen like this man Timarchus.10 Read these laws to thejury.

The Law: The teachers of the boys shall open the school-rooms not earlier than sunrise, and they shall close thembefore sunset. No person who is older than the boys shall bepermitted to enter the room while they are there, unless hebe a son of the teacher, a brother, or a daughter's husband.If any one enters in violation of this prohibition, he shallbe executed. The superintendents of the gymnasia shall underno conditions allow any one who has reached the age ofmanhood to enter the contests of Hermes together with theboys.11 Anyone in charge of a gymnasium who permits this andfails to keep such a person out of the gymnasium, shall beliable to the penalties prescribed for the seduction offree-born youth. Every choregus who is appointed by thepeople shall be more than forty years of age.

Aeschines, Against Timarchos 9-12.

The Roman architect Vitruvius describes how a Greek gymnasium should be laid out(see figure 2 for how this looks):

Next, although the building of palaestrae12 is not usual inItaly, I think it best to explain the traditional way and toshow how they are constructed by the Greeks. The square oroblong peristyle in a palaestra should be so formed that thecircuit of it makes a walk of two stadia, a distance whichthe Greeks call the diaulos. Let three of its colonnades besingle, but let the fourth, which is on the south side, bedouble, so that when there is bad weather accompanied bywind, the drops of rain may not be able to reach the

10 The person being prosecuted.11 Hermes was the Greek god most associated with gymnasia. Games were often held in his honour.12 Palaestra (plural palaestrae) is interchangeable with gymnasium.

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interior. In the three colonnades construct roomy recesseswith seats in them, where philosophers, rhetoricians, andothers who delight in learning may sit and talk.13 In thedouble colonnade let the rooms be arranged in this way: theyoung men's hall in the middle; this is a very spaciousrecess (the exedra) with seats in it, and it should be onethird longer than it is broad. At the right, the equipmentroom; then next, the dust room; beyond the dust room, at thecorner of the colonnade, the cold washing room, which theGreeks call the loutron. At the left of the young men's hallis the anointing room; then, next to the anointing room, thecold bath room, and beyond that a passage into the furnaceroom at the corner of the colonnade. Next, but inside and ona line with the cold bath room, put the vaulted sweatingbath, its length twice its breadth, and having at the endson one side a Laconicum,14 proportioned in the same manner asabove described, and opposite the Laconicum the warm washingroom. Inside a palaestra, the peristyle ought to be laid outas described above. But on the outside, let threecolonnades be arranged, one as you leave the peristyle andtwo at the right and left, with running-tracks in them. Theone which faces the north should be a double colonnade ofvery ample width, while the other should be single, and soconstructed that on the sides next the walls and the sidealong the columns it may have edges, serving as paths, ofnot less than ten feet, with the space between them sunken,so that steps are necessary in going down from the edges afoot and a half to the plane, which plane should be not lessthan twelve feet wide. Thus people walking round on theedges will not be interfered with by those are oiled up andexercising. This kind of colonnade is called among theGreeks xystos, because athletes during the winter seasonexercise in covered running tracks. Next to this xystos and tothe double colonnade should be laid out uncovered walkswhich the Greeks call paradromides and Romans xysta, intowhich, in fair weather during the winter, the athletes come

13 Gymnasia were social and cultural centres as well as being places for athletic training. 14 A dry sweating room.

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out from the xystos for exercise. The xysta ought to be soconstructed that there may be trees planted between the twocolonnades, or groves of plane trees, with walks laid out inthem among the trees and resting places there, made of opussigninum.15 Behind the xystos there should be a stadium, sodesigned that great numbers of people may have plenty ofroom to look on at the contests between the athletes.

Vitruvius, On Architecture Book 5

15 This was a common building material in Rome. It was made up of smashed pieces of pottery mixed with lime.

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c. Types of Greek athletics

All of the following events took place in the stadium; in the following Pausaniasdescribes the stadium at Olympia, where all foot races and athletic events took place:

There is within the Altis16 by the processional entrance theHippodameium, as it is called, about a quarter of an acre ofground surrounded by a wall. Into it once every year thewomen who sacrifice to Hippodameia17 may enter this and doher honor in other ways. The story is that Hippodameiawithdrew to Midea in Argolis, because Pelops was very angrywith her over the death of Chrysippus. The Eleans declarethat subsequently, because of an oracle, they brought thebones of Hippodameia to Olympia. At the end of the statues18

which they made from the fines levied on athletes, there isthe entrance called the Hidden Entrance. Through it judgesand competitors uusally enter the stadium. Now the stadiumis an embankment of earth, and on it is a seat for thepresidents of the games. Opposite the judges is an altar ofwhite marble; seated on this altar a woman looks on at theOlympic Games, the priestess of Demeter Chamyne, whichoffice the Eleans bestow from time to time on differentwomen. Maidens are not debarred from looking on at thegames.19 At the end of the stadium, where is the starting-place for the runners, there is, the Eleans say, the tomb ofEndymion.

Pausanias, Description of Greece, 6.20.7-8

Heavy/combat sports

16 The sacred precinct of Olympia – see figure 1 for map.17 Hippodameia and Pelops were mythical figures and Pelops’ chariot race to win Hippodameia’s hand was often see18 The zanes: their bases are still visible, although the statues have vanished. 19 This exclusion of married women from watching events is very unusual;other athletic events had no such restrictions. And given the reputation forthe Olympics for rowdiness, it probably was not a suitable place for childrenof either gender. We know that many parents would not let their sons competethere because of anxieties about this.

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Heavy sports were so called because, as the Greeks did not always compete in ageclasses20 (in other words, youths might compete with mature men), they give a distinctadvantage to the heavier, more mature man. There were also no weight classes in anyof the events.

Pairings in the heavy events were selected by lot, and if there was an uneven numberthe odd person out got a bye, which gave him a huge advantage. Lucian, a Greeksatirist and philosopher of the 2nd century CE, describes how competitors drew lots:

A silver urn consecrated to Zeus is produced and into it arethrown little lots about the size of a bean, with letters onthem. Two are marked alpha, two beta, two more gamma,21 andso on, if the competitors run to more than that--two lotsalways to each letter. A competitor comes up, makes a prayerto Zeus, dips his hand into the urn, and pulls out one lot;then another does the same; there is an umpire who stands bywhoever draws a lot, who holds his hand so that he cannotsee what letter he has drawn. When all have drawn, the chief

20 Many events had a boy’s class, even though assessing ages might be an issue in a world without birth certificates. However, you did have situationswhere a 15 year old might be asked to wrestle with a 25 year old.21 These are Greek letters of the alphabet.

This vase shows a competitor in boxing signaling his surrender by raising a finger.

(Black figure Attic

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police officer, I think it is, or one of the stewardsthemselves--I cannot quite remember this detail--, goesround and examines the lots while they stand in a circle,and puts together the two alphas for the wrestling orpankration, and so for the two betas, and the rest. That isthe procedure when the number of competitors is even, aseight, four, or twelve. If it is five, seven, nine, or otherodd number, an odd letter is marked on one lot, which is putin with the others, not having a duplicate. Whoever drawsthis has a bye, and waits till the rest have finished theirpairings; no duplicate turns up for him, you see; and it isa considerable advantage to an athlete, to know that he willcome fresh against tired competitors.

Lucian, Hermotimos 43

Boxing

It’s hard to say what was the most brutal of the heavy sports, but boxing certainlycame close. There were no rounds or breaks, unless your opponent agreed. If not, yougot up and boxed until one of you won, usually by the other collapsing or begging formercy. The drawing below shows the development of the boxing ‘glove’ from softhimantes (on the left) to the caestus on the right.

The extent of the brutality of ancient boxing can be seen in this poem by the Romanpoet Lucilius (fl. 60s CE) describing a statue of a boxer:

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Olympicos here, who now looks so terrible, emperor, once hada nose, a chin, eyebrows, ears, and eyes. Then he entered aboxing contest and lost them all. He did not even receivehis part of his father’s inheritance. His brother had apicture of him and showed it to the judge, who ruled that itwas another man, who did not resemble him at all.

Greek Anthology 9.5

Pausanias, a 2nd century CE travel writer, wrote an account of his travels throughGreece. He often describes monuments set up to celebrate athletes (some of whichwere set up by themselves, others by their cities or communities). He has proven to beremarkably reliable by various finds from the sites he visited and is an invaluablesource for many things, including Greek sports. In the following he describes a statueof Glaucus who suffered terribly in a boxing match at Olympia:

The ploughshare22 one day fell out of the plough, and Glaucusfitted it into its place, using his hand as a hammer.Demylus happened to see his son's performance, and afterthis brought him to Olympia to box. There, Glaucus,inexperienced in boxing, was wounded by his antagonists, andwhen he was boxing with the last of them he was thought tobe fainting from the number of his wounds. Then they saythat his father called out to him, “Son, the plough touch.”So he dealt his opponent a more violent blow which broughthim the victory at once. 3 He is said to have won othercrowns besides: two at the Pythian; eight at the Nemean; andeight at the Isthmian Games. The statue of Glaucus was setup by his son, while Glaucias of Aegina made it. The statuerepresents a figure sparring, as Glaucus was the bestexponent of the art of all his contemporaries. When he diedthe Carystians,23 they say, buried him in the island stillcalled the island of Glaucus.

Pausanias, Description of Greece, 6.10.2-3

22 A blade fitted to the end of the plough to turn up earth.23 A large island in the North East of Greece.

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Boxing resulted in some vicious and deliberately deadly tactics, as Pausanias relates ina different part of his book:

I know that the people of Argos acted in the same way in thecase of Creugas, a boxer from Epidamnus. For they gaveCreugas the crown in the Nemean Games after his death,because his opponent Damoxenus of Syracuse broke theirmutual agreement. For evening drew near as they were boxing,and they agreed within the hearing of witnesses that eachshould in turn allow the other to deal him a blow. At thattime boxers did not yet wear a sharp thong on the wrist ofeach hand, but still boxed with the soft gloves, bindingthem in the hollow of the hand, so that their fingers wereleft bare. These soft gloves were thin thongs of raw ox-hideplaited together after an ancient manner. On the occasion towhich I refer Creugas aimed his blow at the head ofDamoxenus, and the latter ordered Creugas lift up his arm.On his doing so, Damoxenus struck his opponent under theribs with straight fingers; and what with the sharpness ofhis nails and the force of the blow he drove his hand intothe other's inside, caught his bowels, and tore them as hepulled them out. Creugas died on the spot and the people ofArgos disallowed Damoxenus for breaking his agreement bydealing his opponent many blows instead of one. They gavethe victory to the dead Creugas, and had a statue of himmade in Argos. It still stood in my time in the sanctuary ofLycian Apollo.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 8.40.3-5.

Pankration

Think boxing was bad? Pankration (which means all-powerful) was a brutal sport inwhich everything was legal, except biting and eye-gouging. Except in Sparta, whereboth of those were allowed. Arrhachion died during one bout, but still was crownedOlympic victor:

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The Phigalians have in their marketplace a statue of thepankratiast Arrhachion; it is archaic, especially in itsposture. The feet are close together, and the arms hang downby the side as far as the hips.24 The statue is made ofstone, and it is said that an inscription was written uponit. This has disappeared with time, but Arrhachion won twoOlympic victories at the games before the fifty-fourth,while at this games he won one due partly to the fairness ofthe judges and partly to his own manhood. For when he wascompeting for the wild olive25 with the last remainingcompetitor, whoever he was, the latter got a grip first, andheld Arrhachion, hugging him with his legs, and at the sametime he squeezed his neck with his hands. Arrhachiondislocated his opponent's toe, but died of suffocation; butthe man who suffocated Arrhachion was forced to give in atthe same time because of the pain in his toe. The Eleanscrowned and proclaimed the corpse of Arrhachion the winner.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 8.40.1-2

In the following Philostratus (who was probably the son-in-law of the Philostratus whowrote on athletics) describes paintings in an imaginary gallery. One of them is ofArrhachion in his moment of triumph:

You have come to the Olympic Games themselves and to thenoblest of the contests held at Olympia; for this is themen’s pankration. Arrhachion is being crowned for winningthis event, having died just after his victory, and theJudge of the Games is crowning him – let him be called “thestrict judge,” both because he sedulously strives for thetruth and because he is indeed depicted like the Olympicjudges. The land furnishes a stadium in a simple glen ofsufficient length, from which issues the stream of theAlpheios, a light stream – that, you know, is why it aloneof rivers flows on top of the sea, and about it grow wildolive trees of green-grey colour, beautiful and curly like

24 This type of statue is now called a Kouros. Here is a good example of the type of status Pausanias is describing.25 Victors at Olympia were given a crown of olive.

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parsley leaves. Now after we have looked at the stadium, wewill turn our attention to various other elements, and inparticular let us take note of the deed of Arrhachion beforeit is ended. For he seems to have conquered not hisantagonist alone, but all the Greeks; at any rate, thespectators jump up from their seats and shout, some wavetheir hands, some their garments, some leap from the ground,and some grapple with their neighbours for joy; for thesereally amazing deeds make it impossible for the spectatorsto contain themselves. Is anyone so without feeling as notto applaud this athlete? For after he had already achieved agreat deed by winning two victories in the Olympic Games, ayet greater deed is depicted on this, in that, having wonthis victory at the cost of his life, he is being conductedto the realms of the blessed with the very dust of victorystill upon him. Let not this be regarded as mere chance,since he very cleverly planned for the victory.

And as to the wrestling? Those who engage in the pankration,my boy, practice a form of wrestling that is dangerous; forthey must meet blows on the face that are not safe for thewrestler, must clinch in struggles that one can only win bypretending to fall, and they need skill so they can choke anopponent in different ways at different times, and the samecontestants are both wrestling with the ankle and twistingthe opponent’s arm, to say nothing of dealing a blow andleaping upon the adversary; for these things are allpermissible in the pankration – anything except biting andgouging. The Spartans, indeed, allow even these, because, Isuppose, they are training themselves for battle, but thecontests of Elis exclude them, though they do permitchoking. Accordingly the antagonist of Arrhachion, havingalready clinched him around the middle, thought to kill him;already he had wound his forearm about the other’s throat toshut off his breathing, while, pressing his legs on thegroins and winding his feet one inside each knee of hisadversary, he stopped Arrhachion’s resistance by choking himtill the sleep of death thus induced began to creep over hissenses. But in relaxing the tension of his legs he failed to

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forestall the scheme of Arrhachion; for the latter kickedback with the sole of his right foot (as the result of whichhis right side was in danger since now his knee was hangingunsupported), then with his groin he holds his adversarytight till he can no longer resist, and, throwing his weightdown toward the left while he locks the latter’s foottightly inside his own knee, by this violent outward thrusthe wrenches the ankle from its socket. Arrhachion’s soul,though it makes him feeble as it leaves his body, yet giveshim strength to achieve that for which he strives. The onewho is choking Arrhachion is painted so he looks like acorpse and as indicating with his hand that he gives up thestruggle; but Arrhachion is painted as all victors are; forhis blood is of rich colour, the perspiration is still freshon his body and he smiles as do the living when they areconscious of victory.

Philostratus, Imagines, 2.6

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Non-heavy sports

Running

There were a number of different lengths in the footraces, although on the whole theGreeks did not do long distance running – there was no marathon at the Olympics,where the longest race, the dolichos, was only 24 lengths of the stadium, some 5,000metres.

The main races:

a. Stadion: One length of the stadium, however long it was. Thepremier foot race: those who won this in the Olympics hadthe next Olympiad (four year period) named after them

b. Diaulos: two lengths of the stadiumc. Dolichos: a long distance race; the one at Olympia was 24

lengths of the stadium, around 4,800 metresd. Hoplitodromos: a race in (partial) armour.e. Lampadedromia: a torch race, run in relays. Not an Olympic

sport

Racers started in an upright position. At Olympia they stood in starting blocks whichare still in existence:

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The most celebrated race was at the Olympics was a sprint, the stadion: one length ofthe stadium. Whoever won this event at Olympia had the Olympiad, the period of thenext four years, named after him – a great honour which ensured his reputation wouldlive forever as all Greek cities used this dating system as well as their own. As a resultraces were fiercely competitive and not without underhand methods:

The good runner, from the moment the barrier falls, simplymakes the best of his way; his thoughts are on the winning-post, his hopes of victory in his feet; he leaves hisneighbour alone and does not concern himself at all with hiscompetitors. It is the ill qualified, with no prospect ofwinning by his speed, who resorts to foul play; his one pre-occupation is how he may how he may stop, impede, curb thereal runner, because failing that his own victory is out ofthe question.

Lucian, On Slander 12

Some runners were a little slow off the mark, however:

Charmus in Arcadia came in (wonderful to say, but it is afact) seventh of five runners in the long race. "As therewere six," you will probably say, " how did he come inseventh?" A friend of his came in his cloak calling out " Gofor it, Charmus," so that he came in seventh and if he hadhad five more friends, Zoilus, he would have come intwelfth.

Recently, the great earth made everything quake, but onlythe runner Erasistratus it did not move from his place.

Greek Anthology 4.82-3.

Philostratus, a rhetorician and biographer of the early 3rd century CE, wrote a book ongymnastics: here he describes the ideal body type for a runner (be aware, though, thatPhilostratus has some very strange ideas about idea bodily shapes for athletes)26

To be an excellent dolichos runner a man should haveshoulders and a neck about as strong as those of a

26 For information on Philostratus see this page at Livius

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pentathlete, but he should have slender and light legs as astadion-runner. These bring their legs into a sprint withtheir hands, as if their hands give them wings. Dolichos-runners do this only in the final sprint, the rest of thetime it is almost as if they stride, with their hands in afist, for which they need strong shoulders…. As stadionrunners - this is the lightest event - proportionate peopleare very well suited, but even better are tall people, notthe very tall, but those who are just a little taller thanthe proportionate ones, for extraordinarily tall people lackstability, like overgrown plants. They should be builtfirmly, because the start of a good sprint is a goodposture.27 The proportions of their body should be asfollows: the legs should be in balance with the shoulders,the chest smaller than the average and with healthy organs,they should have swift knees, straight shins and handsbigger than the average. They should have proportionatemuscles, for excessive muscles are like chains when speed isinvolved.

Philostratus, On Gymnastics 32-33

Race in Armour (Hoplitodromos)

27 The Greeks started from a standing position.

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One popular event was the race in armour: at the start runners worse a helmet, shield,and greaves, but as time went runners raced carrying only a shield. Pausaniasdescribes the statue of Damaretos, one of the winners of the race at Olympia:

Damaretos of Heraea, his son and his grandson each won twiceat Olympia. Damaretos won at the sixty-fifth Olympiad, whenthe race in armour was held for the first time, and also atthe following Olympiad. His statue shows him with the shieldthat is also carried in our time, with a helmet on his headand greaves on his legs. These were removed from the raceeventually both by the Eleans and by the other Greeks.

Pausanias, Description of Greece, 6.10.4

The Roman satirist Lucilius (2nd century BCE) wrote about one unfortunate competitorwho was challenged in the speed category:

Marcus once went on running in armour until it was midnight,so that the course was closed on all sides; for the publicslaves all thought that he was one of the honorary stonestatues of men in armour set up there. What happened? Why

Vase showing a runnerin the hoplitodromos inthe starting position

(Attic red-figured amphora, c. 480–470 BCE)

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next year they opened, and Marcus came in, but a wholestadion behind.

Greek Anthology 4.85

Lampadedromia: Torch Race

The vase above is an Athenian red-figure vase from the 4th century BCE showing a torchrelay race: it was most likely found in Italy, showing the wide appeal of Greek athletics.The torch was not an Olympic sport, but it was run in various other cities, including thePanathenaea (a festival in honour of the goddess Athena) and other Athenian festivals.It was a relay race in which if the torch died out while a runner was carrying it, theyand their whole team were disqualified.

The race in Athens started at the shrine of Prometheus28 in the Academy, which wasalso a gymnasium:

28 Prometheus was the god who had given fire to humans.

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In the Academy is an altar to Prometheus, and from it theyrun to the city carrying burning torches. While running theymust keep the torch alight; if the torch of the first runnergoes out, he has no longer any claim to victory, but thesecond runner has. If his torch also goes out, then thethird man is the victor. If all the torches go out, no onecan be declared winner. There is an altar to the Muses, andanother to Hermes, and one inside to Athena, and they havebuilt one to Heracles. There is also an olive tree, thoughtto be the second that appeared.29

Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.30.2

Torch relay races could also be ran on horseback, though that was less usual, as thefollowing passage shows:

 "Didn’t you know," said Adeimantos, "there is to be atorchlight race this evening on horseback in honour of thegoddess?" "On horseback?" I said. "That is something new.Will they carry torches and pass them along to one anotheras they race with the horses, or how do you mean?" "That'sit!" said Polemarchos.

Plato, Republic I 328 A

The historian Herodotus (5th century BCE) talks of another equestrian torch race, butdoes not specify the location:

The first rider delivers his charge to the second, thesecond to the third, and thence it passes on from hand tohand, even as in the Greek torch-bearers' race in honor ofHephaestus.30

Herodotus, Histories 8. 98. 2

Pentathlon29 After the first which was created by the goddess Athena on the acropolis of Athens. 30 The Greek god of fire, blacksmiths, other metal workers and craftsmen generally. (Athena was goddess of craftwork as well).

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The pentathlon consisted of five sports: discus throwing, halma (a Greek form of thelong jump), javelin throwing, stadion, and wrestling (only the last two were alsocompetitive sports in their own right). Some people revered these athletes as the bestall-round athletes:

11. For each age there is a different form of beauty. For ayoung man, beauty means that he has a body fit for allefforts, both running and the use of strength. He ispleasant to look upon, a pure delight. That is whypentathletes are the most beautiful people, because theyhave a natural talent for both strength and swiftness. In aman who has reached his prime, beauty consists in beingnaturally adapted for the toils of war, in being pleasant tolook upon and at the same time awe-inspiring. In an old man,beauty consists in being naturally adapted to contend withunavoidable issues and in not being a trouble to others,because he does not have the disagreeable accompaniments ofold age….14. The athletic quality of a body relies on itssize, strength and swiftness, for the man who is swift, isalso strong. Someone able to throw his legs about in acertain way and move with rapid and large paces, is a goodrunner. Someone who can grab and grapple is a wrestler.Someone who can hit with his fists is a boxer. Someone whocan do both is a pankratiast. But someone who can doeverything is a pentathlete.

Aristotle, Rhetorica 1361b

Whoever wrote the pseudo-Platonic dialogue the Lovers also agreed with Aristotle.In a discussion about philosophers he compares them to various athletes,discussing the pentathlete:

I think you mean someone like the pentathletes when theycompete with runners or wrestlers: the former yield, youknow, to the latter in their particular events, and aretheir inferiors in these, but are superior to the usual sortof athletes and beat them. I daresay it may be something ofthis sort that you would suggest as the effect produced by

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philosophy on those who make it their pursuit: they yield tothose who are first-rate.

Pseudo-Plato, The Lovers, 135e

Of course, there was always the chance that in competing in so many events in thepentathlon, you would come last in all of them:

None among the competitors was thrown quicker than myselfand none ran the race slower. With the discus I never camenear the rest, I never was able to lift my legs for a jumpand a cripple could throw the javelin better than I, I amthe first who out of the five events was proclaimed beatenin all five.

Lucilius, Greek Anthology 4.84

Discus:

The Greek discus was not like the modern one: first it was made of stone and then afterthat of bronze or iron and sometimes lead. It was heavy and getting hit with one (asoccasionally happened) was very likely to be fatal. They were not, however, of aconsistent weight or size, varying from 1.3 to 6.6 kilos. Generally people seem to havebrought their own to games, but the discuses for the Olympic Games were special andkept in the treasury of Sicyons there:

On the smaller of the chambers at Olympia are inscriptions,which inform us that the weight of the bronze is fivehundred talents, and that the dedicators were Myron and theSicyonian people. In this chamber are kept three discuses,which are used for the pentathlon. There is also a bronze-plated shield, adorned with paintings on the inner side, andalong with the shield are a helmet and greaves.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.19.4

Additionally, it seems as if you could not throw the discus outside the boundaries andstill win, so the aim was to throw it as close to the boundary as possible without goingoutside. We are, however, not sure how far away this boundary was. This was alsoprobably a measure to ensure you didn’t kill members of the audience and bystanders

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– which happened from time to time as the discus was a heavy and potentially deadlyobject as can be seen from the myth of the boy Hyacinth and the god Apollo:

Now the Sun was about midway, between the coming and thebanished night, and stood at equal distance from those twoextremes. Then, when the youth and Phoebus [Apollo] werestripped and gleaming with rich olive oil, they tried afriendly contest with the discus. First Phoebus, well-poised, sent it flying through the air and cut the cloudsbeyond with its broad weight. After a long time it fell downto the earth, a certain sign of strength and skill. Heedlessof danger Hyacinthus rushed for eager glory of the game,resolved to get the discus. But it bounded back from off thehard earth, and struck full against your face, O Hyacinthus!The God's face went a ghastly white --as pale as the boy's.

Ovid, Metamorphosis 10.174-188.

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The Palombara Disco bolus, a Roman copy of the bronze original by Myron.

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Halma31 (long jump)

This was very different from our long jump. Weights called halteres were used toincrease the distance a jumper could reach, while a flute player played to help themget their rhythm before they jumped:

The 'halter' was invented by the pentathletes for the longjump, the sport after which it is also named. Because therules consider the long jump as one of the more difficultevents in the games, they urge on the jumper with flutemusic and with the halter they make him light as a feather.It is a safe guide for the hands and leads the feet to theground stably and with a clear print. The rules make clearhow much this is worth, for they do not allow the jump to bemeasured if the footprint is not clean. The oblong halterestrain the shoulders and the hands, the spherical halteres alsotrain the fingers. Both light and heavy athletes should holdthem during all exercises, except during breaks.

Philostratus, On Gymnastics 55

Additionally, Greek long jumpers jumped from a take off point (of wood or stone)into sand, which increased the length they could jump. Though one doubts that theycould make the – though they surely could not jump the 55 feet ascribed to the

31 I use the Greek term for this as the Greek long jump was not at all like the modern one.

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some athletes. (Phayllos jumped outside the sand area, as that was only 50 feetlong.)

Phayllos jumped fifty-five feet long;But threw the discus ninety-five

Scholiast32 to Aristophanes, Acharnians 214.

Phayllos was also famous as a runner and fought against the Persians:

There is a statue at Delphi of Phayllos of Croton. He did not win at the Olympics, but he won twice in the pentathlon and once in the foot-race at Delphi. He also fought at sea againstthe Persians, in a ship of his own, equipped by himself and manned by citizens of Croton who were staying in Greece.

Pausanias, Guide to Greece 10.9.2.

Javelin

We don’t know if a win in the javelin throw was based on the length of the throw orsome degree of accuracy was involved. The following speech revolves around the issueof who is at fault when someone’s child is accidentally killed by a javelin in agymnasium. Here the father of the defendant explains the situation and shows that hisson was aiming at a target:

In training my son in those pursuits from which the stategets the most benefit I imagined that both of us would berewarded; but the result has sadly belied my hopes. For thelad—not from insolence or audacity, but while at javelin-practice in the gymnasium with his fellows—made a hit, it istrue, but killed no one, if one considers his true part inthe matter: he accidentally incurred the blame for the errorof another which affected that other's own person.

Had the boy been wounded because the javelin had traveled inhis direction outside the area appointed for its flight, weshould be unable to show that we had not caused his death.

32 A scholiast is someone who writes notes on ancient Greek texts – in this case a play by the comic poet Aristophanes.

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But he ran into the path of the javelin and placed hisperson in its way. Hence my son was prevented from hittingthe target: while the boy, who moved into the javelin'spath, was struck, thereby causing us to be blamed for whatwe did not do. It was because he ran in front of the javelinthat the boy was struck. The lad is therefore accusedwithout just cause, as he did not strike anyone standingclear of the target. At the same time, since it is plain toyou that the boy was not struck while standing still, butwas struck only after deliberately moving into the path ofthe javelin, you have still clearer proof that his death wasdue to an error on his own part. Had he stood still and notrun across, he would not have been struck.

Both sides are agreed, as you see, that the boy's death wasaccidental; so by discovering which of the two was guilty oferror, we should prove still more conclusively who killedhim. For it is those guilty of error in carrying out anintended act who are responsible for accidents5: just as itis those who voluntarily do a thing or allow it to be doneto them who are responsible for the effects suffered. Nowthe lad, on his side, was not guilty of error in respect ofanyone: in practising he was not doing what he was forbiddenbut what he had been told to do, and he was not standingamong those engaged in gymnastics when he threw the javelin,but in his place among the other throwers: nor did he hitthe boy because he missed the target and sent his javelininstead at those standing clear. He did everythingcorrectly, as he intended; and thus he was not the cause ofany accident, but the victim of one, in that he wasprevented from hitting the target.

The boy, on the other hand, who wished to run forward,missed the moment at which he could have crossed withoutbeing hit, with results which he by no means desired. He wasaccidentally guilty of an error which affected his ownperson, and has thus met with a disaster for which he hadhimself alone to thank. He has punished himself for hiserror, and is therefore duly requited; not that we rejoice

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at or approve of it—far from it: we feel both sympathy andsorrow. It is thus the dead boy who proves to have beenguilty of error; so the act which caused his death is to beattributed not to us, but to him, the party guilty of error:just as the recoiling of its effects upon the agent not onlyabsolves us from blame, but has caused the agent to bepunished as he deserved directly his error was committed.

Antiphon, Second Tetralogy 2.3-9.

Javelins were around two metres long and had a throwing strap to help with the throwas the following image shows:

Attic red figure cup, c. 470 BCE; found in Southern Italy.

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Greek Sports II: Equestrian events

Chariot racing

This was the most expensive sport to compete in. Greece is not very suited to eitherhorse rearing or chariot racing, being mountainous and rocky: horses were luxuryitems not suited for the type of work most Greek farmers needed done and chariots arenot suited for travel around Greece. Race horses and chariot horses were massivelyexpensive, fragile, high spirited, rather useless creatures which could only be affordedby the extremely wealthy. Some city-states like Argos33 had their own city stables andentered chariot racing competitions as a community; others relied on wealthy citizenswanting to compete and win glory. Owners rarely raced their teams themselves: it wasusually the job of professional charioteers, who might be either freed or slaves.(Charioteers in Greece never had the sort of fame that they had in Rome – we know farmore about certain horses than the charioteers.) Chariot racing took place in ahippodrome; unlike Roman chariot racing it did not have a spina, a central barrier toprevent head-on crashes, making it incredibly dangerous. This was not helped by thelarge number of entries in each race, which ensured maximum chaos; in additionvarious hippodromes added features to scare horses. In the following extractPausanias first describes the hippodrome at Olympia, before going on to talk ofothers. (The hippodrome at Olympia has not yet been discovered.)

When you have passed beyond the stadium, at the point wherethe judges sit, is a place set apart for the horse-races,and also the starting-place for the horses. The starting-place is in the shape of the prow of a ship, and its prow isturned towards the course. At the point where the prowadjoins the porch of Agnaptus it broadens and a bronzedolphin on a rod has been made at the very point of the ram.Each side of the starting-place is more than four hundredfeet in length, and in the sides are built stalls. Thesestalls are assigned by lot to those who enter for the races.Before the chariots or race-horses is stretched a cord as abarrier. An altar of unbaked brick, plastered on theoutside, is made at every Festival as near as possible tothe centre of the prow, and a bronze eagle stands on thealtar with his wings stretched out to the fullest extent.The man appointed to start the racing sets in motion the

33 They won the four horse chariot race in 480 BCE and the horse race in 472.

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mechanism in the altar, and then the eagle has been made tojump upwards, so as to become visible to the spectators,while the dolphin falls to the ground. First on either sidethe barriers are withdrawn by the porch of Agnaptus, and thehorses standing there run off first. As they run they reachthose to whom the second station has been allotted, and thenare withdrawn the barriers at the second station. The samething happens to all the horses in turn, until at the ram ofthe prow they are all abreast. After this it is left to thecharioteers to display their skill and the horses theirspeed. 14. It was Cleoetas who originally devised the methodof starting, and he appears to have been proud of thediscovery, as on the statue at Athens he wrote theinscription:

Who first invented the method of starting the horses at Olympia,He made me, Cleoetas the son of Aristocles.

It is said that after Cleoetas Aristeides added an extradevice was added to the mechanism. The race-course has oneside longer than the other, and on the longer side, which isa bank, there stands, at the passage through the bank,Taraxippus, the terror of the horses. It has the shape of around altar, and as they run along the horses are seized, assoon as they reach this point, by a great fear without anyapparent reason. The fear leads to disorder; the chariotsgenerally crash and the charioteers are injured.Consequently the charioteers offer sacrifices, and pray thatTaraxippus may show himself propitious to them. The Greeksdiffer in who they think Taraxippus was. Some hold that itis the tomb of an original inhabitant who was skilled inhorsemanship; they call him Olenius, and say that after himwas named the Olenian rock in the land of Elis. Others saythat Dameon, son of Phlius, who took part in the expeditionof Heracles against Augeas and the Eleans, was killed alongwith his horse by Cteatus the son of Actor, and that man andhorse were buried in the same tomb. There is also a story

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that Pelops made here an empty mound in honour of Myrtilus,34

and sacrificed to him in an effort to calm the anger of themurdered man, naming the mound Taraxippus (Frightener ofhorses) because the mares of Oenomaus were frightened by thetrick of Myrtilus. Some say that it is Oenomaus himself whoharms the racers in the course. I have also heard someattach the blame to Alcathus, the son of Porthaon. Killed byOenomaus because he wooed Hippodameia, Alcathus, they say,here got his portion of earth; having been unsuccessful onthe course, he is a spiteful and hostile deity to chariot-drivers. An Egyptian said that Pelops received somethingfrom Amphion the Theban and buried it where is what theycall Taraxippus, adding that it was the buried thing whichfrightened the mares of Oenomaus, as well as those of everycharioteer since. This Egyptian thought that Amphion and theThracian Orpheus were clever magicians, and that it wasthrough their enchantments that the beasts came to Orpheus,and the stones came to Amphion for the building of the wall.The most probable of the stories in my opinion makesTaraxippus a surname of Horse Poseidon.35 There is anotherTaraxippus at the Isthmus, namely Glaucus, the son ofSisyphus. They say that he was killed by his horses, whenAcastus held his contests in honour of his father. At Nemeaof the Argives there was no hero who harmed the horses, butabove the turning-point of the chariots rose a rock, red incolor, and the flash from it terrified the horses, just asthough it had been fire. But the Taraxippus at Olympia ismuch worse for terrifying the horses. On one turning-post isa bronze statue of Hippodameia carrying a ribbon, and aboutto crown Pelops with it for his victory

Pausanias, Description of Greece, 6.20.10-19

Greek elites were far more constrained in how they could compete with each otherthan Romans; the various games and especially chariot racing and other equestrianevents allowed them a way to show off their wealth on an international stage without

34 This is part of the foundation myth of the Olympics: go to the first reading in the section on the Olympic Games. 35 Poseidon was the Greek god of the sea and also god of horses.

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incurring the hatred and envy of their fellow citizens – after all, they could say theywere doing it for the community. The Spartans were especially fond of chariot racingand entered in huge numbers: in 420 BCE Spartans entered 7 chariots; Athens onlyentered 1. As a come back Alcibiades (454-404 BCE), an extremely wealthy and well-born Athenian citizen, entered 7 chariots into the Olympics in 416 BCE. Alcibiades wasnot without his critics,36 who pointed out that he presented the precious vessels thatAthens kept in Olympia as his own, thus making a mockery of the city:

In order to make it clear, however, that he was insultingthe whole city of Athens; in addition to Diomedes, he askedthe leaders of the Athenian deputation to lend him theprocessional vessels, saying that he intended to use themfor a celebration of his victory on the day before thesacrifice; he then abused the trust placed in him andrefused to return them, as he wanted to use the goldenbasins and censers next day before Athens did so. Naturally,when those strangers who did not know that they belonged tous saw the state-procession taking place after that ofAlcibiades, they imagined that we were using his vessels:while those who had either heard the truth from theAthenians present or else knew the ways of Alcibiades,laughed at us when they saw one man showing himself superiorto our entire community.

Against Alcibiades 29

He was also prosecuted for apparently stealing one of those 7 chariot teams fromArgos, which kept a city owned team:

11 His breeds of horses were famous the world over and sowas the number of his racing-chariots. No one king orcommoner ever entered seven of these at the Olympic Gamesbut he alone. And the fact that he came first, second, andfourth (as Thucydides says; Euripides, says third),37 allthat ambition can aspire to in this field was exceeded by

36 He had plenty of those, given that the Athenians wanted at one point to try him for sacrilege and he eventually betrayed the city by going over to their deadly enemies, the Spartans.37 Thucydides was an Athenian historian; Euripides wrote tragedies.

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the fame of this action. The ode of Euripides to whichI refer is this:

I sing of you, O child of Cleinias;

Victory is fair, but fairest is what no other Greek has achieved,

To come first, and second, and third in the contest of racing-chariots,

And to come off unwearied,38 and, wreathed with theolive of Zeus,

To furnish a theme for the herald's proclamation."

12 Moreover, this splendour of his at Olympia was made evenmore conspicuous by the rivalry of the cities on his behalf.The Ephesians equipped him with a tent of magnificentadornment; the people of Chios furnished him with food forhis horses and innumerable animals for sacrifice; those ofLesbos with wine and other provisions for his abundantentertainment for the masses. However, a serious insult — orabuse on his part — connected with this rivalry was talkedabout even more. It is said that there was at Athens oneDiomedes, a reputable man and a friend of Alcibiades, andvery eager to win a victory at Olympia. He learned thatthere was a racing-chariot at Argos which was the propertyof that city, and knowing that Alcibiades had many friendsand was very influential there, got him to buy the chariot.Alcibiades bought it for his friend, and then entered it inthe competition as his own, telling Diomedes to not botherhim. Diomedes was full of indignation and called on gods andmen to witness his wrongs. It appears also that a law-suitarose over this matter, and a speech was written byIsocrates for the son of Alcibiades "Concerning the Team of

38 You should not assume from this that Alcibiades would risk driving one of these chariots himself; like most competitors he hired professionals, while the glory went to him.

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Horses." In this speech, however, it is Tisias, notDiomedes, who is the plaintiff.

Plutarch, Life of Alcibiades 11-12

In the following speech (the one Plutarch references above) his son defends Alcibiadeson this charge of stealing these horses:

About the same time Alcibiades saw that the festival atOlympia was extremely respected by all men and that theGreeks gave demonstrations of their wealth, power, andculture there, He saw also that the athletes were admiredand that the cities of the victors shared in the glory.Moreover he thought that performances here in Athens happenon behalf of the family in front of fellow citizens, butperformances at these games on behalf of the city towardsthe whole of Greece. With this disposition, he was notinterested in the athletic events, although he was inferiorto no one in physical strength, for he knew that someathletes were of low descent or lived in unimportant cities.He did take to breeding horses, an activity for the happyfew, something that would never be in the possibilities ofan ordinary man. He not only outrivaled all his opponents,but all the victors ever before him, for he sent so manychariots that even the greatest cities could not participatewith so many, and they were of such formidable quality thathe finished first, second and third. Moreover, he was sogenerous and munificent at the offerings and the otherexpenses of the festival that everything what the othersspent with public money, seemed less than the expenses fromhis private pocket. In this way he ended his visit to thegames: he made the successes of his predecessors look smallagainst his, those who won in his time no longer receivedadmiration and for those who wished to breed horses in thefuture, he left no possibility to exceed him.

Isocrates, The Team of Horses 32

We don’t have an account of a real chariot crash, of which there must have beenmany, owing to the fact that the Greek hippodrome did not have a central spina and

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often raced large numbers of chariots. What we do have is this description of achariot crash from Sophocles’ tragedy Electra, describing a crash at Delphi. It istold by the pedagogue of Orestes to his sister Electra.

I was sent for that purpose, and will tell you everything.Having gone to the renowned festival, the pride of Greece,for the Delphian games, when he heard the loud summons tothe foot-race which was first to be decided, he entered, abrilliant form, a wonder in the eyes of all there; and,having finished his course at the point where it began, hewent out with the glorious share of victory. To speakbriefly although there is much to tell, I know not the manwhose deeds and triumphs have matched his; but one thing youmust know: in all the contests that the judges announced, hetook the prize and men thought him happy as often as theherald proclaimed him an Argive, by name Orestes, son ofAgamemnon, who once gathered the famous army of Greece.39

Thus far, it was well; but, when a god sends harm, not evena strong man can escape. For, on another day, when chariotswere to try their speed at sunrise, he entered along withmany other charioteers. One was an Achaean, one from Sparta,two masters of yoked chariots were Libyans;40 Orestes,driving Thessalian mares, came fifth among them; the sixthfrom Aetolia, with chestnut colts; a Magnesian was theseventh; the eighth, with white horses, was of Aenian stock;the ninth, from Athens, built by gods; there was a Boeotiantoo, driving the tenth chariot.

They took their stations where the appointed judges placedthem by lot and arranged the chariot; then, at the sound ofthe brazen trumpet, they started. All shouted to theirhorses, and shook the reins in their hands; the whole coursewas filled with the noise of rattling chariots; the dustflew upward; and all, in a confused throng, plied their

39 Agamemnon was in charge of the Greek army that sailed to Troy; on his return his was murdered by his wife Clytemnestra, who was in turn murdered byOrestes..40 The Greeks had established colonies in North Africa, as well as Italy, Southern Gaul and a number of other cities.

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goads unsparingly, each of them striving to pass the wheelsand the snorting steeds of his rivals; at their backs and attheir rolling wheels the breath of the horses foamed andstruck them. Orestes, driving close to the pillar at eitherend of the course, almost grazed it with his wheel eachtime, and, giving rein to the trace-horse on the right,checked the horse on the inner side. Hitherto, all thechariots had escaped crashing; but presently the Aenian'shard-mouthed colts ran away, and, swerving, as they passedfrom the sixth into the seventh round, dashed theirforeheads against the team of the Barcaean. Other mishapsfollowed the first, shock on shock and crash on crash, tillthe whole race-ground of Crisa was strewn with the wreck ofthe chariots.

Seeing this, the wary charioteer from Athens drew aside andpaused, allowing the billow of chariots, surging in mid-course, to go by. Orestes was driving last, keeping hishorses behind - for his trust was in the end; but when hesaw that the Athenian was alone left in, he sent a shrillcry ringing through the ears of his swift colts, and gavechase. Team was brought level with team, and so they raced,first one man, then the other showing his head in front ofthe chariots.

Before this ill-fated Orestes had passed safely through every round, steadfast in his steadfast chariot; at last, slackening his left rein while the horse was turning, unawares he struck the edge of the pillar; he broke the axle-box in two; he was thrown over the chariot-rail and wascaught in the reins; and, as he fell on the ground, his colts were scattered into the middle of the course. But whenthe people saw him fallen from his chariot, a cry of pity went up for the youth, who had done such deeds and was meeting such a death - now dashed to earth, now tossed feet uppermost to the sky- till the charioteers, with difficulty checking the career of their horses, loosed him, so covered with blood that no friend who saw it would have known the unfortunate corpse. Straightway they burned it on a pyre;

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and chosen men of Phocis are bringing in a small urn of bronze the sad dust of that mighty form, to find due burial in his fatherland.

Sophocles, Electra 681-754.

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Other equestrian events

Coin celebrating the victory of Anaxilas of Rhegium (S. Italy), 480/4 BCE) in the mulecart race. The Olympics briefly added two equestrian events, the apene, a mule cartrace and the kalpe, a trotting race for mares, where the riders leapt off the horses andran along side them for a portion of the race. The mule cart race in particular was feltto be rather undignified; a poet once turned down a commission for an Olympic victorin this event – until the victor offered him twice as much money.

Certain contests, too, have been dropped at Olympia, theEleans resolving to discontinue them. The pentathlon forboys was instituted at the thirty-eighth Festival; but afterEutelidas of Sparta had received the wild olive for it, theEleans disapproved of boys entering for this competition.The races for mule-carts, and the trotting-race, wereinstituted respectively at the seventieth Festival and theseventy-first, but were both abolished by proclamation atthe eighty-fourth. When they were first instituted, Thersiusof Thessaly won the race for mule-carts, while Pataecus, an

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Achaean from Dyme, won the trotting-race. The trotting-racewas for mares, and in the last part of the course the ridersjumped off and ran beside the mares, holding on to thebridle, just as at the present day those do who are calledandabatai. The andabatai, however, differ from the riders in thetrotting-race by having different badges, and by ridingstallions instead of mares. The cart-race was neither veryold nor yet a graceful performance. Moreover, each cart wasdrawn by a pair of mules, not horses, and there is anancient curse on the Eleans if this animal is even born inElis.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.9.1-2.

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Horse racing was very dangerous: the Greeks had no stirrups nor anything like modernsaddles, so you were basically clinging on with your knees – which got harder the morehorses sweated. The races were 6 laps of the courses – so the distances variedaccording to the length of the hippodrome. As Greek horses were considerably smallerthan ours, they were ridden by child jockeys (almost certainly slaves). So unimportantwere the jockeys considered that horses could win even if they threw their riders; weknow this from Pausanias’ discussion of a famous race in 512 BCE at the OlympicGames.

The mare of the Corinthian Pheidolas was called Aura[Breeze] according to the Corinthians and at the beginningof the race she threw her rider. But nevertheless she wenton running properly, turned round the post, and, when sheheard the trumpet, quickened her pace, reached the judgesfirst, realized that she had won and stopped running. TheEleans proclaimed Pheidolas the winner and allowed him todedicate a statue of this mare.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.13.9

Although the Greeks have left behind little in the way of evidence for training humans,we have a text on how to select and train a horse which was written by AthenianXenophon (4th century BCE). It is mainly about training horses for battle, but doesincidentally give some information on riding and training horses in general:

Nor must we omit another topic: how the rider is toaccommodate himself to these different movements. Thus, whenthe horse breaks off into a gallop, the rider ought to bendforward, since the horse will be less likely to slip fromunder and so throw his rider off. So again in pulling him upshort the rider should lean back and thus escape a shock. Inleaping a ditch or tearing up a steep incline, it is no badplan to let go the reins and take hold of the mane, so thatthe animal may not feel the burden of the bit in addition tothat of the ground. In going down a steep incline the ridermust throw himself right back and hold in the horse with thebit, to prevent himself being hurled headforemost down theslope himself if not his horse. It is a correct principle tovary these exercises, which should be gone through sometimes

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in one place and sometimes in another, and should sometimesbe shorter and sometimes longer in duration. The horse willtake much more kindly to them if you do not confine him toone place and one routine. Since it is a matter of primenecessity that the rider should keep his seat whilegalloping full speed on every sort of ground, and at thesame time be able to use his weapons effectively onhorseback, nothing could be better, where the country suitsand there are wild animals, than to practise horsemanship incombination with hunting. But when these resources fail, agood exercise may be supplied in the combined efforts of twohorsemen. One of them will play the part of fugitive,retreating haphazardly over every sort of ground, with lancereversed and plying the butt end. The other pursues, withcovers on his javelins and his lance. Whenever he comeswithin javelin range he lets fly at the retreating enemywith his blunted missiles; or whenever within spear thrusthe deals the overtaken combatant a blow. In coming to closequarters, it is a good plan first to drag the enemy towardsoneself, and then on a sudden to thrust him off; that is adevice to bring him to the ground. The correct plan for theman so dragged is to press his horse forward: by whichaction the man who is being dragged is more likely tounhorse his assailant than to be brought to the groundhimself…

How these desirable results are, in our opinion, to beproduced, we will now try to explain. In the first place,then, you ought to have at least two bits. One of theseshould be smooth, with discs of a good size; the othershould have heavy and flat discs studded with sharp spikes,so that when the horse seizes it and dislikes the roughnesshe will drop it; then when the smooth is given him instead,he is delighted with its smoothness, and whatever he haslearnt before upon the rough, he will perform with greatereagerness on the smooth. He may certainly, out of contemptfor its very smoothness, perpetually try to get a purchaseon it, and that is why we attach large discs to the smoothbit, the effect of which is to make him open his mouth, and

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drop the mouthpiece. It is possible to make the rough bit ofevery degree of roughness by keeping it slack or taut….

To quote a saying of Simon,41 what a horse is forced to do hedoes blindly, and his performance is no more beautiful thanwould be that of a dancer taught by whip and goad. Theperformances of horse or man so treated would seem to bedisplays of clumsy gestures rather than of grace and beauty.What we need is for the horse to display his finest airs andpaces at set signals. Supposing, when he is in the riding-field, you push him to a gallop until he is bathed in sweat,and when he begins to prance and show his airs to fineeffect, you promptly dismount and take off the bit, you mayrely upon it he will of his own accord another time breakinto the same prancing action. Such are the horses on whichgods and heroes ride, as represented by the artist. Themajesty of men themselves is best discovered in the gracefulhandling of such animals. A horse so prancing is indeed athing of beauty, a wonder and a marvel; riveting the gaze ofall who see him, young and old. They will never turn theirbacks, I venture to predict, or weary of their gazing solong as he continues to display his splendid action.

Xenophon, On Horsemanship excerpts

41 He also wrote a (now lost) work on training horses.

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Greek Sports III: Athletes: their status and reputations:

Just like now, athletes might receive special treatment, even in war, just because theywere famous athletes. This happened during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE) toDoreius when he was captured by the Athenians, while fighting for their enemies, theSpartans, as is told in the passage below – which also goes into detail about the fameof his entire family. In this passage Pausanias is describing victor statues at Olympia,among which there many statues of Doreius and his family.

So much for the story of Euthymus. After his statue stands arunner in the foot-race, Pytharchus of Mantinea, and aboxer, Charmides of Elis, both of whom won prizes in thecontests for boys.42 When you have looked at these also youwill reach the statues of the Rhodian athletes, Diagoras andhis family. These were dedicated one after the other in thefollowing order. Acusilaus, who received a crown for boxingin the men's class; Dorieus, the youngest, who won thepankration at Olympia at three successive games. Even beforeDorieus, Damagetus beat all those who had entered for thepankration.

These were brothers, being sons of Diagoras, and by them isset up also a statue of Diagoras himself, who won a victoryfor boxing in the men's class. The statue of Diagoras wasmade by the Megarian Callicles, the son of the Theocosmuswho made the image of Zeus at Megara. The sons too of thedaughters of Diagoras practised boxing and won Olympicvictories: in the men's class Eucles, son of Callianax andCallipateira, daughter of Diagoras; in the boys' classPeisirodus, whose mother dressed herself as a man and atrainer, and took her son herself to the Olympic games.43

This Peisirodus is one of the statues in the Altis,44 andstands by the father of his mother. The story goes thatDiagoras came to Olympia in the company of his sons

42 There were competitions for boys and men at the Olympics.43 See the section ‘The Heraia, Women, and Athletics’ for that story. 44 The sacred precinct of Olympia.

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Acusilaus and Damagetus. After they defeated him theyproceeded to carry him through the crowd, while the Greekspelted him with flowers and congratulated him on his sons.The family of Diagoras was originally, through the femaleline, Messenian, as he was descended from the daughter ofAristomenes.

Dorieus, son of Diagoras, besides his Olympian victories,won eight at the Isthmian and seven at the Nemean games. Heis also said to have won a Pythian victory without acontest.45 He and Peisirodus were proclaimed by the herald asfrom Thurii, for they had been pursued by their politicalenemies from Rhodes to Thurii in Italy. Dorieus subsequentlyreturned to Rhodes. Of all men he most obviously showed hisfriendship with Sparta, for he actually fought against theAthenians with his own ships, until he was taken prisoner byAttic men-of-war and brought alive to Athens.

Before he was brought to them the Athenians were angry withDorieus and used threats against him; but when they met inthe assembly and saw a man so great and famous as theirprisoner, their feeling towards him changed, and they lethim go away without doing him any hurt, and that though theymight have legally punished him severely.

Androtion in his Attic history tells the story of Doreius’death. He says that the great King's fleet was then atCaunus, with Conon in command, who persuaded the Rhodianpeople to leave the Spartan alliance and to join the greatKing and the Athenians. Dorieus, he goes on to say, was atthe time away from home in the interior of the Peloponnesus,and having been caught by some Spartans he was brought toSparta, convicted of treachery by the Spartans and sentencedto death. If Androtion tells the truth, he appears to me towish to put the Spartans on a level with the Athenians,because they too are open to the charge of precipitousaction in their treatment of Thrasyllus and his fellow

45 In other words, the other competitors withdrew rather than face him.

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admirals at the battle of Arginusae. Such was the fame wonby Diagoras and his family.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.7.2-7.

Some athletes might even be considered more than human and receive heroichonours:

Not far from these kings stands the statue of Theagenes, theson of Timosthenes of Thasos. The Thasians assert thatTheagenes is not the son of Timosthenes. They say thatTimosthenes was a priest of the Thasian Heracles and thatthe spirit of Heracles, in the form of Timosthenes, had sexwith the mother of Theagenes. They say that when the boy wasnine years old, he returned home from school and saw on themarketplace a bronze statue of a god. Because he liked thestatue, he took it on his shoulder and brought it home. Thecitizens were furious at him because of what he had done,but an man of advanced age with great authority did notallow them to kill the boy and ordered him to carry thestatue from his house back to the market-place. When he hadcarried it, the boy became famous for his strength and allover Greece they spoke about his feat.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.11.2-3

Not all athletes got heroic honours for their actions as athletes; some received themfor being truly horrible people:

At the games previous to this it is said that Cleomedes ofAstypalaea killed Iccus of Epidaurus during a boxing-match.On being convicted by the judges of foul play and beingdeprived of the prize he became mad through grief andreturned to Astypalaea. Attacking a school there of aboutsixty children he pulled down the pillar which held up theroof. This fell upon the children, and Cleomedes, peltedwith stones by the citizens, fled into the sanctuary ofAthena. He entered a chest standing in the sanctuary anddrew down the lid. The Astypalaeans toiled in vain in theirattempts to open the chest. At last, however, they broke

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open the boards of the chest, but found no Cleomedes, eitheralive or dead. So they sent envoys to Delphi to ask what hadhappened to Cleomedes. The response given by the Pythianpriestess was, they say, as follows:

Last of heroes is Cleomedes of Astypalaea;Honor him with sacrifices as being no longer a mortal.

So from this time the Astypalaeans have honoured Cleomedesas a hero.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.9.6-8

One of the most legendary athletes was Milo of Croton,46 who reigned at the Olympicsand other games for some 30 years. In the following Pausanias describes Milo’s statueat Olympia and talks about his many feats:

The statue of Milo the son of Diotimus was made by Dameas,also a native of Croton. Milo won six victories forwrestling at Olympia, one of them among the boys; at thePythian games he won six among the men and one among theboys. He came to Olympia to wrestle for the seventh time,but did not succeed in mastering Timasitheus, a fellow-citizen who was also a young man, and who refused, moreover,to come to close quarters with him. It is further statedthat Milo carried his own statue into the Altis. His featswith the pomegranate and the discus are also remembered bytradition. He would grasp a pomegranate so firmly thatnobody could wrest it from him by force, and yet he did notdamage it by pressure. He would stand upon a greased discus,and make fools of those who charged him and tried to pushhim from the discus. He used to perform also the followingexhibition feats. He would tie a cord round his forehead asthough it were a ribbon or a crown. Holding his breath andfilling with blood the veins on his head, he would break thecord by the strength of these veins. It is said that hewould let down by his side his right arm from the shoulderto the elbow, and stretch out straight the arm below the

46 Croton was a wealthy Greek town in Southern Italy.

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elbow, turning the thumb upwards, while the other fingerslay in a row. In this position, then, the little finger waslowest, but nobody could bend it back by pressure. They saythat he was killed by wild beasts. The story has it that hecame across in the land of Croton a tree-trunk that wasdrying up; wedges were inserted to keep the trunk apart.Milo in his pride thrust his hands into the trunk, thewedges slipped, and Milo was held fast by the trunk untilthe wolves – a beast that roves in vast packs in the land ofCroton – ate him.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.14.5-8

Milo’s other deeds, including saving philosophers, were also legendary:

Croton’s fame was increased by the large number of itsPythagorean philosophers, and by Milo, who was the mostfamous of athletes, and also a companion of Pythagoras, whospent a long time in the city. It is said that once, at thephilosophers’ food hall, when a pillar began to give way,Milo slipped in under the burden and saved them all, andthen drew himself from under it and escaped. And it isprobably because he relied upon this same strength that hebrought on himself the end of his life as reported by somewriters; at any rate, the story is told that once, when hewas travelling through a deep forest, he strayed rather farfrom the road, and then, on finding a large log cleft withwedges, thrust his hands and feet at the same time into thecleft and strained to split the log completely asunder; buthe was only strong enough to make the wedges fall out,whereupon the two parts of the log instantly snappedtogether; and caught in such a trap as that, he became foodfor wild beasts.

Strabo, Geography 6.1.12

Some people suggested that Milo’s strength came from a special source:

Alectoria is the name given to a stone that is found in thecrop of poultry: it looks like crystal, and is about as

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large as a bean in size. Some say that Milo of Croton was inthe habit of carrying this stone about him, which renderedhim invincible in his athletic contests.

Pliny the Elder, Encyclopedia 37.52

Another legendary athlete was Polydamas, whose statue Pausanias saw at Olympia:

The statue on the high pedestal is the work of Lysippus, andit represents the tallest of all men except those calledheroes and any other mortal race that may have existedbefore the heroes. But this man, Polydamas the son ofNicias, is the tallest of our own era. Scotussa, the nativecity of Polydamas, has now no inhabitants, for Alexander thetyrant of Pherae seized it in time of truce. It happenedthat an assembly of the citizens was being held, and thosewho were assembled in the theatre the tyrant surrounded withtargeteers and archers, and shot them all down; all theother grown men he massacred, selling the women and childrenas slaves in order to pay his mercenaries. This disasterbefell Scotussa when Phrasicleides was archon at Athens, inthe hundred and second Olympiad, when Damon of Thurii wasvictor for the second time, and in the second year of thisOlympiad. The people that escaped remained but for a while,for later they too were forced by their destitution to leavethe city, when Heaven brought a second calamity in the warwith Macedonia.

Others have won glorious victories in the pankration, butPolydamas, besides his prizes for the pankration, has to hiscredit the following exploits of a different kind. Themountainous part of Thrace, on this side the river Nestus,which runs through the land of Abdera, breeds among otherwild beasts lions, which once attacked the army of Xerxes,and mauled the camels carrying his supplies. These lionsoften roam right into the land around Mount Olympus, oneside of which is turned towards Macedonia, and the othertowards Thessaly and the river Peneius. Here on MountOlympus Polydamas killed a huge and powerful lion, withoutthe help of any weapon. He was driven to do this by an

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ambition to rival the labours of Heracles, because Heraclesalso, legend says, killed the lion at Nemea.47

In addition to this, Polydamas is remembered for anotherwonderful performance. He went among a herd of cattle andseized the biggest and fiercest bull by one of its hindfeet, holding fast the hoof in spite of the bull's leaps andstruggles, until at last it put forth all its strength andescaped, leaving the hoof in the grasp of Polydamas. It isalso said of him that he stopped a charioteer who wasdriving his chariot onwards at a great speed. Seizing withone hand the back of the chariot he kept a tight hold onboth horses and driver. Darius, the bastard son ofArtaxerxes, who with the support of the Persian commonpeople put down Sogdius, the legitimate son of Artaxerxes,and ascended the throne in his stead, learning when he wasking of the exploits of Polydamas sent messengers with thepromise of gifts and persuaded him to come before hispresence at Susa. There he challenged three of the Persianscalled Immortals48 to fight him – one against three – andkilled them. Of his exploits listed, some are represented onthe pedestal of the statue at Olympia, and others arementioned in the inscription.

But after all, the prophecy of Homer regarding those whoglory in their strength was to be fulfilled also in the caseof Polydamas, and he too was fated to perish through his ownstrength. For Polydamas entered a cave with the rest of hisclose companions. It was summer-time, and, as bad luck wouldhave it, the roof of the cave began to crack. It was obviousthat it would quickly fall in, and could not hold out muchlonger. Realizing the disaster that was coming, the othersturned and ran away; but Polydamas decided to remain,holding up his hands in the belief that he could prevent thefalling in of the cave and would not be crushed by themountain. Here Polydamas met his end.

47 This was one of the foundations of Nemea. 48 These were a special select force in the Persian army.

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Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.5.1-9

However, the diet of athletes received particular attention; they were often consideredgluttonous because in a culture where most people lived on simple diet of bread andolive oil, they lived largely off meat:

A man from Stymphalus, by name Dromeus [Runner], proved trueto it in the long race, for he won two victories at Olympia,two at the Pythian games, three at the Isthmian and five atNemea Games. He is said to have also conceived the idea of aflesh diet; up to this time athletes had fed on cheese fromthe basket.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.7.10

And athletes could eat a lot:

The athlete Theagenes ate a bull on his own, as Poseidippossays in his epigrams: "On an assembly I once ate a Maeonianox, for my ancestral Thasos could not have supplied a mealfor Theagenes. Whatever I ate, I kept asking for more. Forthis reason I stand in bronze, holding forth my hand."According to Theodorus of Hierapolis, in his book aboutcompetitions, Milo of Croton used to eat twenty pounds ofmeat and bread and he drank three jars of wine. In Olympiahe lifted a four-year-old bull on his shoulders and carriedit around the stadion. Afterwards he cut it in pieces andate in on his own in a single day.

Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 10.412 d-f

However, others such as Xenophon insisted that what philosophers contributed to the community was worth more than what athletes did:

If someone should win a victory thanks to the swiftness ofhis feet or when competing in the pentathlon there in thesanctuary of Zeus by the streams of Pisa at Olympia, or gainthe prize in wrestling or painful boxing, or in that fearfulcontest people call pankration, his fellow citizens wouldthink him more glorious to look on than ever, and he would

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gain from his city the right to meals at public expense anda gift which would be his personal treasure. And if hisvictory were won with horses, he would also gain all thesethings, even though he is not as worthy as I. For our wisdomis better than the strength of men or horses. For even ifthere were a good boxer among the citizens or one skilled inthe pentathlon or wrestling, or, indeed, even if there werea great sprinter, which holds the front rank among theathletic achievements of men, the state would still not bebetter governed because of this. A city would gain littlejoy if someone should win in competition by the banks of thePisa, for that victory would not fill its storehouses.

Xenophon, Hellenica

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The Olympic Games

This was the oldest and greatest of the crown games: crown games were games inwhich you won not money, but a crown. However, such was the prestige that a win inthe in the Olympics was felt to bring to a polis (city-state) that many offeredrich rewards if you won. These rewards ranged from cash49 to being fed at publicexpense for the rest of your life; you might also be freed from paying taxes. Olympiawas a sanctuary for Zeus, not a town, and was run by the town of Elis (with someinterruptions when other towns tried to seize control of the games, even leading at onepoint to fighting right among and in the temples). In his Description of GreecePausanias devoted two books to Olympia – more than to any other place he visited.

Click here for more images and information on the Olympic Games:

a. Foundation Myths

There were a number of mythical stories about the first Olympic Games; someconnected them with the god Zeus’ overthrow of his father, Cronus.

As for the Olympic Games, the most learned antiquaries ofElis say that Cronus was the first king of heaven, and thatin his honor a temple was built in Olympia by the men ofthat age, who were named the Golden Race. When Zeus wasborn, Rhea50 entrusted the guardianship of her son to theDactyls of Ida, who are the same as those called Curetes.They came from Cretan Ida – Heracles, Paeonaeus, Epimedes,Iasius and Idas. Heracles, being the eldest, matched hisbrothers, as a game, in a running-race, and crowned thewinner with a branch of wild olive, of which they had such agreat amount that they slept on heaps of its leaves whilestill green. It is said to have been introduced into Greeceby Heracles from the land of the Hyperboreans, men livingbeyond the home of the North Wind. Olen the Lycian, in hishymn to Achaea, was the first to say that from theseHyperboreans Achaea came to Delos. When Melanopus of Cymecomposed an ode to Opis and Hecaerge declaring that these,

49 In the 6th century BCE the Athenian politician Solon gave Athenians 500 drachmas if they won at the Olympics; 100 if they won at the Isthmian Games.50 Cronus’ wife.

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even before Achaea, came to Delos from the Hyperboreans. AndAristeas of Proconnesus – for he too mentioned of theHyperboreans – may perhaps have learnt even more about themfrom the Issedones, to whom he says in his poem that hecame. Heracles of Ida, therefore, has the reputation ofbeing the first to have held, on the occasion I mentioned,the games, and to have called them Olympic. So heestablished the custom of holding them every fifth year,because he and his brothers were five in number. Some saythat Zeus wrestled here with Cronus himself for power, whileothers say that he held the games in honor of his victoryover Cronus. The record of victors include Apollo, whooutran Hermes and beat Ares at boxing. It is for thisreason, they say, that the Pythian flute-song is playedwhile the competitors in the pentathlon are jumping; for theflute-song is sacred to Apollo, and Apollo won Olympicvictories.51

Later on there came (they say) from Crete Clymenus, the sonof Cardys, about fifty years after the flood came upon theGreeks in the time of Deucalion. He was descended fromHeracles of Ida; he held the games at Olympia and set up analtar in honor of Heracles, his ancestor, and the otherCuretes, giving to Heracles the surname of Parastates[Assistant]. And Endymion, the son of Aethlius, deposedClymenus, and set his sons a race in Olympia with thekingdom as the prize. And about a generation later thanEndymion, Pelops held the games in honor of Olympian Zeus ina more splendid manner than any of his predecessors. Whenthe sons of Pelops were scattered from Elis over all therest of Peloponnesus, Amythaon, the son of Cretheus, andcousin of Endymion on his father's side (for they say thatAethlius too was the son of Aeolus, though supposed to be ason of Zeus), held the Olympian games, and after him Peliasand Neleus in common.

51 Apollo was the major god worshipped by Delphi, site of the Pythian games. The flute player who won at Delphi played at Olympia.

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Augeas too held them and Heracles, the son of Amphitryon,after the conquest of Elis.52 The victors crowned by Heraclesinclude Iolaus, who won with the mares of Heracles. So ofold a competitor was permitted to compete with mares whichwere not his own. Homer, at any rate, in the games held inhonor of Patroclus, has told how Menelaus drove a pair ofwhich one was Aetha, a mare of Agamemnon, while the otherwas his own horse. (Iolaus used to be charioteer toHeracles.) So Iolaus won the chariot-race, and Iasius, anArcadian, the horse-race; while of the sons of Tyndareus onewon the foot-race and Polydeuces the boxing-match. OfHeracles himself it is said that he won victories atwrestling and the pankration.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.7.6-5.8.3

The structure of the games

In the historical period the Olympic Games and Olympia were under the control of andgoverned by the town of Elis (though that was contested by the citizens of Pisa, leadingto battles right among the temples). Here Pausanias goes on to give the more recenthistory of the games, some of the order of events, and when they were added ordropped.

After the reign of Oxylus, who also celebrated the games,the Olympic festival was discontinued until the reign ofIphitus. When Iphitus, as I have already related, renewedthe games, men had by this time forgotten the ancienttradition, the memory of which revived bit by bit, and as itrevived they made additions to the games. This I can prove;for when the unbroken tradition of the Olympiads began therewas first the foot-race, and Coroebus an Elean was victor.There is no statue of Coroebus at Olympia, but his grave ison the borders of Elis. Afterwards, at the fourteenth Games,the diaulos was added: Hypenus of Pisa won the prize of wildolive in this, and at the next Games Acanthus of Sparta wonin the dolichos At the eighteenth Games they remembered the

52 There was a myth that Hercules conquered Elis – which was defended by the god Hades, who got wounded in the battle.

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pentathlon and wrestling. Lampis won the first and Eurybatusthe second, these also being Spartans. At the twenty-thirdGames they restored the prizes for boxing, and the victorwas Onomastus of Smyrna, which already was a part of Ionia.At the twenty-fifth they recognized the race of full-grownhorses, and Pagondas of Thebes was proclaimed victor in thechariot race. At the eighth Games after this they admittedthe pankration for men and the horse-race. The horse-racewas won by Crauxidas of Crannon, and Lygdamis of Syracuseovercame all who entered for the pankration. Lygdamis hashis tomb near the quarries at Syracuse, and according to theSyracusans he was as big as Heracles of Thebes, though Icannot vouch for the statement.

The contests for boys are not of ancient creation, but wereestablished by the Eleans themselves because they approvedof them. The prizes for running and wrestling open to boyswere instituted at the thirty-seventh Games; Hipposthenes ofSparta won the prize for wrestling, and that for running waswon by Polyneices of Elis. At the forty-first Games theyintroduced boxing for boys, and the winner out of those whoentered for it was Philytas of Sybaris. The race for men inarmour was approved at the sixty-fifth Games, to provide, Isuppose, military training; the first winner of the racewith shields was Damaretus of Heraea. The race for two full-grown horses, called synoris, was instituted at the ninety-third Games, and the winner was Evagoras of Elis. At theninety-ninth Games they resolved to hold contests forchariots drawn by foals, and Sybariades of Sparta won thegarland with his chariot and foals. Afterwards they addedraces for chariots and pairs of foals, and for single foalswith rider. It is said that the victors proclaimed were: forthe chariot and pair, Belistiche, a woman from the seaboardof Macedonia; for the ridden race, Tlepolemus of Lycia.Tlepolemus, they say, won at the hundred and thirty-firstGames, and Belistiche at the third before this. At thehundred and forty-fifth Games prizes were offered for boysin the pankration, the victory falling to Phaedimus, anAeolian from the city Troas.

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Certain contests, too, have been dropped at Olympia, theEleans resolving to discontinue them. The pentathlon forboys was instituted at the thirty-eighth games; but afterEutelidas of Sparta had received the wild olive for it, theEleans disapproved of boys entering for this competition.53

The races for mule-carts, and the trotting-race, were addedrespectively at the seventieth Games and the seventy-first,but were both abolished by proclamation at the eighty-fourth. When they were first instituted, Thersius ofThessaly won the race for mule-carts, while Pataecus, anAchaean from Dyme, won the trotting-race. The trotting-racewas for mares, and in the last part of the course the ridersjumped off and ran beside the mares, holding on to thebridle, just as at the present day those do who are calledaphobatai. The mounters, however, differ from the riders inthe trotting-race by having different badges, and by ridinghorses instead of mares. The cart-race was neither ofvenerable antiquity nor yet a graceful performance.Moreover, each cart was drawn by a pair of mules, nothorses, and there is an ancient curse on the Eleans if thisanimal is even born in Elis.

The order of the games in our own day, which places thesacrifices to the god for the pentathlon and chariot-racessecond, and those for the other competitions first, wasfixed at the seventy-seventh Games. Previously the contestsfor men and for horses were held on the same day. But at theGames I mentioned the pankratiasts prolonged their conteststill night-fall, because they were not summoned to the arenasoon enough. The cause of the delay was partly the chariot-race, but still more the pentathlon. Callias of Athens waschampion of the pankratiasts on this occasion, but neverafterwards was the pankration to be interfered with by thepentathlon or the chariots. The rules for the presidents ofthe games are not the same now as they were at the firstinstitution of the Games. Iphitus acted as sole president,as likewise did the descendants of Oxylus after Iphitus. But

53 I would give a great deal to know what actually happened that caused them to only run this event once.

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at the fiftieth Games two men, appointed by lot from all theEleans, were entrusted with the management of the OlympicGames, and for a long time after this the number of thepresidents continued to be two. But at the ninety-fifthGames nine judges were appointed. To three of them wereentrusted the chariot-races, another three were to supervisethe pentathlon, the rest superintended the remainingcontests. At the second Games after this the tenth umpirewas added. At the hundred and third Games, the Eleans havingtwelve tribes, one umpire was chosen from each. 5.9.6 Butthey were hard pressed in a war with the Arcadians and losta portion of their territory, along with all the parishesincluded in the surrendered district, and so the number oftribes was reduced to eight in the hundred and fourthOlympiad. Thereupon were chosen judges equal in number tothe tribes. At the hundred and eighth Games they returnedagain to the number of ten judges, which has continuedunchanged down to the present day.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.8-9.

Unlike other events Olympia insisted that athletes turned up and trained at Elis for 30days before the Olympics. Those who were late by their own fault could be fined ordenied the chance to compete; during those 30 days some were counselled to dropout, while others chose to do so voluntarily after they saw what their competitionwould be.

I must adopt what they say at the Olympics to you, my bravefriends; and the following is an Olympic exordium. When theOlympic Games are about to happen the people of Elis trainthe athletes for thirty days in their own country. In thesame way, when the Pythian games approach, the natives ofDelphi; and when the Isthmian, the Corinthians assemble themand say: 'Go now into the arena and prove yourselves menworthy of victory.’

Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyre 5.43

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In his account of Greece Pausanias (2nd century CE) described the gymnasia and otherfeatures of Elis:

One of the noteworthy things in Elis is an old gymnasium. Inthis gymnasium the athletes go through the training throughwhich they must pass before going to Olympia. High plane-trees grow between the tracks inside a wall. The whole ofthis enclosure is called Xystus, because an exercise ofHeracles, the son of Amphitryon,54 was to scrape up each dayall the thistles that grew there. The track for thecompeting runners, called by the natives the Sacred Track,is separate from that on which the runners and pentathletespractise. In the gymnasium is the place called Plethrium. Init the judges match the competitors according to age andskill; it is for wrestling that they match them. There arealso in the gymnasium altars of the gods, of IdaeanHeracles, surnamed Comrade, of Love, of the deity called byEleans and Athenians alike Love Returned, and of Demeter andof her daughter. Achilles has no altar, only a cenotaphraised to him because of an oracle. On an appointed day atthe beginning of the festival, when the course of the sun issinking towards the west, the Elean women honor Achilles,especially by wailing for him.

There is another enclosed gymnasium, but smaller, adjoiningthe larger one and called Square because of its shape. Herethe athletes practise wrestling, and here, when they have nomore wrestling to do, they are matched in contests with thesofter gloves. There is also dedicated here one of theimages made in honor of Zeus out of the fines imposed uponSosander of Smyrna and upon Polyctor of Elis.

There is also a third enclosed gymnasium, called Maltho fromthe softness of its floor, and reserved for the youths forthe whole time of the festival. In a corner of the Maltho isa bust of Heracles as far as the shoulders, and in one ofthe wrestling-schools is a relief showing Love and Love

54 This is the famous Hercules, of the lion skin and club.

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Returned, as he is called. Love holds a palm-branch, andLove Returned is trying to take the palm from him. On eachside of the entrance to the Maltho stands an image of a boyboxer. He was by birth, so the Guardian of the Laws at Elistold me, from Alexandria near the island Pharos, and hisname was Sarapion; arriving at Elis when the townsfolk weresuffering from famine he supplied them with food. For thisreason these honours were paid him here. The time of hiscrown at Olympia and of his benefaction to the Eleans wasthe two hundred and seventeenth Festival.

In this gymnasium is also the Elean Council House, wheretake place exhibitions of extempore speeches and recitationsof written works of all kinds. It is called Lalichmium,after the man who dedicated it. About it are dedicatedshields, which are for show and not made to be used in war.The way from the gymnasium to the baths passes through theStreet of Silence and beside the sanctuary of ArtemisPhilomeirax. The goddess is so surnamed because she isneighbour to the gymnasium; the street received, they say,the name of Silence for the following reason. Men of thearmy of Oxylus were sent to spy out what was happening inElis. On the way they exhorted each other, when they shouldbe near the wall, themselves to keep a strict silence, butto listen attentively if perchance they might learn anythingfrom the people in the town. These men by this streetreached the town unobserved, and after hearing all theywished they went back again to the Aetolians. So the streetreceived its name from the silence of the spies. One of thetwo ways from the gymnasium leads to the market-place, andto what is called the Umpires' Room; it is above the graveof Achilles, and the judges go to the gymnasium along this.They enter before sunrise to match the runners, and atmidday for the pentathlon and for such contests as arecalled heavy.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.23.1-6.24.1

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After their stay at Elis, all the athletes, the judges, many of the audience, and all thehorses walked the c. 40 km route of the Sacred Way to Olympia; unfortunately, we donot know much about the procession, although there are references to it in Pausaniasand elsewhere, who talks about the processional entrance at Olympia:

The Leonidaeum is outside the sacred enclosure, but at theprocessional entrance to the Altis, which is the only wayopen to those who take part in the processions. It wasdedicated by Leonidas, a native, but in my time the Romangovernors of Greece stayed in it. Between the processionalentrance and the Leonidaeum is a street, for the Eleans callstreets what the Athenians call lanes.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.15.2

On arrival at Olympia athletes and judges swore a great oath to Olympian Zeus at hisstatue in the council house (the bouleterion) there:

The Zeus in the council house is made to frighten the unjustmore than any other statue of Zeus. He is called ZeusHorkios [of the oath] and carries a thunderbolt in eachhand. It is a habit for the athletes, their fathers,brothers, and trainers to swear at this statue on wild boarmeat that they will commit no offence to the Olympic Games.In addition, the adult athletes swear that they have trainedfor ten months without interruption. The judges who examinethe boys and foals swear that they will judge according tothe law and without receiving bribes55 and that they willkeep secret everything about the candidate, admitted or not.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.24.9-10

Before any athletic events were held, there were contests for trumpeters and heralds. The winners were considered Olympic victors, just like those who competed in the athletic competitions. However, after they won they had to work during the rest of the

55 The competition was far less fierce for the boys’ events than for the adults, hence it would be a huge advantage to be classed as a boy rather thana man; the same went for horses and foals.

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Olympics announcing events and the winners of those events

There is in the Altis an altar near the entrance leading tothe stadium. On it the Eleans do not sacrifice to any of thegods, but it is customary for the trumpeters and heralds tostand upon it when they compete. By the side of this altarhas been built a pedestal of bronze, and on it is an imageof Zeus, about six cubits in height, with a thunderbolt ineither hand. It was dedicated by the people of Cynaetha.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.22.1

The Athletes

All of those who competed at the games were Greeks (non-Greeks were not allowed totake part, though when the Romans came along they were accepted as Greeks).Ordinary Macedonians could not compete in the Olympics as they were not consideredGreek; the royal family, however, claimed descent from Achilles and could compete asthey were considered Greek:

I myself happen to know and will prove that thesedescendants of Perdiccas are Greeks, as they themselves say,in the later part of my history. Furthermore, the judges whomanage the contest at Olympia determined that it is so forwhen Alexander56 chose to compete and entered the competitionfor that purpose, the Greeks who were to run against himwanted to bar him from the race, saying that the contestshould be for Greeks and not for foreigners. Alexander,however, proving himself to be an Argive, was judged to be aGreek. He accordingly competed in the stadion and tied forfirst place. This, then, is approximately what happened.

Herodotus Histories 5.22.1-2

However, not all city-states were endowed with native athletes; as with the modernOlympics, some athletes were lured to run for cities other than their own, as thefollowing set of anecdotes from Pausanias show. He is describing statues of victors atOlympia:

56 Not the famous Alexander the Great, but Alexander I, king of Macedon from c.492-450 BCE.

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After Hysmon comes the statue of a boy wrestler from Heraeain Arcadia, Nicostratus the son of Xenocleides. Pantias wasthe artist, and if you count the teachers you will find fivebetween him and Aristocles of Sicyon. Dicon, the son ofCallibrotus, won five footraces at the Pythian games, threeat the Isthmian Games, four at Nemea, one at Olympia in therace for boys besides two in the men's race. Statues of himhave been set up at Olympia equal in number to the races hewon. When he was a boy he was proclaimed a native ofCaulonia, as in fact he was. But afterwards he was bribed toproclaim himself a Syracusan. The statue of Cyniscus, theboy boxer from Mantinea, was made by Polycleitus. Ergoteles,the son of Philanor, won two victories in the dolichos atOlympia, and two at the Pythian, Isthmian and Nemean Games.The inscription on the statue states that he came originallyfrom Himera; but it is said that this is incorrect, and thatbe was a Cretan from Cnossos. Expelled from Cnossos by apolitical party he came to Himera, was given citizenship andwon many honours besides. It was accordingly natural for himto be proclaimed at the games as a native of Himera.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.4.10-11

Sotades was victorious in the dolichos at the ninety-ninthGames and proclaimed a Cretan, as in fact he was. But at thenext Festival he made himself an Ephesian, being bribed todo so by the Ephesian people. For this act he was banishedby the Cretans

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.18.6

Others held out against tempting offers to change their citizenship at the Games:

By the statue of Thrasybulus stands Timosthenes of Elis,winner of the stadion for boys, and Antipater of Miletus, sonof Cleinopater, conqueror of the boy boxers. Men ofSyracuse, who were bringing a sacrifice from Dionysius toOlympia, tried to bribe the father of Antipater to have hisson proclaimed as a Syracusan. But Antipater, thinkingnothing of the tyrant's gifts, proclaimed himself a Milesian

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and wrote upon his statue that he was of Milesian descentand the first Ionian to dedicate his statue at Olympia.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.2.6

Olympia had two age classes: boys and men (some other games eventually had athird, intermediate class, but the Olympics never did). There was an obvious advantagein being placed in the younger class, even if winning in the older class held moreprestige, because the competition was less fierce as people often did not like theiryoung sons to travel and possibly run into all sorts of shocking behaviour at Olympia,which was incredibly crowded and full of parties during the games. The minimum ageto compete at was twelve, but few won at that age. One of those few is mentionedbelow:

Beside this is the Messenian Damiscus, who won an Olympicvictory at the age of twelve. I was extremely surprised tolearn that while the Messenians were in exile from thePeloponnesus, their luck at the Olympic Games failed. Forwith the exception of Leontiscus and Symmachus, who camefrom Messene on the Strait, we know of no Messenian, eitherfrom Sicily or from Naupactus, who won a victory at Olympia.Even these two are said by the Sicilians to have been notMessenians but of old Zanclean blood.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.2.10

Others might be ruled too young to compete (proving exact ages in an era withoutbirth certificates and different dating systems was impossible):

Pherias of Aegina, whose statue stands by the side ofAristophon the Athenian, at the seventy-eighth Festival wasconsidered very young, and, being judged to be as yet unfitto wrestle, was debarred from the contest. Out at the nextFestival he was admitted to the boys' wrestling-match andwon it. What happened to this Pherias was different, in factthe exact opposite of what happened at Olympia to Nicasylusof Rhodes. As he was eighteen years of age he was notallowed by the Eleans to compete in the boys' wrestling-match, but won the men's match and was proclaimed victor. Hewas afterwards proclaimed victor at Nemea also and at the

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Isthmian Games. But when he was twenty years old he met hisdeath before he returned home to Rhodes.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.14.1-2

Although the Eleans claimed to be impartial, they were judges in events where peoplefrom their own city state competed. Some people wondered if that were possible as thefollowing story from the Greek historian Herodotus (5th century BCE) shows:

While Psammis was king of Egypt, there came to him men sentby the Eleans, who boasted that they organized the OlympicGames in the most just and honourable manner possible andthought that not even the Egyptians, the wisest of men,could find out anything which needed to be added to theirrules. Now when the Eleans came to Egypt and said that whythey had come, then this king called together those of theEgyptians who were said to be the wisest, and when theEgyptians had come together they heard the Eleans telleverything they did for the Games; and when they had relatedeverything, they said that they had come to learn inaddition anything which the Egyptians might be able to findout besides, which was fairer than this. They then havingconsulted together asked the Eleans whether their owncitizens took part in the contest; and they said that it waspermitted to any one who desired it, both from their ownpeople and other Greeks equally, to take part in thecontest. When they heard this the Egyptians said that in soorganizing the games they had wholly missed the mark ofjustice; for it could not be but that they would take theside of someone from their own State, if he was contending,and so act unfairly to the stranger: but if they reallydesired, as they said, to order the games justly, and ifthis was the cause for which they had come to Egypt, theyadvised them to order the contest so as to be for strangersalone to contend in, and that no Elean should be permittedto contend. Such was the suggestion made by the Egyptians tothe Eleans.

Herodotus, Histories 2.160

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Cheating did occur at the Olympics and took various forms. The Eleans weresometimes suspected of giving preference to their own, and it became worse when oneof the officials in charge of the festival was competing:

The inscription on Cleogenes the son of Silenus declaresthat he was a native, and that he won a prize with a riding-horse from his own private stable. Near Cleogenes are set upDeinolochus, son of Pyrrhus, and Troilus, son of Alcinous.These also were both Eleans by birth, though their victorieswere not the same. Troilus, at the time that he was umpire,succeeded in winning victories in the chariot-races, one fora chariot drawn by a full-grown pair and another for achariot drawn by foals. The date of his victories was thehundred and second Games. After this the Eleans passed a lawthat in future no umpire was to compete in the chariot-races. The statue of Troilus was made by Lysippus.

Pausanias, Description of Greece, 6.1.4-5

In the previous section of his description of Olympia and Elis, Pausanias describedvarious other cheating incidents and fines levied at the Olympics.

Afterwards others were fined by the Eleans, among whom wasan Alexandrian boxer at the two hundred and eighteenthGames. The name of the man fined was Apollonius, with thesurname of Rhantes – it is a sort of national characteristicfor Alexandrians to have a surname.57 This man was the firstEgyptian to be convicted by the Eleans of a misdemeanour. Itwas not for giving or taking a bribe that he was condemned,but for the following outrageous conduct in connection withthe games. He did not arrive by the prescribed time, and theEleans, if they followed their rule, had no option but toexclude him from the games. For his excuse, that he had beenkept back among the Cyclades islands by contrary winds, wasproved to be an untruth by Heracleides, himself anAlexandrian by birth. He showed that Apollonius was late

57 The city of Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great and thus was a Greek city.

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because he had been picking up some money at the Ioniangames.

In these circumstances the Eleans excluded Apollonius fromthe games with any other boxer who came after the prescribedtime, and let the crown go to Heracleides without a contest.At this Apollonius put on his gloves for a fight, rushed atHeracleides, and began to pummel him, though he had alreadyput the wild-olive on his head and had taken refuge with theumpires. For this light-headed folly he was to pay dearly.There are also two other images of modern workmanship. Forat the two hundred and twenty-sixth Games they detected thattwo boxing men, in a fight for victory only, had agreed onthe result for a sum of money. For this misconduct a finewas inflicted, and of the images of Zeus that were made, onestands on the left of the entrance to the stadium and theother on the right.58 Of the boxers, the one bribed wascalled Didas, and the briber was Sarapammon. They were fromthe same district, the newest in Egypt, called Arsinoites.

It is a wonder in any case if a man has so little respectfor the god of Olympia that he will take or give a bribe inthe contests; it is an even greater wonder that one of theEleans themselves has fallen so low. But it is said that theElean Damonicus did so fall at the hundred and ninety secondFestival. They say that collusion occurred between Polyctorthe son of Damonicus and Sosander of Smyrna, of the samename as his father; these were competitors for the wrestlingprize of wild-olive. Damonicus, it is alleged, being veryambitious for his son to win, bribed the father of Sosander.When the transaction became known, the umpires imposed afine, but instead of imposing it on the sons they directedtheir anger against the fathers, because they were the realsinners. From this fine images were made. One is set up inthe Elean gymnasium; the other is in the Altis in front ofwhat is called the Painted Portico, because anciently therewere pictures on the walls. Some call this Portico the Echo

58 These are the so called zanes, whose bases can still be seen as you go intothe stadium at Olympia.

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Portico, because when a man has shouted his voice isrepeated by the echo seven or even more times.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.21.12-17.

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Celebrating Victory :

Above you’ve read many descriptions of statues put up by victors at Olympia tocommemorate their victory. You could also set up a statue in your home city (or mightbe voted one by the grateful population), but for many that was not enough: theywanted a victory ode. The premier writer of such odes was Pindar (518-438 BCE), whocharged a hefty price to write for you. It was worth it to have not only everlastingfame in poetic form, but also an ode that could be brought back to your city andperformed as you entered it in glory (and presumably on other occasions when youwanted to remind people of your athletic fame). The following ode is an Olympian ode,written by Pindar for Hieron of Syracuse, whose horse triumphed at the Games in 496BCE; not all were so long or so detailed – Hieron must have paid a lot for this.

Water is best, and gold, like a blazing fire in the night,stands out supreme of all lordly wealth. But if, my heart,you wish to sing of contests, look no further for any starwarmer than the sun, shining by day through the lonely sky,and let us not proclaim any contest greater than Olympia.From there glorious song enfolds the wisdom of poets, sothat they loudly sing about the son of Cronus,59 when theyarrive at the rich and blessed hearth of Hieron, who wieldsthe scepter of law in Sicily of many flocks, reaping everyexcellence at its peak, and is glorified by the choicestmusic, which we men often play around his hospitable table.

Come, take the Dorian lyre down from its peg, if thesplendor of Pisa60 and of Pherenikos placed your mind underthe influence of sweetest thoughts, when that horse ranswiftly beside the Alpheios, not needing to be spurred on inthe race, and brought victory to his master, the king ofSyracuse who delights in horses. His glory shines in thesettlement of fine men founded by Lydian Pelops, with whomthe mighty holder of the earth Poseidon fell in love, whenClotho61 took him out of the pure cauldron, furnished with a

59 Zeus.60 This is the district around Olympia and the name of a town that fought with Elis over control of the Olympics, even gaining control for a short period. 61 One of the Fates.

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gleaming ivory shoulder. Yes, there are many marvels, andyet I suppose the speech of mortals beyond the true accountcan be deceptive, stories adorned with embroidered lies;[and Grace, who fashions all gentle things for men, confersesteem and often contrives to make believable theunbelievable. But the days to come are the wisest witnesses.

It is right for a man to speak well of the gods; for theblame is less that way. Son of Tantalus, I will speak ofyou, but not like earlier stories. When your father invitedthe gods to a very well-ordered banquet at his own dearSipylus, in return for the meals he had enjoyed, then it wasthat the god of the splendid trident62 seized you, his mindovercome with desire, and carried you away on his team ofgolden horses to the highest home of widely-honored Zeus, towhich at a later time Ganymede came also, to perform thesame service for Zeus. But when you disappeared, and peopledid not bring you back to your mother, for all theirsearching, right away some envious neighbor whispered thatthey cut you limb from limb with a knife into the water'srolling boil over the fire, and among the tables at the lastcourse they divided and ate your flesh. For me it isimpossible to call one of the blessed gods a glutton. Istand back from it. Often the lot of evil-speakers isprofitlessness. If indeed the watchers of Olympus everhonored a mortal man, that man was Tantalus. But he was notable to digest his great prosperity, and for his greed hegained overpowering ruin, which the Father hung over him: amighty stone. Always longing to cast it away from his head,he wanders far from the joy of festivity. He has thishelpless life of never-ending labor, a fourth toil afterthree others, because he stole from the gods nectar andambrosia, with which they had made him immortal, and gavethem to his drinking companions. If any man expects thatwhat he does escapes the notice of a god, he is wrong.

Because of that the immortals sent the son of Tantalus backagain to the swift-doomed race of men. And when he blossomed

62 Poseidon.

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with the stature of fair youth, and down darkened his cheek,he turned his thoughts to an available marriage, to winglorious Hippodameia from her father, the lord of Pisa Hedrew near to the gray sea, alone in the darkness, and calledaloud on the deep-roaring god, skilled with the trident; andthe god appeared to him, close at hand. Pelops said to thegod, “If the loving gifts of Cyprian Aphrodite result in anygratitude, Poseidon, then restrain the bronze spear ofOenomaus, and speed me in the swiftest chariot to Elis, andbring me to victory. For he has killed thirteen suitors, andpostpones the marriage of his daughter. Great danger doesnot take hold of a coward. Since all men are compelled todie, why should anyone sit stewing an inglorious old age inthe darkness, with no share of any fine deeds? As for me, onthis contest I will take my stand. May you grant a welcomeachievement.” So he spoke, and he did not touch on wordsthat were unaccomplished. Honoring him, the god gave him agolden chariot, and horses with untiring wings. He overcamethe might of Oenomaus, and took the girl as his bride. Shebore six sons, leaders of the people eager for excellence.Now he has a share in splendid blood-sacrifices, restingbeside the ford of the Alpheus, where he has his attendanttomb beside the altar that is thronged with many visitors.

The fame of Pelops shines from afar in the races of theOlympic festivals, where there are contests for swiftness offoot, and the bold heights of toiling strength. A victorthroughout the rest of his life enjoys honeyed calm, so faras contests can bestow it. But at any given time the gloryof the present day is the highest one that comes to everymortal man. I must crown that man with the horse-song in theAeolian strain. I am convinced that there is no host in theworld today who is both knowledgeable about fine things andmore sovereign in power, whom we shall adorn with theglorious folds of song. A god is set over your ambitions asa guardian, Hieron, and he devises with this as his concern.If he does not desert you soon, I hope that I will celebratean even greater sweetness, sped by a swift chariot, findinga helpful path of song when I come to the sunny hill of

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Cronus. For me the Muse tends her mightiest shaft ofcourage. Some men are great in one thing, others in another;but the peak of the farthest limit is for kings. Do not lookbeyond that! May it be yours to walk on high throughout yourlife, and mine to associate with victors as long as I live,distinguished for my skill among Greeks everywhere.

May I find suitable speech for my journey in the Muses'chariot; and let me now have daring and powers of amplescope. To back the prowess of a friend I came, whenLampromachos won his Isthmian crown, when on the same dayboth he and his brother overcame. And afterwards at thegates of Corinth two triumphs again befell Epharmostos andmore in the valleys of Nemea. At Argos he triumphed overmen, as over boys at Athens. And I might tell how atMarathon he stole from among the beardless and confrontedthe full-grown for the prize of silver vessels, how withouta fall he threw his men with swift and coming shock, and howloud the shouting pealed when round the ring he ran, in thebeauty of his youth and fair form and fresh from fairestdeeds.

Pindar, Olympian I

He also wrote an ode for the famous Diagoras of Rhodes:

As when someone takes a goblet, all golden, the most prizedof his possessions, foaming with the dew of the vine from agenerous hand, and makes a gift of it to his young son-in-law, welcoming him with a toast from one home to another,honoring the grace of the symposium and the new marriagebond, and in the presence of his friends makes him enviablefor his harmonious marriage-bed; I too, sending tovictorious men poured nectar, the gift of the Muses, thesweet fruit of my mind, I try to win the gods' favor forthose men who were victors at Olympia and at Delphi. Thatman is prosperous, who is encompassed by good reports.Grace, which causes life to flourish, looks with favor nowon one man, now on another, with both the sweet-singing lyreand the full-voiced notes of flutes. And now, with the music

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of flute and lyre alike I have come to land with Diagoras,singing the sea-child of Aphrodite and bride of Helios,Rhodes, so that I may praise this straight-fighting,tremendous man who had himself crowned beside the Alpheusand near Castalia, as a recompense for his boxing, and alsohis father Damagetus, a man pleasing to Justice, living onthe island of three cities near the foreland of spaciousAsia, among Argive spearmen.

I shall want to proclaim my message for them, the widelypowerful race of Heracles, and tell correctly from thebeginning, from Tlepolemus, the story that concerns all.For, on the father's side, they boast descent from Zeus,while, on the mother's, they are descendants of Amyntor,through Astydameia. But around the minds of men countlesserrors loom; and this is impossible to discover: what isbest to happen to a man, now and in the end. For indeed,striking Licymnius, the bastard brother of Alcmena, with astaff of hard olive-wood as he came out of the chamber ofMidea the founder of this land once killed that man, inanger. Disturbances of the mind lead astray even a wise man.Tlepolemus went and sought the god's oracle. To him thegolden-haired god spoke, from his fragrant sanctuary, of avoyage by ship from the shore of Lerna straight to thepasture land with sea all around it, where once the greatking of the gods showered the city with golden snow, when,by the skills of Hephaestus with the bronze-forged hatchet,Athena leapt from the top of her father's head and criedaloud with a mighty shout. The Sky and mother Earthshuddered before her. Then even the god that brings light tomortals, son of Hyperion, [40] enjoined his dear children toobserve the obligation that was soon to be due: that theyshould be the first to build for the goddess an altarvisible to all men, and by founding a sacred burnt-offeringwarm the spirit of the father and of the daughter whothunders with her spear. She who casts excellence and joysinto men is the daughter of Forethought, Reverence. Truly, acloud of forgetfulness sometimes descends unexpectedly, anddraws the straight path of action away from the mind. For

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they climbed the hill without bringing the seed of burningflame; and they established the sacred precinct on theacropolis with fireless sacrifices. Zeus brought to them ayellow cloud and rained on them abundant gold. And the gray-eyed goddess herself bestowed on them every art, so thatthey surpassed all mortal men as the best workers with theirhands; and the roads bore works of art like living, movingcreatures, and their fame was profound. For a wisecraftsman, even superior skill is free from guile.

The ancient stories of men tell that when Zeus and theimmortals were dividing the earth among them, Rhodes was notyet visible in the expanse of the sea, but the island washidden in the salty depths. Helios was absent, and no onemarked out a share for him; in fact they left him withoutany allotment of land,] although he was a holy god. And whenHelios mentioned it, Zeus was about to order a new castingof lots, but Helios did not allow him. For he said that hehimself saw in the gray sea, growing from the bottom, arich, productive land for men, and a kindly one for flocks.And he bid Lachesis of the golden headband raise her handsright away, and speak, correctly and earnestly, the greatoath of the gods, and consent with the son of Cronus thatthat island, when it had risen into the shining air, shouldthereafter be his own prize of honor. And the essence of hiswords was fulfilled and turned out to be true. There grewfrom the waters of the sea an island, which is held by thebirthgiving father of piercing rays, the ruler of fire-breathing horses. And there he once lay with Rhodes, andbegat seven sons who inherited from him the wisest minds inthe time of earlier men; and of these one begat Cameirus,and Ialysus the eldest, and Lindus. Each had his ownseparate share of cities in their threefold division oftheir father's land, and their dwelling-places were namedafter them. There it is that a sweet recompense for hispitiful misfortune is established for Tlepolemus, the firstleader of the Tirynthians, as for a god procession of flocksfor burnt sacrifice and the trial of contests. With theflowers from these Diagoras has had himself crowned twice,

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and at the renowned Isthmus four times, in his good fortune,and again and again at Nemea and in rocky Athens; and theprizes of the bronze shield in Argos and the works of art inArcadia and Thebes are familiar with him, and the dulyordered contestsof the Boeotians, and Pellana and Aegina,where he was six times victor. And in Megara the list carvedin stone gives no other account.

But, Father Zeus, you who rule over the ridges of Atabyrium,grant honor to the hymn ordained in praise of an Olympianvictor, and to the man who has found excellence as a boxer,and grant to him honored grace in the eyes of both citizensand strangers. For he walks a straight course on a road thathates arrogance, knowing clearly the sound prophetic wisdomof his good ancestors. Do not bury in obscurity the sharedseed of Callianax. When the Eratidae are graced withvictories, the city too holds festivities; but in a singlespace of apportioned time the winds shift quickly frommoment to moment.

Olympian 7

As an Olympic victor was sometimes seen as a pinnacle of glory, those who won andthen suddenly died were seen as blessed, because they died at the height of theirsuccess. almost at the moment of victory. One Spartan suggested that the famousathlete Diagoras of Rhodes would have been happiest if he died at the victorycelebrations for his sons:

Such a man would even wish to die while in prosperity; forall the favors that could be heaped on him would not be soagreeable to him as the loss of them would be painful. Thatspeech of the Spartan seems to have the same meaning, who,when Diagoras the Rhodian, who had himself been a conquerorat the Olympic games, saw two of his own sons conquerorsthere on the same day, approached the old man, and,congratulating him, said, “You should die now, Diagoras, forno greater happiness can possibly await you.” The Greekslook on these as great things; perhaps they think too highlyof them, or, rather, they did so then. And so he who saidthis to Diagoras, looking on it as something very glorious,

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that three men out of one family should have been conquerorsthere, thought it could answer no purpose to him to continueany longer in life, where he could only be exposed to areverse of fortune.

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.46

Therefore the Spartan's advice was better, who, when hegreeted Diagoras, the Olympian victor, who had lived to seehis sons crowned at Olympia, and the sons of his sons anddaughters, said: "Die now, Diagoras; you cannot ascend toOlympus.”63

Plutarch, Life of Pelopidas 34

63 In other words as he could not become immortal, it would be best to die atthis happy moment in his life.

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The Heraia, Women, and Athletics

This marble statue is usually identified as the mythological Greek huntress, Atalanta;it is now in the Vatican. However, some have argued it may be a victor statue fromthe Heraia, a female only event run either before or after the Olympics. (This is a 1 st

century marble copy (most likely) of a lost 5th century BCE Greek bronze.)

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At Olympia, after the men’s events were finished, there was a contest for girls called theHeraia in honour of Hera, the wife of Zeus. We are not sure how many girls took partand if they were mainly locals or if some came with their families for the malemembers to compete in the Olympics and the girls to compete in the Heraia. Our onlysource is the Pausanias passage below.

Every four years the sixteen women [of Elis] weave a robefor Hera. The same women organize the Heraia. The gamesconsist of a foot-race for girls. These girls are not all ofthe same age. The youngest run first, the second age-categories after them and the oldest girls run last. Theyrun as follows: their hair is let down and their tunicreaches to a little above the knee. They bare the rightshoulder as far as their breasts. The Olympic stadium isreserved for their games and its length is shortened byabout a sixth. To the winners they give olive crowns and apart of the cow which is sacrificed to Hera. They can alsodedicate painted portraits. 16.4] The games of the maidensare also traced back to ancient times; they say that, outof gratitude to Hera for her marriage with Pelops,Hippodameia assembled the Sixteen Women, and with theminaugurated the Heraia. They relate too that a victory waswon by Chloris, the only surviving daughter of the house ofAmphion, though with her they say survived one of herbrothers. As to the children of Niobe, what I myself chancedto learn about them I have set forth in my account of Argos.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.2-4

Married women were not allowed to watch the Olympic Games - though those whohad never been married were. Given the reputation the Olympics had for drunkennessand wild behaviour (especially the further you got away from the Altis), this is a littlesurprising, and we have no way of knowing how many girls were there with theirfamilies. The penalty for being found as a married woman watching the games wasdeath, although no one seems to have ever been killed. One enterprising mother evenpassed herself off as a male trainer to accompany her son to the Olympics andmanaged to escape the death penalty because of her son’s victory and because herfather and brothers had also won at Olympia:

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As you go from Scillus along the road to Olympia, before youcross the Alpheios, there is a mountain with high,precipitous cliffs. It is called Mount Typaeum. It is a lawof Elis to throw any women who are caught present at theOlympic Games off it, or even on the other side of theAlpheios, on the days prohibited to women. However, they saythat no woman has been caught, except Callipateira; some,however, say she was called Pherenice and not Callipateira.She, being a widow, disguised herself exactly like agymnastic trainer and brought her son to compete at Olympia.Peisirodus, for so her son was called, was victorious, andCallipateira, as she was jumping over the enclosure in whichthey keep the trainers penned, exposed her person. So hergender was discovered, but they let her go unpunished out ofrespect for her father, her brothers, and her son, all ofwhom had been victorious at Olympia.64 But a law was passedthat in the future trainers should strip before entering thearena.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.6.7-8

The only sports that women could be proclaimed victors were the equestrian events:although they could not drive their chariots or ride their horses,65 they could still sendteams, and those whose teams won were considered and celebrated as Olympicvictors:

Archidamus66 left sons when he died, of whom Agis was theelder and inherited the throne instead of Agesilaus.Archidamus had also a daughter, whose name was Cynisca; shewas exceedingly ambitious to win at the Olympic Games, andwas the first woman to breed horses and the first to win anOlympic victory. After Cynisca other women, especially

64 She was the daughter of Diagoras (see the section Greek Sports III:Athletes: their status and reputations for more information on him and herfamily).65 Male owners of chariot teams did not normally drive their own chariots andinstead relied on professionals as the sport was very dangerous. Greek horseswere small and were ridden in these events by child jockeys. 66 He was king of Sparta from c. 475-427 BCE.

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Spartan women, have won Olympic victories, but none of themwas more distinguished for their victories than she.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 3.8.1

After her victory Cynisca set up a statue at Olympia, at the base of which was thisinscription:

My forefathers and brothers are kings of SpartaI, Cyniska, was victorious with my team of swift horses, and I have erected this statue. I can say that I am the onlywoman in all of Greece to have obtained this garland.

Palatine Anthology 13.16

According to another source, the real motivating force behind her decision to competewas her brother, the Spartan king Agesilaus, who had her enter the chariot races toshow that all there was to winning these races was money and not athletic ability:

However, on seeing that some of the citizens regardedthemselves highly and were all puffed up because they bredracing horses, he persuaded his sister Cynisca to enter achariot in the Olympic Games, wishing to show the Greeksthat the victory there was not a mark of any greatexcellence, but simply of wealth and lavish spendingf.

Plutarch, Life of Agesilaus 20.1

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Whatever the truth of the matter Cynisca had a hero shrine at Sparta, honouring herachievements:

At Plane-tree Grove there is also a hero-shrine for Cynisca,daughter of Archidamus, king of the Spartans. She was the first woman to breed horses, and the first to win a chariot race at Olympia. Behind the portico built by the side of Plane-tree Grove are other hero-shrines, of Alcimus, of Enaraephorus, at a little distance away one of Dorceus, and close to it one of Sebrus.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 3.15.1

In Sparta women exercised as keenly as the men did, also exercising naked (somethingwhich made Sparta a popular tourist destination for Romans):

Lycurgus pursued a different path. Clothes were things, heheld, the furnishing of which might well enough be left tofemale slaves.67 And, believing that the highest function ofa free woman was the bearing of children, in the first placehe insisted on the training of the body as incumbent no lesson the female than the male; and in pursuit of the same ideainstituted rival contests in running and feats of strengthfor women as for men. His belief was that where both parentswere strong their progeny would be found to be morevigorous.

Xenophon, Spartan Constitution 1.4

However, there is relatively little evidence for sporting competitions for Spartanwomen:

Opposite is what is called the Knoll, with a temple ofDionysus of the Knoll, by which is a precinct of the herowho they say guided Dionysus on the way to Sparta. To this

67 In some city states (Athens in particular) Greek women spent most of theirtime indoors, and weaving was their main activity. The Spartans, however, hadenslaved the surrounding populations so thus did not need to do domestic or agricultural labour.

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hero sacrifices are offered before they are offered to thegod by the daughters of Dionysus and the daughters ofLeucippus. For the other eleven ladies who are nameddaughters of Dionysus there is held a footrace; this customcame to Sparta from Delphi.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 3.13.7

One of the reasons why Spartan women were allowed such freedom to exercise andtrain was that the Spartans felt that active women would bear stronger children, whowould then in turn be better warriors. In the following passage from the RepublicPlato has Socrates argue that in his ideal republic women would be also trained ingymnasia:

Socrates: For men born and educated like our citizens, theonly way, in my opinion, of arriving at a right conclusionabout the possession and use of women and children is tofollow the path on which we originally started, when we saidthat the men were to be the guardians and watchdogs of theherd.

True.

Socrates: Let us further suppose the birth and education of our women to be subject to similar or nearly similar regulations; then we shall see whether the result accords with our design.

What do you mean?

Socrates: What I mean may be put into the form of a question, I said: Are dogs divided into hes and shes, or do they both share equally in hunting and in keeping watch and in the other duties of dogs? Or do we entrust to the males the entire and exclusive care of the flocks, while we leave the females at home, under the idea that the bearing and feeding their puppies is labour enough for them?

No, he said, they share alike; the only difference between them is that the males are stronger and the females weaker.

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Socrates: But can you use different animals for the same purpose, unless they are bred and fed in the same way?

You cannot.

Socrates: Then, if women are to have the same duties as men,they must have the same nurture and education?

Yes.

Socrates: The education which was assigned to the men was music and athletics.

Yes.

Socrates: Then women must be taught music and gymnastic and also the art of war, which they must practise like the men?

That is the inference, I suppose.

Socrates: I should rather expect, I said, that several of our proposals, if they are carried out, being unusual, may appear ridiculous.

No doubt of it.

Socrates: Yes, and the most ridiculous thing of all will be the sight of women naked in the palaestra, exercising with the men, especially when they are no longer young; they certainly will not be a vision of beauty, any more than the enthusiastic old men who in spite of wrinkles and ugliness continue to frequent the gymnasia.

Yes, indeed, he said: according to present notions the proposal would be thought ridiculous.

But then, I said, as we have determined to speak our minds, we must not fear the jests of the wits which will be directed against this sort of innovation; how they will talk

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of women's attainments both in music and gymnastic, and above all about their wearing armour and riding upon horseback!

Very true, he replied.

Plato, Republic 5.

The following inscription from 47 CE records the remarkable feats of three youngwomen who competed all over the Greek world; it was discovered at Delphi on abase that once held the statues of the three sisters it mentions. This inscription is asubject of contention because it suggests that some women competed directlyagainst men now just in artistic competitions but in the athletic ones as well. Note,however, its late date and the fact that this area was now governed by the Romans –we do not know how early such professional female athletes appeared:

Hermesianax son of Dionysios, citizen of Kaisarea Tralles aswell as ofAthens and Delphi, dedicates this to Pythian Apollo on behalf of his daughters who hold the same citizenship:

For Tryphosa, who came first among the girls at the PythianGames in the stadion when Antigonos and Cleomachidassponsored68 the games, and the following Isthmian Games whenIouventios Proklos did the same there. For Hedea, who wonthe chariot race in armor at the Isthmian Games whenCornelius Pulcher was the sponsor, and the stadion at theNemean Games when Antigonos was sponsor and at Sicyon whenMenoitas was sponsor. She also won the lyre singing in theboys’ category at the Sebasteia in Athens when Nouios son ofPhilinos was sponsor. For Dionysia, who won the IsthmianGames when Antigonos was sponsor, and the stadion in thegames of Asclepius at the holy town of Epidauros whenNicoteles was sponsor.

SIG 802

68 The Greek word that I translate as sponsor can also refer to the person incharge of the games as well.

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Beyond the Olympics: the circuit of games

As previously mentioned, there were a number of other crown (stephanitic) games. These were: the Pythian Games (at Delphi for Apollo); the Isthmian Games (near Argos for Poseidon), and the Nemean Games (at Nemea, in the North East of the Peloponnese for Zeus). Of these three, the Nemean Games were the least important – the other two vied for second place behind Olympia. None of these overlapped, meaning that athletes would not have to choose between one and the other; all except Isthmia were on four year cycles – Isthmia was every 2 years, but every second games (so every four years) there was a Greater Isthmia, which was celebrated on a grander scale. They are listed in this poem from the Greek Anthology, which also lists what theircrowns were made of

There are four games in Greece, four sacred games,Two celebrate mortals, two immortals:Zeus, the son of Leto,69 Palaimon70 and Archemoros.71

The prizes are an olive branch, apples, celery and fir tree.

Palatine Anthology 357

As the games were tied into worship of the pagan gods, they, like Romans spectacles, attracted fierce condemnation from Christians, like Clement of Alexandria, who rips into their foundation stories:

Let us now proceed briefly to review the contests, and letus put an end to these solemn gathering at tombs - theIsthmian, Nemean, Pythian, and, above all, the Olympiangames. At the Pythian games they worship the Pythianserpent,72 and the gathering held in honour of this snake isentitled Pythian. At the Isthmus the sea cast up a miserable

69 Apollo. 70 Also referred to as Melicertes; he was born human and his parents helpedtake care of the infant god Dionysus. His father was driven mad by Hera,forcing his mother Ino to take her child and leap into the sea to escape him.Both were turned into sea deities, but the mortal body of Melicertes waswashed ashore at the Isthmus near Corinth, where it was found under a pinetree. 71 Also known as Ophletes, he was the child of the Nemean king and queen;when his nanny put him down on the ground, where he was strangled by a snake.Games were created in his honour.

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carcass, and the Isthmian Games are lamentations forMelicertes. At Nemea another, a child Archemoros, liesburied, and it is the celebrations held at the grave of thischild that are called by the name Nemean. And Pisa – markit, you Panhellenic peoples! – your Pisa is the tomb of aPhrygian charioteer, and the libations poured out forPelops, which constitute the Olympian festivities, areappropriated by the Zeus of Phidias.73

Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks 1

The Pythian games were held in Apollo’s sanctuary at Delphi. They are notable in thatthey had both artistic and athletic competitions, which fits with Apollo’s identity as thegod of music and the arts; they also seem to have had some sort of arrangement withthe Olympics, because the person who won the flute-playing competition at Delphiplayed the flute during the long-jump at the Olympics.

As for the contests at Delphi, there was one in early timesbetween singers to the cithara, who sang a hymn in honour ofApollo; it was instituted by the Delphians. But after theCrisaean war,74 in the time of Eurylochus, the Amphictyonsinstituted equestrian and gymnastic contests in which theprize was a crown, and called them Pythian Games. And to thecompetition between the cithara players they added bothflute-players and cithara players who played withoutsinging, who were to render a certain melody which is calledthe Pythian Nome.

Strabo, Geography 9.3.10

Plutarch, who was a priest at Delphi, reports a discussion about getting rid of neweradditions to the Pythian games and gives us a good account of the various events thattook place there. One interesting upshot of adding artistic events was that womencould and did compete directly with men in these:72 Apollo killed a giant serpent called Pytho to get control of the Delphic Oracle.73 The great statue of Zeus at Olympia was sculpted by Phidias (you can stillsee the remains of his workshop): it was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.74 c. 595 BCE.

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At the Pythian games there was a discussion about takingaway all the sports which had recently crept in and were notthere from ancient times. For after they had added contestsin tragic plays in addition to the three ancient musiccompetitions, which were as old as the games themselves (thePythian flute-player, the lyre player, and the singer to thelyre), as if a large gate were opened, they could not keepout an infinite crowd of plays and musical entertainments ofall sorts that rushed in after him. Which indeed made nounpleasant variety, and increased attendance, but impairedthe gravity and organization of the games. Besides it mustcreate a great deal of trouble to the judges, andconsiderable dissatisfaction to very many, since only a fewcould win. It was agreed upon that the orators and poetsshould be got rid of – this decision did not come from anyhatred of learning, but as these contenders are the mostnoted and worthiest men of all, they admired them, and weretroubled that, when they must judge every one deserving,they could not give the prize equally to all. I, as I wasthere at this discussion, dissuaded those who were forremoving things from their present settled order and whothought this variety as unsuitable to the games as manystrings and many notes to an instrument. When the samesubject was talked about at supper, as Petraeus thepresident and director of the sports, was entertaining us, Idefended music, and maintained that poetry was no upstartintruder, but that had been admitted into the sacred gamesin the dim and distant past, and crowns were given to thebest performer. Some guests imagined that I intended toproduce some old musty stories, like the funeral games ofOeolycus the Thessalian or of Amphidamas the Chalcidean, atwhich they say Homer and Hesiod contended for the prize. Butpassing by these instances as the common theme of everygrammarian, as we shall the criticisms of those who, in thedescription of Patroclus’ funeral games in Homer, readϱ̔ήμονες, orators, and not ϱ̔’ ἥμονες, darters, as if Achilles hadproposed a prize for the best speaker — omitting all these,I said that Acastus at his father Pelias’ funeral set a

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prize for contending poets, and Sibylla won it. At this, agreat many demanded some authority for this unlikely andincredible story, I happily produced Acesander, who has thisstory in his description of Africa; but I must confess thisis not an easy to find book. But Polemo the Athenian’sCommentary of the Treasures of Delphi, which I suppose most of youhave read through and through as he is a very learned manand careful about Greek antiquities. In him you shall findthat in the Sicyonian treasure there was a golden bookdedicated to the god, with this inscription: “Aristomache,the poetess of Erythraea, dedicated this after she had wonthe prize at the Isthmian Games.” Nor is there any reason, Icontinued, why we should so admire and reverence the OlympicGames, as if, like Fate, they were unalterable, and neveradmitted any change since the first institution. For thePythian Games, it is true, has had three or four musicalprizes added; but all the exercises of the body were for themost part the same from the beginning. But in the Olympiangames everything except running is a late addition. Theyadded some and abolished them again; such were the apene,75

either rode or in a chariot, as likewise the crown appointedfor boys that were victorious in the pentathlon. And, inshort, a thousand things in those games are mere novelties.

Plutarch, Moralia 674d-675B

Pausanias, unfortunately, wasn’t that interested in the victors in the musical contests, but he does still discuss the Pythian games and talks about their history. He is how we find out that they dropped one artistic event – singing to the flute – because it was too depressing:

The oldest contest and the one for which they first offeredprizes was, according to tradition, the singing of a hymn tothe god. The man who sang and won the prize was Chrysothemisof Crete, whose father Carmanor is said to have cleansedApollo. After Chrysothemis, says tradition, Philammon won

75 A mule car race: it was eventually dropped because it was felt to be undignified. The boys pentathlon only lasted for one Olympics before it was dropped.

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with a song, and after him his son Thamyris. But they saythat Orpheus, a proud man and conceited about his mysteries,and Musaeus, who copied Orpheus in everything, refused tosubmit to the competition in musical skill.76 They say toothat Eleuther won a Pythian victory for his loud and sweetvoice, for the song that he sang was not of his owncomposition. The story is that Hesiod too was forbidden tocompete because he had not learned to accompany his ownsinging on the lyre. Homer too came to Delphi to inquireabout his needs, but even though he had learned to play thelyre, he would have found the skill useless owing to theloss of his eye-sight.

In the third year of the forty-eighth Olympiad, at whichGlaucias of Croton was victorious, the Amphictyons77 heldcontests for playing the lyre as from the beginning, butadded competitions for flute-playing and for singing to theflute. The conquerors proclaimed were Melampus, aCephallenian, for playing the lyre, and Echembrotus, anArcadian, for singing to the flute, with Sacadas of Argosfor flute-playing. This same Sacadas won victories at thenext two Pythian festivals. On that occasion they alsooffered for the first time prizes for athletes, thecompetitions being the same as those at Olympia, except thefour-horse chariot, and the Delphians themselves added tothe contests running-races for boys, the long course and thedouble course. At the second Pythian Festival they no longeroffered prizes for events, and after this gave a crown forvictory. On this occasion they no longer included singing tothe flute, thinking that the music was ill-omened to listento. For the tunes of the flute were most dismal, and thewords sung to the tunes were lamentations.

What I say is confirmed by the votive offering of Echembrotus, a bronze tripod dedicated to the Heracles at Thebes. The tripod has as its inscription:

76 Orpheus and Museus were mythical musicians and singers; Orpheus was also the mythical founder of Orphism, a mystery religion. 77 The people in charge of the Pythian games

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Echembrotus of Arcadia dedicated this pleasant gift to HeraclesWhen he won a victory at the games of the Amphictyons,Singing for the Greeks tunes and lamentations.

In this way the competition in singing to the flute wasdropped. But they added a chariot-race, and Cleisthenes, thetyrant of Sicyon, was proclaimed victor in the chariot-race.

At the eighth Pythian Games they added a contest for lyreplayers playing without singing; Agelaus of Tegea wascrowned. At the twenty-third Pythian Festival they added thehoplitodromos. For this Timaenetus of Phlius won the laurel,five Olympiads after Damaretus of Heraea was victorious. Atthe forty-eighth Pythian Games they established a race fortwo-horse chariots, and the chariot of Execestides thePhocian won. At the fifth Games after this they yoked foalsto a chariot, and the chariot of Orphondas of Thebes won.The pankration for boys, a race for a chariot drawn by twofoals, and a race for ridden foals, were introduced fromElis many years. The first was brought in at the sixty-firstPythian Games, and Iolaidas of Thebes was victorious. At thenext Games but one they held a race for a ridden foal, andat the sixty-ninth Games a race for a chariot drawn by twofoals; the victor proclaimed for the former was Lycormas ofLarisa, for the latter Ptolemy the Macedonian. For the kingsof Egypt liked to be called Macedonians, as in fact theywere.78 The reason why a crown of laurel is the prize for aPythian victory is in my opinion simply and solely becausethe prevailing tradition has it that Apollo fell in lovewith the daughter of Ladon.79

Pausanias, Description of Greece 10.7.4-8

78 The Ptolemies, the Greek kings of Egypt, were descended from Ptolemy I, one of the Macedonian generals of Alexander the Great.79 Daphne, who was a daughter or a river god and who did not wish to marry; she turned into a laurel tree while fleeing from Apollo.

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The Pythian and Isthmian Games competed for second place in importance after theOlympic Games. The foundation story for the Isthmian Games revolved around amortal child and his mother:

There are legends about the rocks, which rise especially atthe narrow part of the road. As to the Molurian, it is saidthat from it Ino flung her self into the sea withMelicertes, the younger of her children. Learchus, the elderof them, had been killed by his father. One account is thatAthamas did this in a fit of madness; another is that hevented on Ino and her children uncontrolled rage when helearned that the famine which befell the Orchomenians andthe supposed death of Phrixus were not accidents fromheaven, but that Ino, the step-mother, had plotted for allthese things. Then it was that she fled to the sea and castherself and her son from the Molurian Rock. The son, theysay, was landed on the Corinthian Isthmus by a dolphin, andhonors were offered to Melicertes, then renamed Palaemon,including the celebration of the Isthmian Games

Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.44.7-8

There was an on-going feud between the Isthmian Games and the Olympics andathletes from Elis did not compete in the Isthmian Games. This feud was traced back tomythical times:

Heracles accomplished no brilliant feat in the war withAugeas. For the sons of Actor were in the prime ofcourageous manhood, and always defeated the allies underHeracles, until the Corinthians proclaimed the Isthmiantruce, and the sons of Actor came as envoys to the meeting.Heracles set an ambush for then, at Cleonae and murderedthem. As the murderer was unknown, Moline, more than any ofthe other children, devoted herself to detecting him.

When she discovered him, the Eleians demanded satisfactionfor the crime from the people of Argos, for at the timeHeracles had his home at Tiryns. When the Argives refusedthem satisfaction, the Eleians as an alternative pressed theCorinthians to exclude the people of Argos from the Isthmian

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Games. When they failed in this also, Moline is said to havelaid curses on her countrymen, should they refuse to boycottthe Isthmian Games. The curses of Molione are respectedright down to the present day, and no athlete of Eliscompetes in the Isthmian Games.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.2.1-2

Pausanias describes the site of the Isthmian Games, which was sacred to the seagod Poseidon:

The Isthmus [of Corinth] belongs to Poseidon. Worth seeinghere are a theatre and a white marble race course. Withinthe sanctuary of the god stand on the one side portraitstatues of athletes who have won victories at the Isthmiangames, on the other side pine trees growing in a row, mostof which grow straight up. On the temple, which is not verylarge, stand bronze Tritones. In the fore-temple are images,two of Poseidon, a third of Amphitrite,80 and of the Sea,which also is of bronze. The offerings inside were dedicatedin our time by Herodes the Athenian, four horses, gildedexcept for the hoofs, which are of ivory, and two goldTritones beside the horses, with the parts below the waistof ivory. On the car stand Amphitrite and Poseidon, andthere is the boy Palaimon upright upon a dolphin. These tooare made of ivory and gold. On the middle of the base onwhich the car is has been fashioned the Sea) holding up theyoung Aphrodite, and on either side are the Nymphs calledNereids. I know that there are altars to these in otherparts of Greece, and that some Greeks have even dedicated tothem precincts by shores, where honors are also paid toAchilles. In Gabala is a holy sanctuary of Doto, where therewas still remaining the robe by which the Greeks say thatEriphyle was bribed to wrong her son Alcmaeon.

Among the reliefs on the base of the statue of Poseidon arethe sons of Tyndareus,81 because these too are saviours of

80 The wife of Poseidon.81 Castor and Pollux, brothers to Helen of Troy.

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ships and of sailors. The other offerings are images of Calmand Sea, a horse like a whale from the breast onward, Ino[Leukothea] and Bellerophontes, and the horse Pegasus.Within the enclosure is on the left a temple of Palaimon,with images in it of Poseidon, Leukothea and Palaimonhimself. There is also what is called his Inner Sanctum,with an underground descent to it, where they say thatPalaimon is concealed. Whosoever, whether Corinthian orstranger, swears falsely here, can by no means escape fromhis oath. There is also an ancient sanctuary called thealtar of the Cyclopes, and they sacrifice to the Cyclopesupon it. The graves of Sisyphus [an and of Neleus for theysay that Neleus came to Corinth, died of disease, and wasburied near the Isthmus.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.1.7-2. 2

The popularity of the Isthmian Games and its very convenient location led to Nerousing it to announce the freedom of Greece when he doing his tour of the games.(Freedom in this case meant local self-government and freedom from taxation, ratherthan freedom entirely from Roman rule. Although it was rescinded under the Flavians,it made Nero incredibly popular in Greece.)

In competition he observed the rules most scrupulously,never daring to clear his throat and even wiping the sweatfrom his brow with his arm. Once, indeed, during theperformance of a tragedy, when he had dropped his sceptrebut quickly recovered it, he was terribly afraid that hemight be excluded from the competition because of his slip,and his confidence was restored only when his accompanistswore that it had passed unnoticed amid the delight andapplause of the people. When he won he made the announcementhimself; and for that reason he always took part in thecontests of the heralds. To obliterate the memory of allother victors in the games and leave no trace of them, theirstatues and busts were all thrown down by his order, draggedoff with hooks, and cast into toilets. He also drove achariot in many places, and a ten-horse chariot team atOlympia, although in one of his own poems he had criticizedMithridates for just that thing. But after he had been

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thrown from the car and put back in it, he was unable tohold out and gave up before the end of the course; but hereceived the crown just the same. On his departure hepresented the entire province with freedom and at the sametime gave the judges Roman citizenship and a large sum ofmoney. These favours he announced in person on the day ofthe Isthmian Games, standing in the middle of the stadium.

Suetonius, Life of Nero 24

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The Emperors and the Games

When the Romans came on the scene they represented a problem for many of thegreat games, such as the Olympics, because they were restricted to Greeks only. TheRomans gained control over Greece in 146 BCE and thus control of the Olympics. TheRoman general Sulla even transferred the Olympic Games to Rome in 80 BCE (with theexception of the stadion), the only time it was held outside Greece. (For good measure,he had also plundered the sanctuary in 86.) The Emperors became enthusiasticsponsors of the games, with Augustus’ son-in-law Agrippa helping to restore thetemple to Zeus and Augustus formally recognized the circuit of crown games giving itheightened status in Rome. He also helped restore other portions of the site. Tiberiuswon in the chariot race, while Nero and others helped build accommodation andfacilities at Olympia.

Elis allowed all emperors who were made divine on their deaths to have statues in theAltis; Pausanias describes these as well:

There are statues of emperors: Hadrian, of Parian marblededicated by the cities of the Achaean confederacy, andTrajan, dedicated by all the Greeks. This emperor subduedthe Getae beyond Thrace, and made war on Osroes thedescendant of Arsaces and on the Parthians. Of hisarchitectural achievements the most remarkable are bathscalled after him, a large circular theatre, a building forhorse-races which is actually two stades long, and the Forumat Rome, worth seeing not only for its general beauty butespecially for its roof made of bronze. Of the statues setup in the round buildings, the amber one represents Augustusthe Roman emperor, the ivory one they told me was a portraitof Nicomedes, king of Bithynia. After him the greatest cityin Bithynia was renamed Nicomedeia; before him it was calledAstacus, and its first founder was Zypoetes, a Thracian bybirth to judge from his name. This amber of which the statueof Augustus is made, when found native in the sand of theEridanus, is very rare and precious to men for many reasons;the other “amber” is an alloy of gold and silver. In thetemple at Olympia are four offerings of Nero – three crownsrepresenting wild-olive leaves, and one representing oakleaves. Here too are laid twenty-five bronze shields, which

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are for the armed men to carry in the race. Tablets too areset up, including one on which is written the oath sworn bythe Eleans to the Athenians, the Argives and the Mantineans,that they would be their allies for a hundred years.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.12.7-8

Others, like Apollonius, a Greek holy man and philosopher were a bit cynical aboutemperors like Nero who pretended to compete on fair grown in events like theOlympics.

The conversations which Apollonius held about things he hadseen were, according to Damis, many in number, but thefollowing things he said deserve to be recorded. On oneoccasion they were sitting in the temple of Heracles [inSpain] and Menippus laughed, for it happened that Nero hadjust come to his mind, "And what," he said, "are we to thinkof this splendid fellow? In which of the contests has he woncrowns of late? Don't you think that self-respecting Greeksmust shake with laughter when they are on their way to thefestivals?"

And Apollonius replied: "As I have heard from Telesinus,82

the worthy Nero is afraid of the whips of the Eleans;83 forwhen his flatterers urged him to win at Olympia and toproclaim Rome as the victor, he answered: 'Yes, if theEleans will only not attack me, for they are said to usewhips and to look down upon me.' And many worse bits ofnonsense than this forecast fell from his lips. I howeveradmit that Nero will conquer at Olympia, for who is boldenough to compete against him? But I deny that he will winat the Olympic festival, because they are not keeping it atthe right season. For custom requires that this should havebeen held last year, but Nero has ordered the Eleans to putit off until his own visit, in order that they may sacrificeto him rather than to Zeus. And it is said that he has

82 A Roman senator.83 Those who made errors– like false starts - in the Olympics were whipped inpublic for the mistake.

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announced a tragedy and a performance on the lyre for peoplewho have neither a theatre nor a stage for suchentertainments, but only the stadium which nature hasprovided, and races which are all run by athletes strippedof their clothes. He however is going to take the prize forperformances which he ought to have hidden in the dark, forhe has thrown off the robes of Augustus and Julius Caesarand has dressed himself up in the garb of an Amoebeus or aTerpnus.

Philostratus, Life of Apollonius 5.7

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Appendix

Glossary:

Apene: A mule cart race, briefly an Olympic sport.

Aryballos: A vase for holding olive oil (which was used foroiling up) before exercising.

Caestus: a hard version of the himantes (see illustration inboxing section) wrapped around the hands for boxing.

Dolichos: a long distance race, it was added to the Olympics in 720 BCE. It was anything from 7-24 laps of the stadium. In no case was it more than 4,800 metres.

Diaulos: a race consisting of a lap of the stadium. It was thesecond event added to the Olympics in 724 BCE.

Halma: the Greek long jump. Weights called halteres were used to increase the distance a jumper could reach, while a flute player played to help them get their rhythm before they jumped. Jumpers also leapt from a high platform.

Halter (Plural: Halteres): weights used in the Greek long jump.

Himantes: leather strips (c.4 metres in length) wrapped aroundhands and wrists for protection in boxing. These were made of ox-hide; pigskin was forbidden because it left wounds that would not close easily and were too painful.

Hoplitodromos: A race in armour. At first the runners ran withhelmets, shields and greaves, but gradually athletes stopped wearing greaves (leg guards).

Kalpe: A race for mares, it involved the riders leaping down from their horses to run along side them in the last length.

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Konis: a type of dust that athletes used after they cleaned upafter exercising

Lampadedromia: a relay torch carrying race, where letting thetorch go out resulted in instant disqualification.

Pankration: ‘All powerful’ a particularly violent sport which was a combination of boxing and wrestling. The only illegal moves were eye gouging and biting; in Sparta there were no illegal moves.

Stadion: a race of one length of the stadium. The only event at the first Olympics in 776 BCE. Each Olympiad was named after the winner of the stadion at the Olympics and this dating system was common to all Greek states and cities.

Strigil: a tool with which to scrape off oil, sweat, and dustafter exercising (oil scrapings from famous athletes fetchedhigh prices). Usually bronze, but could be iron or evenprecious metal

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Figure I: Map of Olympia

1: Propyleon NE2: Prytaneon3: Monument of Philip II of Macedon4: Temple of Hera5: Sanctuary of Pelops6. Fountain of Herodes Atticus7: Temple of the Great Mother8: Zanes9: Cryptaeum10: Stadium11: Portico of Echoes12: Monument of Ptolemy II and Arsinoe

17: Treasury of the Achaeans18 Dedications of Micythus of Rhegium19: Nike of Paeonias20: Gymnasium21: Palaestra22: Theokoleon23: Heroon24: Office of the officials and early Christian basilica25: Baths of Claudius26: Greek baths27 and 28: Hostels29: Sanctuary of

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13: Portico of Hestia14: Hellenistic building15: Temple to Olympian Zeus16: Altar of Olympian Zeus

Leonidas30 Baths31 Bouleuterion32: South Portico33: Villa of Nero

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Figure 2: Vitruvius’ plan for a Greek gymnasium, along with gymnasia at Olympia from Vitruvius THE TEN BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE, Trans. M.H. Morgan (Harvard University Press, 1914):

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Figure 3:Side B of a Panatheniac vase; winners received a number of these(the number depended on the sport) filled with olive oil – thisheld considerable monetary value because of the oil and becausethe vases were highly valued. All these vases had Athena on oneside and the sport on the other. This one is now in theMetropolitan Museum in New York and dates from c. 490 BCE.

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Figure 4: Map of Greek sanctuaries also showing the sites of themajor games:

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