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26 chapters
PREFACE
PREFACE
It is my hope that the present volume may prove of interest to the general reader as well as to the student of the past. For though its subject may seem at first sight purely archaeological, many of the problems with which it deals are as real to us to-day as they were to the Greeks. The place of physical training and of games in education, the place of athletics in our daily life and in our national life, are questions of present importance to us all, and in considering these questions we canno
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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY
The recent revival of the Olympic games is a striking testimony to the influence which ancient Greece still exercises over the modern world, and to the important place which athletics occupied in the life of the Greeks. Other nations may have given equal attention to the physical education of the young; other nations may have been equally fond of sport; other nations may have produced individual athletes, individual performances equal or superior to those of the Greeks, but nowhere can we find a
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CHAPTER II ATHLETICS IN HOMER
CHAPTER II ATHLETICS IN HOMER
Greek civilization is regarded by modern authorities as the result of a fusion between two races—a short, dark, highly artistic race belonging to that Eurafrican stock which seems at one time to have peopled not only the Aegean, but all the coasts of the Mediterranean, and a tall, fair-haired, athletic race the branches of which penetrated by successive invasions into the southern extremities of Europe, while their main body spread over central Europe westwards as far as our own islands. It was
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CHAPTER III THE RISE OF THE ATHLETIC FESTIVAL
CHAPTER III THE RISE OF THE ATHLETIC FESTIVAL
The athletic meeting was unknown to Homer: in historic times it is associated with religious festivals celebrated at definite periods at the holiest places in Greece. If the growth of the athletic festival was due to the athletic spirit of the race, its connexion with religion may be traced to those games with which the funeral of the Homeric chieftain was celebrated. Though the origin of the great festivals is overgrown with a mass of late and conflicting legends in which it is difficult to dis
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CHAPTER IV THE AGE OF ATHLETIC FESTIVALS, SIXTH CENTURY B.C.
CHAPTER IV THE AGE OF ATHLETIC FESTIVALS, SIXTH CENTURY B.C.
The sixth century is the age of organized athletics. The rise of Sparta and her success in sport and war gave to the Greek world an object lesson on the value of systematic training, and henceforth the training of the body was an essential part of Greek education. Palaestrae and gymnasia were established everywhere, and Solon found it necessary to lay down laws for their conduct. These institutions were originally intended for the training of the young, but the growth of athletic competition soo
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CHAPTER V THE AGE OF THE ATHLETIC IDEAL, 500-440 B.C.
CHAPTER V THE AGE OF THE ATHLETIC IDEAL, 500-440 B.C.
Though the Greeks of the sixth and fifth centuries attained a remarkable standard of athletic excellence, it is probable that in individual performance the modern athlete could at least have held his own with them. Yet despite our modern athleticism it is certain that no other nation has ever produced so high an average of physical development as the Greeks did in this period. This result was due largely to the athletic ideal which found its highest expression in the athletic poetry and art of t
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CHAPTER VI PROFESSIONALISM AND SPECIALIZATION, 440-338 B.C.
CHAPTER VI PROFESSIONALISM AND SPECIALIZATION, 440-338 B.C.
Literature and art purified and refined athletics for a while, but at the same time by encouraging competition intensified these very evils which result from excessive competition, and when the Panhellenic movement had spent its force, and strife and faction once more resumed their sway in the Greek world, the decline of athletics was rapid. Nowhere is excess more dangerous than in athletics, and the charm of poetry and art must not blind us to that element of exaggeration which existed in the h
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CHAPTER VII THE DECLINE OF ATHLETICS, 338-146 B.C.
CHAPTER VII THE DECLINE OF ATHLETICS, 338-146 B.C.
From this time onward there is little change to record in the history of athletics. Competitions became more and more the monopoly of professionals and all the evils attendant on professionalism became rampant. The training of the athlete became more artificial and more irrational, rendering him still more unfit for practical life. The degeneration of the physical type and of the artistic ideal is evident in the statue known as the Farnese Heracles, a copy of a Lysippean original exaggerated by
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CHAPTER VIII ATHLETICS UNDER THE ROMANS
CHAPTER VIII ATHLETICS UNDER THE ROMANS
Greek athletics must have been familiar to the Romans from early times. We have seen how prominent a part the Greek cities of Italy and Sicily had taken in the festivals of Greece during the sixth and fifth centuries. The popularity of athletics among the Etruscans is proved by the numerous scenes painted on the walls of Etruscan tombs, where every variety of sport is represented. The “ludi Maximi” of Rome herself show strong traces of Greek influence. Moreover the Romans, like all vigorous nati
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CHAPTER IX THE OLYMPIC FESTIVAL
CHAPTER IX THE OLYMPIC FESTIVAL
Fig. 24. Staters of Elis, in British Museum (enlarged). Fifth century. ( a ) Head of nymph Olympia. ( b ) Victory seated, with palm; olive twig below. Many of the details and regulations connected with the Olympic festival have been already mentioned in previous chapters, where the reader can readily find them by consulting the index. In the present chapter we shall attempt to give some account of the festival itself, as it existed in the fifth century. First we must premise that the details of
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(1) The Pythia
(1) The Pythia
We have seen how in 582 B.C. the old local musical festival which had been held at Delphi every eight years was transformed into a Panhellenic four-yearly festival with an athletic and equestrian programme copied from Olympia under the presidency of the amphictyonic league. Delphi now became a second centre of this league, which consisted originally of the twelve tribes dwelling round the shrine of Demeter at Phylae or Anthela. The league was administered by a council composed of two representat
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(2) The Isthmia
(2) The Isthmia
The Isthmian festival, though inferior in athletic standard to the Olympia and in sanctity to the Pythia, was perhaps the most frequented of all the Panhellenic festivals. [339] It was held in the second and fourth year of each Olympiad, under the presidency of Corinth; and though there is some doubt as to the exact date, it seems certain that it was held in the spring, probably in April or early May. [340] No festival was so central and so accessible to all parts of the Greek world, whether by
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(3) The Nemea
(3) The Nemea
Little is known of the history of the Nemean games. Their importance dates from the year 573 B.C. , when they were re-organized as a Panhellenic festival. This year was reckoned as the first Nemead, and from this date the games were held regularly every two years in the deep-lying vale of Nemea, “beneath the shadeless hills of Phlious.” The presidency of the games belonged to the neighbouring town of Cleonae, until about the year 460 B.C. it was usurped by the Argives, and in spite of rival clai
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CHAPTER XI THE ATHLETIC FESTIVALS OF ATHENS
CHAPTER XI THE ATHLETIC FESTIVALS OF ATHENS
It is impossible within the limits of this work to give any account of the various local festivals which existed in every state of Greece. Such an account would too often resolve itself into a barren list of names. With regard to Athens we are more fully informed; and from the fifth century onwards we may regard Athens as typical of the Greek world. A brief account of the Athenian festivals and competitions will enable us to form some idea of the part which such events occupied in the life of th
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CHAPTER XII THE STADIUM
CHAPTER XII THE STADIUM
The stadium [433] or racecourse of the Greeks was the natural development of that primitive type of race which is described in Homer, and which we may still see at school treats and rustic meetings. The competitors, drawn up in a line, race to some distant point which is the finish, or, turning round this point, race back again to the starting-point. Here we have the germ of the stade or straight race, and of the diaulos, and other turning races, as the Greeks called them (κάμπειοι). The start i
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CHAPTER XIII THE FOOT-RACE
CHAPTER XIII THE FOOT-RACE
The length of the various foot-races was determined for the Greeks by the length of the stadium. The stade-race, as its name implies, was a single length, approximately 200 yards. The diaulos was twice the length of the stadium, or 400 yards. The length of the dolichos or long race is variously stated as 7, 12, 20, or 24 stades, from seven furlongs to nearly three miles. [456] The divergence of these statements is probably due to the fact that the distances varied at different festivals, and at
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CHAPTER XIV THE JUMP AND HALTERES
CHAPTER XIV THE JUMP AND HALTERES
Jumping is not a military exercise but an amusement of peace. It is useful, of course, at times for a soldier to be able to leap over any obstacle in his way. But the Homeric chieftain was not suitably dressed for such feats of agility, whether he went to war in Mycenaean style with his long-shadowing spear and towerlike shield reaching down to his feet, or like the later hoplite arrayed in panoply of bronze. For flight or pursuit he trusted in his chariot and horses. Hence jumping was no part o
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CHAPTER XV THROWING THE DISKOS
CHAPTER XV THROWING THE DISKOS
It will be remembered that while frequent reference is made in the Homeric poems to throwing the diskos, [562] the weight thrown at the games of Patroclus was a lump of unwrought iron described as “solos.” The word diskos seems already to have acquired its special athletic meaning, but there is in Homer nothing distinctively athletic about “solos,” which probably meant originally a boulder, then a mass of iron. Later writers occasionally use “solos” as equivalent to diskos, and scholiasts and le
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CHAPTER XVI THROWING THE JAVELIN
CHAPTER XVI THROWING THE JAVELIN
The javelin used in Greek sports is called variously ἄκων, ἀκόντιον, μεσάγκυλον, ἀποτομάς. [593] The latter term appears to denote merely a lath or stick, and accurately describes the javelin as represented on the vases. A straight pole, in length nearly equal to the height of a man, though occasionally longer, and about the thickness of a man’s finger, it is one of the commonest objects in palaestra scenes, whether in use or planted in the ground singly or in pairs, perhaps to mark a starting-l
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CHAPTER XVII THE PENTATHLON
CHAPTER XVII THE PENTATHLON
The pentathlon was a combined competition in five events, running, jumping, throwing the diskos, throwing the javelin, and wrestling. This is one of the few facts regarding the pentathlon which may be regarded as absolutely certain. These five events are vouched for by three epigrams, one of them assigned to Simonides, and by the repeated testimony of Philostratos in his Gymnastike . [615] Nothing proves more conclusively the utter unreliability of the statements on athletics made by late scholi
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CHAPTER XVIII WRESTLING
CHAPTER XVIII WRESTLING
Wrestling is perhaps the oldest and most universal of all sports. The wall-paintings of Beni Hassan show that almost every hold or throw known to modern wrestlers was known to the Egyptians 2500 years before our era. The popularity of wrestling among the Greeks is proved by the constant metaphors from this sport, and by the frequency with which scenes from the wrestling ring appear not only in athletic literature and art but also in mythological subjects. Despite the changes in Greek athletics c
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CHAPTER XIX BOXING
CHAPTER XIX BOXING
No sport was older, and none was more popular at all periods among the Greeks than boxing. Its antiquity and its popularity are manifest in their mythology. [691] Apollo himself is said to have defeated Ares in boxing at Olympia, and the Delphians sacrificed to Apollo the Boxer (πύκτης), a conclusive proof that boxing was regarded by the Greeks as a contest of skill rather than of brute strength. Heracles, Tydeus, and Polydeuces were all famous boxers, and the invention of boxing is ascribed to
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CHAPTER XX THE PANKRATION[741]
CHAPTER XX THE PANKRATION[741]
The combination of boxing and wrestling known as the pankration was a development of the primitive rough and tumble. To get his opponent down, and by throttling, pummelling, biting, and kicking, to reduce him to submission, is the natural instinct of the savage or the child. But this rough and tumble was too undisciplined for athletic competition. Competitions require law, and in the growth of law the simpler precedes the more complex. Hence it was only natural that particular forms of fighting
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CHAPTER XXI THE HIPPODROME
CHAPTER XXI THE HIPPODROME
Chariot and horse races were so important a part of most Greek festivals that, though we cannot strictly describe them as athletics, a brief account of the hippodrome and the events which took place there will not be out of place. Hippodromes must have abounded in all parts of Greece which offered any facilities for riding or driving. The fifth-century inscription of the Spartan Damonon [768] enumerates sixty-eight victories won by himself and his son in the chariot-race and the horse-race at no
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CHAPTER XXII THE GYMNASIUM AND THE PALAESTRA
CHAPTER XXII THE GYMNASIUM AND THE PALAESTRA
In Homeric times the gymnasium and the palaestra did not exist. The broad runs in Ithaca, [795] which are sometimes quoted as the prototype of the Greek gymnasia, were not running-tracks but cattle-runs. The need for special places for exercise first arose with the growth of city life. At first these were no more than open spaces in some grove or plain where the ground had been cleared for running or for wrestling. Such were the “runs and wrestling rings” which Cleisthenes of Sicyon prepared for
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
N.B. —No references are given to articles or sections on athletics or athletic festivals in the following books of reference:— Baumeister, A. Denkmäler des klassischen Altertums. Daremberg et Saglio. Dictionnaire des antiquités. Frazer, J. G. Pausanias. Iwan von Müller. Handbuch der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft. Pauly-Wissowa. Real-Encyclopädie. Schreiber-Anderson. Atlas of Classical Antiquities. Smith, W. Dictionary of Antiquities. etc. etc. A. ATHLETIC FESTIVALS 1. Olympia. —( a ) General
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