272: SPORTING LOWLIGHTS
(For comprehensive coverage, see Fran Zimnuch, Crooked: A History of Cheating in Sports (Taylor Trade Publications, 2009). Most topics in present column have multiple websites, rich in bibliography). The most detailed ancient discussions of the pros and cons of athletics are Lucian’s Anarcharsis and Pausanias’s Description of Greece, best read in Peter Levi’s magnificent Penguin annotated translation.
“Of all the myriad woes afflicting Greece none is worse than the tribe of athletes” – Euripides, Autolycus, frag. 282.
“It matters not who won or lost, but how you play the game.” Not a universal sentiment in ancient Greece, as this comment by Pindar (first sports reporter) makes clear: “Losers sneak through back alleys to their mothers.” Winners, by flagrant contrast, were showered with money and other perquisites by their home towns.
The Greeks knew nothing about steroids, had no means of self-injection, and so on. But there were various theories about methods of performance enhancement. Using them broke no rules,
