Greek Athletic Sports and Festivals: With the Extract 'Classical Games' by Francis Storr

By E. Norman Gardiner and Francis Storr

First published in 1910, this book explores the subject of athletics festivals in ancient Greece, looking in detail at its history as well as the exercises commonly seen at such occasions. “Greek Athletic Sports and Festivals” is highly recommend for those with an interest in athletics and is not to be missed by collectors of related literature. Contents include: “Introductory”, “Athletics in Homer”, “The Rise of the Athletic Festival”, “The Age of Athletic Festivals, Sith Century B.C.”, “The Age of Athletic Ideal, 500–440 B.C.”, “Professionalism and Specialization, 440–338 B.C.”, “The Decline of Athletics, 338–146 B.C.”, “Athletics Under the Romans”, “The Olympic Festival, etc. Macha Press is republishing this classic work now in a new edition complete with the extract 'Classical Games' by Francis Storr.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macha Press
• Release date: Aug 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781528790949

Book preview

CLASSICAL GAMES

By Francis Storr

1. Public Games.—The public games of Greece (ἀγῶνες) and Rome (Ludi) consisted in athletic contests and spectacles of various kinds, generally connected with and forming part of a religious observance. Probably no institution exercised a greater influence in moulding the national character, and producing that unique type of physical and intellectual beauty which we see reflected in Greek art and literature, than the public contests of Greece. For them each youth was trained in the gymnasium, they were the central mart whither poet, artist and merchant each brought his wares, and the common ground of union for every member of the Hellenic race. It is to Greece, then, that we must look for the earliest form and the fullest development of ancient games. The shows of the Roman circus and amphitheatre were at best a shadow, and in the later days of the empire a travesty, of the Olympia and Pythia, and require only a cursory notice.

The earliest games of which we have any record are those at the funeral of Patroclus, which form the subject of the twenty-third Iliad. They are noteworthy as showing that Greek games were in their origin clearly connected with religion; either, as here,Greek. a part of the funeral rites, or else instituted in honour of a god, or as a thank-offering for a victory gained or a calamity averted, or in expiation of some crime. Each of the great contests was held near some shrine or sacred place and is associated with some deity or mythical hero. It was not before the 4th century that this honour was paid to a living man (see Plutarch, Lysander, 18). The games of the Iliad and those of the Odyssey at the court of Alcinous are also of interest as showing at what an early date the distinctive forms of Greek athletics—boxing, wrestling, putting the weight, the foot and the chariot race—were determined.

The Olympian games were the earliest, and to the last they remained the most celebrated of the four national festivals. Olympia was a naturally enclosed spot in the rich plain of Elis, bounded on the N. by the rocky heights of Cronion, and on the S. and W. by the Alpheus and its tributary the Cladeus. There was the grove of Altis, in which were ranged the statues of the victorious athletes, and the temple of Olympian Zeus with the chryselephantine statue of the god, the masterpiece of Pheidias. There Heracles (so ran the legend which Pindar has introduced in one of his finest odes), when he had conquered Elis and slain its king Augeas, consecrated a temenos and instituted games in honour of his victory. A later legend, which probably embodies historical fact, tells how, when Greece was torn by dissensions and ravaged by pestilence, Iphitus inquired of the oracle for help, and was bidden restore the games which had fallen into desuetude; and there was in the time of Pausanias, suspended in the temple of Hera at Olympia, a bronze disk whereon were inscribed, with the regulations of the games, the names of Iphitus and Lycurgus. From this we may safely infer that the games were a primitive observance of the Eleians and Pisans, and first acquired their celebrity from the powerful concurrence of Sparta. The sacred armistice, or cessation of all hostilities, during the month in which the games were held, is also credited to Iphitus.

In 776 B.C. the Eleians engraved the name of their countryman Coroebus as victor in the foot race, and thenceforward we have an almost unbroken list of the victors in each succeeding Olympiad or fourth recurrent year. For the next fifty years no names occur but those of Eleians or their next neighbours. After 720 B.C. we find Corinthians and Megareans, and later still Athenians and extra-Peloponnesians. Thus what at first was nothing more than a village feast became a bond of union for all the branches of the Doric race, and grew in time to be the high festival to which every Greek gathered, from the mountain fastnesses of Thessaly to the remotest colonies of Cyrene and Marseilles. It survived even the extinction of Greek liberty, and had nearly completed twelve centuries when it was abolished by the decree of the Christian emperor Theodosius, in the tenth year of his reign. The last Olympian victor was a Romanized Armenian named Varastad.

Let us attempt to call up the scene which Olympia in its palmy days must have presented as the great festival approached. Heralds had proclaimed throughout Greece the truce of God. So religiously was this observed that the Spartans chose to risk the liberties of Greece, when the Persians were at the gates of Pylae, rather than march during the holy days. Those white tents which stand out against the sombre grey of the olive groves belong to the Hellanodicae, or ten judges of the games, chosen one for each tribe of the Eleians. They have been here already ten months, receiving instruction in their duties. All, too, or most of the athletes must have arrived, for they have been undergoing the indispensable training in the gymnasium of the Altis. But along the holy road from the town of Elis there are crowding a motley throng. Conspicuous in the long train of pleasure-seekers are the θεωροί or sacred deputies, clad in their robes of office, and bearing with them in their carriages of state offerings to the shrine of the god. Nor is there any lack of distinguished visitors. It may be Alcibiades, who, they say, has entered no less than seven chariots; or Gorgias, who has written a famous ἐπίδειξις for the occasion; or the sophist Hippias, who boasts that all he bears about him, from the sandals on his feet to the dithyrambs he carries in his hand, are his own manufacture; or Aetion, who will exhibit his picture of the Marriage of Alexander and Roxana—the picture which gained him no less a prize than the daughter of the Hellanodices Praxonides; or, in an earlier age, the poet-laureate of the Olympians, Pindar himself. One feature of the medieval tournament and the modern racecourse is wanting. Women might indeed compete and win prizes as the owners of teams, but all except the priestesses of Demeter were forbidden, matrons on pain of death, to enter the enclosure.

At daybreak the athletes presented themselves in the Bouleuterium, where the presidents were sitting, and proved by witnesses that they were of pure Hellenic descent, and had no stain, religious or civil, on their character. Laying their hands on the bleeding victim, they swore that they had duly qualified themselves by ten months’ continuous training in the gymnasium, and that they would use no fraud or guile in the sacred contests. Thence they proceeded to the stadium, where they stripped to the skin and anointed themselves. A herald proclaimed, Let the runners put their feet to the line, and called on the spectators to challenge any disqualified by blood or character. If no objection was made, they were started by the note of the trumpet, running in heats of four, ranged in the places assigned them by lot. The presidents seated near the goal adjudged the victory. The foot-race was only one of twenty-four Olympian contests which Pausanias enumerates, though we must not suppose that these were all exhibited at any one festival. Till the 77th Olympiad all was concluded in one day, but afterwards the feast was extended to five.

The order of the games is for the most part a matter of conjecture, but, roughly speaking, the historical order of their institution was followed. We will now describe in this order the most important.

(1) The Foot-race.—For the first 13 Olympiads the δρόμος, or single lap of the stadium, which was 200 yds. long, was the only contest. The δίαυλος, in which the course was traversed twice, was added in the 14th Olympiad, and in the 15th the δόλιχος, or long race, of 7, 12 or, according to the highest computation, 24 laps, about 223 m. in length. We are told that the Spartan Ladas, after winning this race, dropped down dead at the goal. There was also, for a short time, a race in heavy armour, which Plato highly commends as a preparation for active service. (2) Wrestling was introduced in the 18th Olympiad. The importance attached to this exercise is shown by the very word palaestra, and Plutarch calls it the most artistic and cunning of athletic games. The practice differed little from that of modern times, save that the wrestler’s limbs were anointed with oil and sprinkled with sand. The third throw, which decided the victory, passed into a proverb, and struggling on the ground, such as we see in the famous statue at Florence, was not allowed, at least at the Olympia. (3) In the same year was introduced the πένταθλον (pentathlon), a combination of the five games enumerated in the well-known pentameter ascribed to Simonides:—

ἄλμα, ποδωκείην, δίσκον, ἄκοντα, πάλην.

Only the first of these calls for any comment. The only leap practised seems to have been the long jump. The leapers increased their momentum by means of ἁλτῆρες or dumb-bells, which they swung in the act of leaping and dropped as they took off. The take-off may have been slightly raised, and some commentators with very little warrant have stated that spring-boards were used. The record jump with which Phayllus of Croton is credited, 55 ft., is incredible with or without a spring-board. It is disputed whether a victory in all five contests, or in three at least, was required to win the πένταθλον. (4) The rules for boxing were not unlike those of the modern ring (see Pugilism), and the chief difference was in the use of the caestus. This in Greek times consisted of leather thongs bound round the boxer’s fists and wrists; and the weighting with lead or iron or metal studs, which made the caestus more like a knuckle-duster than a boxing-glove, was a later Roman development. The death of an antagonist, unless proved to be accidental, not only disqualified for a prize but was severely punished. The use of ear-guards and the comic allusions to broken ears, not noses, suggest that the Greek boxer did not hit out straight from the shoulder, but fought windmill fashion, like the modern rustic. In the pancratium, a combination of wrestling and boxing, the use of the caestus, and even of the clenched fist, was disallowed. (5) The chariot-race had its origin in the 23rd Olympiad. Of the hippodrome, or racecourse, no traces remain, but from the description of Pausanias we may infer that the dimensions were approximately 1600 ft. by 400. Down the centre there ran a bank of earth, and at each end of this bank was a turning-post round which the chariots had to pass. To shun the goal with rapid wheels required both nerve and skill, and the charioteer played a more important part in the race than even the modern jockey. Pausanias tells us that horses would shy as they passed the fatal spots. The places of the chariots were determined by lot, and there were elaborate arrangements for giving all a fair start. The number of chariots that might appear on the course at once is uncertain. Pindar (Pyth. v. 46) praises Arcesilaus of Cyrene for having brought off his chariot uninjured in a contest where no fewer than forty took part. The large outlay involved excluded all but rich competitors, and even kings and tyrants eagerly contested the palm. Thus in the list of victors we find the names of Cylon, the would-be tyrant of Athens, Pausanias the Spartan king, Archelaus of Macedon, Gelon and Hiero of Syracuse, and Theron of Agrigentum. Chariot-races with mules, with mares, with two horses in place of four, were successively introduced, but none of these present any special interest. Races on horseback date from the 33rd Olympiad. As the course was the same, success must have depended on skill as much as on swiftness. Lastly, there were athletic contests of the same description for boys, and a competition of heralds and trumpeters, introduced in the 93rd Olympiad.

The prizes were at first, as in the Homeric times, of some intrinsic value, but after the 6th Olympiad the only prize for each contest was a garland of wild olive, which was cut with a golden sickle from the kallistephanos, the sacred tree brought by Hercules from the dark fountains of Ister in the land of the Hyperboreans, to be a shelter common to all men and a crown of noble deeds (Pindar, Ol. iii. 18). Greek writers from Herodotus to Plutarch dwell with complacency on the magnanimity of a people who cared for nothing but honour and were content to struggle for a corruptible crown. But though the Greek games present in this respect a favourable contrast to the greed and gambling of the modern racecourse, yet to represent men like Milon and Damoxenus as actuated by pure love of glory is a pleasing fiction of the moralists. The successful athlete received in addition to the immediate honours very substantial rewards. A herald proclaimed his name, his parentage and his country; the Hellanodicae took from a table of ivory and gold the olive crown and placed it on his head, and in his hand a branch of palm; as he marched in the sacred revel to the temple of Zeus, his friends and admirers showered in his path flowers and costly gifts, singing the old song of Archilochus, τήνελλα καλλίνικε, and his name was canonized in the Greek calendar. Fresh honours and rewards awaited him on his return home. If he was an Athenian he received, according to the law of Solon, 500 drachmae, and free rations for life in the Prytaneum; if a Spartan, he had as his prerogative the post of honour in battle. Poets like Pindar, Simonides and Euripides sung his praises, and sculptors like Pheidias and Praxiteles were engaged by the state to carve his statue. We even read of a breach in the town walls being made to admit him, as if the common road were not good enough for such a hero; and there are well-attested instances of altars being built and sacrifices offered to a successful athlete. No wonder then that an Olympian prize was regarded as the crown of human happiness. Cicero, with a Roman’s contempt for Greek frivolity, observes with a sneer that an Olympian victor receives more honours than a triumphant general at Rome, and tells the story of the Rhodian Diagoras, who, having himself won the prize at Olympia, and seen his two sons crowned on the same day, was addressed by a Laconian in these words:—Die, Diagoras, for thou hast nothing short of divinity to desire. Alcibiades, when setting forth his services to the state, puts first his victory at Olympia, and the prestige he had won for Athens by his magnificent display. But perhaps the most remarkable evidence of the exaggerated value which the Greeks attached to athletic prowess is a casual expression which Thucydides employs when describing the enthusiastic reception of Brasidas at Scione. The state, he says, voted him a crown of gold, and the multitude flocked round him and decked him with garlands, as though he were an athlete.

The Pythian games originated in a local festival held at Delphi, anciently called Pytho, in honour of the Pythian Apollo, and were limited to musical competitions. The date at which they became a Panhellenic ἀγών (so Demosthenes calls them) cannot be determined, but the Pythiads as a chronological era date from 527 B.C., by which time music had been added to all the Panhellenic contests. Now, too, these were held at the end of every fourth year; previously there had been an interval of eight years. The Amphictyones presided and the prize was a chaplet of laurel.

The Nemean games were biennial and date from 516 B.C. They were by origin an Argive festival in honour of Nemean Zeus, but in historical times were open to all Greece and provided the established round of contests, except that no mention is made of a chariot-race. A wreath of wild celery was the prize.

The Isthmian games, held on the Isthmus of Corinth in the first and third year of each Olympiad, date, according to Eusebius, from 523 B.C. They are variously reported to have been founded by Poseidon or Sisyphus in honour of Melicertes, or by Theseus to celebrate his victory over the robbers Sinis and Sciron. Their early importance is attested by the law of Solon which bestowed a reward of 100 drachmae on every Athenian who gained a victory. The festival was managed by the Corinthians; and after the city was destroyed by Mummius (146 B.C.) the presidency passed to the Sicyonians until Julius Caesar rebuilt Corinth (46 B.C.). They probably continued to exist till Christianity became the religion of the Roman empire. The Athenians were closely connected with the festival, and had the privilege of proedria, the foremost seat at the games, while the Eleans were absolutely excluded from participation. The games included gymnastic, equestrian and musical contests, differing little from those of the other great festivals, and the prize was a crown made at one time of parsley (more probably wild celery), at a later period of pine. The importance of the Isthmian games in later times is shown by the fact that Flamininus chose the occasion for proclaiming the liberation of Greece, 196 B.C. That at a later anniversary (A.D. 67) Nero repeated the proclamation of Flamininus, and coupled with it the announcement of his own infamous victory at Olympia, shows alike the hollowness of the first gift and the degradation which had befallen the Greek games, the last faint relic of Greek nationality.

The Ludi Publici of the Romans included feasts and theatrical exhibitions as well as the public games with which alone we are concerned. As in Greece, they were intimately connected with religion. At the Roman.beginning of each civil year it was the duty of the consuls to vow to the gods games for the safety of the commonwealth, and the expenses were defrayed by the treasury. Thus, at no cost to themselves, the Roman public were enabled to indulge at the same time their religious feelings and their love of amusement. Their taste for games naturally grew till it became a passion, and under the empire games were looked upon by the mob as one of the two necessaries of life. The aediles who succeeded to this duty of the consuls were expected to supplement the state allowance from their private purse. Political adventurers were not slow to discover so ready a road to popularity, and what at first had been exclusively a state charge devolved upon men of wealth and ambition. A victory over some barbarian horde or the death of a relation served as the pretext for a magnificent display. But the worst extravagance of private citizens was eclipsed by the reckless prodigality of the Caesars, who squandered the revenues of whole provinces in catering for the mob of idle sightseers on whose favour their throne depended. But though public games played as important a part in Roman as in Greek history, and must be studied by the Roman historian as an integral factor in social and political life, yet, regarded solely as exhibitions, they are comparatively devoid of interest, and we sympathize with Pliny, who asks his friend how any man of sense can go day after day to view the same dreary round of fights and races.

It is easy to explain the different feelings which the games of Greece and of Rome excite. The Greeks at their best were actors, the Romans from first to last were spectators. It is true that even in Greek games the professional element played a large and ever-increasing part. As early as the 6th century B.C. Xenophanes complains that the wrestler’s strength is preferred to the wisdom of the philosopher, and Euripides, in a well-known fragment, holds up to scorn the brawny swaggering athlete. But what in Greece was a perversion and acknowledged to be such, the Romans not only practised but held up as their ideal. No Greek, however high in birth, was ashamed to compete in person for the Olympic crown. The Roman, though little inferior in gymnastic exercises, kept strictly to the privacy of the palaestra; and for a patrician to appear in public as a charioteer is stigmatized by the satirist as a mark of shameless effrontery.

Roman games are generally classified as fixed, extraordinary and votive; but they may be more conveniently grouped according to the place where they were held, viz. the circus or the amphitheatre.

For the Roman world the circus was at once a political club, a fashionable lounge, a rendezvous of gallantry, a betting ring, and a playground for the million. Juvenal, speaking loosely, says that in his day it held the whole of Rome; but there is no reason to doubt the precise statement of P. Victor, that in the Circus Maximus there were seats for 350,000 spectators.

Of the various Ludi Circenses it may be enough here to give a short account of the most important, the Ludi Magni or Maximi.

Initiated according to legend by Tarquinius Priscus, the Ludi Magni were originally a votive feast to Capitoline Jupiter, promised by the general when he took the field, and performed on his return from the annual campaign. They thus presented the appearance of a military spectacle, or rather a review of the whole burgess force, which marched in solemn procession from the capitol to the forum and thence to the circus, which lay between the Palatine and Aventine. First came the sons of patricians mounted on horseback, next the rest of the burghers ranged according to their military classes, after them the athletes, naked save for the girdle round their loins, then the company of dancers with the harp and flute players, next the priestly colleges bearing censers and other sacred instruments, and lastly the simulacra of the gods, carried aloft on their shoulders or drawn in cars. The games themselves were fourfold:—(1) the chariot race; (2) the ludus Troiae; (3) the military review; and (4) gymnastic contests. Of these only the first two call for any comment. (1) The chariot employed in the circus was the two-wheeled war car, at first drawn by two, afterwards by four, and more rarely by three horses. Originally only two chariots started for the prize, but under Caligula we read of as many as twenty-four heats run in the day, each of four chariots. The distance traversed was fourteen times the length of the circus or nearly 5 m. The charioteers were apparently from the first professionals, though the stigma under which the gladiator lay never attached to their calling. Indeed a successful driver may compare in popularity and fortune with a modern jockey. The drivers were divided into companies distinguished by the colours of their tunics, whence arose the faction of the circus which assumed such importance under the later emperors. In republican times there were two factions, the white and the red; two more, the green and the blue, were added under the empire, and for a short time in Domitian’s reign there were also the gold and the purple. Even in Juvenal’s day party spirit ran so high that a defeat of the green was looked upon as a second Cannae. After the seat of empire had been transferred to Constantinople these factions of the circus were made the basis of political cabals, and frequently resulted in sanguinary tumults, such as the famous Nika revolt (A.D. 532), in which 30,000 citizens lost their lives. (2) The Ludus Troiae was a sham-fight on horseback in which the actors were patrician youths. A spirited description of it will be found in the 5th Aeneid. (See also Circus.)

The two exhibitions we shall next notice, though occasionally given in the circus, belong more properly to the amphitheatre. Venatio was the baiting of wild animals who were pitted either with one another or with men—captives, criminals or trained hunters called bestiarii. The first certain instance on record of this amusement is in 186 B.C., when M. Fulvius exhibited lions and tigers in the arena. The taste for these brutalizing spectacles grew apace, and the most distant provinces were ransacked by generals and proconsuls to supply the arena with rare animals—giraffes, tigers and crocodiles. Sulla provided for a single show 100 lions, and Pompey 600 lions, besides elephants, which were matched with Gaetulian hunters. Julius Caesar enjoys the doubtful honour of inventing the bull-fight. At the inauguration of the Colosseum 5000 wild and 4000 tame beasts were killed, and to commemorate Trajan’s Dacian victories there was a butchery of 11,000 beasts.

The naumachia was a sea-fight, either in the arena, which was flooded for the occasion by a system of pipes and sluices, or on an artificial lake. The rival fleets were manned by prisoners of war or criminals, who often fought till one side was exterminated. In the sea-fight on Lake Fucinus, arranged by the emperor Claudius, 100 ships and 19,000 men were engaged.

But the special exhibition of the amphitheatre was the munus gladiatorium, which dates from the funeral games of Marcus and Decimus Brutus, given in honour of their father, 264 B.C. It was probably borrowed from Etruria, and a refinement on the common savage custom of slaughtering slaves or captives on the grave of a warrior or chieftain. Nothing so clearly brings before us the vein of coarseness and inhumanity which runs through the otherwise noble character of the Roman, as his passion for gladiatorial shows. We can fancy how Pericles, or even Alcibiades, would have loathed a spectacle that Augustus tolerated and Trajan patronized. Only after the conquest of Greece we hear of their introduction into Athens, and they were then admitted rather out of compliment to the conquerors than from any love of the sport. In spite of numerous prohibitions from Constantine downwards, they continued to flourish even as late as St Augustine. To a Christian martyr, if we may credit the story told by Theodoret and Cassiodorus, belongs the honour of their final abolition. In the year 404 Telemachus, a monk who had travelled from the East on this sacred mission, rushed into the arena and endeavoured to separate the combatants. He was instantly despatched by the praetor’s orders; but Honorius, on hearing the report, issued an edict abolishing the games, which were never afterwards revived. (See Gladiators.)

Of the other Roman games the briefest description must suffice. The Ludi Apollinares were established in 212 B.C., and were annual after 211 B.C.; mainly theatrical performances. The Megalenses were in honour of the great goddess, Cybele: instituted 204 B.C., and from 191 B.C. celebrated annually. A procession of Galli, or priests of Cybele, was a leading feature. Under the empire the festival assumed a more orgiastic character. Four of Terence’s plays were produced at these games. The Ludi Saeculares were celebrated at the beginning or end of each saeculum, a period variously interpreted by the Romans themselves as 100 or 110 years. The celebration by Augustus in 17 B.C. is famous by reason of the Ode composed by Horace for the occasion. They were solemnized by the emperor Philip A.D. 248 to commemorate the millennium of the city.

2. Private Games.—These may be classified as outdoor and indoor games. There is naturally all the world over a much closer resemblance between the pursuits and amusements of children than of adults. Homer’s children built castles in the sand, and Greek and Roman children alike had their dolls, their hoops, their skipping-ropes, their hobby-horses, their kites, their knuckle-bones and played at hopscotch, the tug-of-war, pitch and toss, blind-man’s buff, hide and seek, and kiss in the ring or at closely analogous games. Games of ball were popular in Greece from the days of Nausicaa, and at Rome there were five distinct kinds of ball and more ways of playing with them. For particulars the dictionary of antiquities must be consulted. It is strange that we can find in classical literature no analogy to cricket, tennis, golf or polo, and though the follis resembled our football, it was played with the hand and arm, not with the leg. Cock-fighting was popular both at Athens and Rome, and quails were kept and put to various tests to prove their pluck.

Under indoor games we may distinguish games of chance and games of skill, though in some of them the two elements are combined. Tesserae, shaped and marked with pips like modern dice, were evolved from the tali, knuckle-bones with only four flat sides. The old Roman threw a hazard and called a main, just as did Charles Fox, and the vice of gambling was lashed by Juvenal no less vigorously than by Pope. The Latin name for a dice-box has survived in the fritillary butterfly and flower.

The primitive game of guessing the number of fingers simultaneously held up by the player and his opponent is still popular in Italy where it is known as morra. The proverbial phrase for an honest man was quicum in tenebris mices, one you would trust to play at morra in the dark.

Athena found the suitors of Penelope seated on cowhides and playing at πεσσοί, some kind of draughts. The invention of the game was ascribed to Palamedes. In its earliest form it was played on a board with five lines and with five pieces. Later we find eleven lines, and a further development was the division of the board into squares, as in the game of πόλεις (cities). In the Roman latrunculi (soldiers), the men were distinguished as common soldiers and rovers, the equivalent of crowned pieces.

Duodecim scripta, as the name implies, was played on a board with twelve double lines and approximated very closely to our backgammon. There were fifteen pieces on each side, and the moves were determined by a throw of the dice; blots might be taken, and the object of the player was to clear off all his own men. Lastly must be mentioned the Cottabus (q.v.), a game peculiar to the Greeks, and with them the usual accompaniment of a wine party. In its simplest form each guest threw what was left in his cup into a metal basin, and the success of the throw, determined partly by the sound of the wine in falling, was reckoned a divination of love. For the various elaborations of the game (in Sicily we read of Cottabus houses), Athenaeus and Pollux must be consulted.

An extract from

1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 11

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 cannot fail to learn something from the athletic history of a nation which for a time at least succeeded in reconciling the rival claims of body and of mind, and immortalized this result in its art.

This is my first and perhaps my chief justification for the length of this volume. My second is that there is no existing work in English on the subject, nor even in the extensive literature which Germany has produced is there any work of quite the same scope. The Gymnastik u. Agonistik of J. H. Krause is a masterpiece of erudition, accuracy and judgment. But this work was published in 1841, and since that date excavation and the progress of archaeology have brought to light such a mass of new material as to change entirely our outlook on the past. The excavations at Olympia have for the first time enabled us to trace the whole history of the festival and to treat Greek athletics historically.

In the first part of this work I have endeavoured to write a continuous history of Greek athletics. The attempt is an ambitious one, perhaps too ambitious for one whose occupation has left him little time for continuous study. The long period covered involves a multitude of difficult and disputed problems, which it is impossible within the limits of this work to discuss fully. In all these cases I have endeavoured to sift the evidence for myself, and to form an independent judgment. Many of the details may be obscure, and many of my conclusions are doubtless open to criticism. Yet the general outline of the story is clear, and I venture to think that it has a more than passing interest and importance.

The second part is more technical, though it may perhaps appeal to those who are actively interested in athletics. It consists of a number of chapters, each complete in itself, dealing with the details of Greek athletics. Many of the chapters are taken from articles published by me in the Journal of Hellenic Studies. The chapters on the Stadium, the Gymnasium, the Hippodrome and Boxing are entirely new. In the first two of these chapters will be found the latest results of excavations at Delphi, Epidaurus, Priene and Pergamum, results which are not readily accessible to the English reader. The arrangement of the work has involved a certain amount of repetition, and the introduction separately and in their historical order of certain details which it would be clearer perhaps, and certainly more picturesque, to group together. But it seemed to me worth while to sacrifice something of clearness and effect in order to bring out the historical aspect of the subject, an aspect which is completely obscured in most of our text-books. Further, I have endeavoured clearly to distinguish between what is certain and what is conjectural. The words perhaps and possibly recur, I am only too conscious, with monotonous persistence. But where the evidence is too inadequate or too contradictory to admit of certainty, the only safe and honest course is to confess ignorance and to hope that the discovery of some new manuscript may dispel our doubts. The neglect of this distinction between the conjectural and the certain has been a fertile source of error.

Great importance has been attached to the evidence of contemporary monuments, and illustrations have been given of the principal monuments described. In their selection preference has been given ceteris paribus to objects in the British Museum, because these are likely to be most accessible to the majority of readers. In the case of vases the interpretation often depends on the composition, and whole scenes have as far as possible been reproduced rather than single figures. Museum references are appended to the illustrations wherever available, and also some indication of the date of the objects illustrated. Literary references will be found in the list of illustrations.

Many of the illustrations have been prepared expressly for this book, and for these I am indebted to the careful and excellent work of Mr. Emery Walker. A large number are reproduced from articles by myself and others which have appeared in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, and in expressing my thanks to the Council of the Hellenic Society for permission to reproduce them I should like to render testimony to the value of the Library of that Society to any one who, like myself, does not live in the vicinity of any great Library. But for the generous facilities which this Society affords for borrowing books, any work which I have been able to do would have been almost impossible.

In spelling, consistency appears to be unattainable, and I have in the main adopted the compromise recommended in the Journal of Hellenic Studies. In the case of proper nouns, names of places, people, buildings, festivals, the Latin spelling has been adopted, in the case of other Greek words the Greek spelling, except where the Latin form is so familiar that any other form would be pedantic. Names of months are treated as purely Greek words. With regard to ει, ei has been kept where it occurs in the stem of a word, e is employed usually in terminations.

It is impossible to mention here the many authors whose works I have laid under contribution. Many of my debts are acknowledged in the notes. But I cannot omit to mention three—Dr. J. H. Krause, of whose work I have already spoken; Dr. Ernst Curtius, the writer of the chapter on the history of Olympia in the great work which he edited with Dr. Adler; and Dr. Julius Jüthner, whose Antike Turngeräthe and edition of Philostratus’ Gymnastike published only last year are indispensable to any student of the subject. To Dr. Jüthner I must also express my thanks for his generous permission to make use of the illustrations in his work. Among the many friends who have helped me I should like especially to thank Professor E. A. Gardner, Mr. G. F. Hill, and Mr. H. B. Walters for their constant readiness to advise me and to give me the benefit of their special knowledge of Greek sculpture, coins and vases. Many of the illustrations of sculpture are taken from Professor E. A. Gardner’s Handbook of Greek Sculpture, and the coins have been especially selected for me by Mr. G. F. Hill. Nor must I omit to mention Louis Dyer, whose death occurred while I was working on the early history of Olympia. He had himself projected a work on Olympia, to which I hoped to refer in confirmation of my views. His minute and accurate knowledge, his readiness to impart his knowledge, his enthusiastic and unselfish sympathy made his death an irreparable loss to me. Many corrections are due to the conscientious care of another of my friends, Herbert Awdry, who was engaged in reading my proofs almost up to the day of his death.

It is a fitting circumstance that this book should have been produced under the auspices of Professor Percy Gardner, seeing that he was unconsciously the originator of it. My interest in the subject was first aroused by the chapter on Olympia in his New Chapters from Greek History, which I read on my return from a cruise in the Argonaut, in the course of which I had visited Olympia. Professor Percy Gardner has read the book both in manuscript and in proof, and many improvements are due to his suggestions. He is, however, in no wise responsible for the views expressed, much less for any errors which I may have committed.

E. Norman Gardiner,

Epsom College, Surrey.

LIST OF THE COMMONEST ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE NOTES

PART I

A History of Greek

Athletics and Athletic Festivals

from the Earliest Times to 393 A.D.

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 any parallel to the athletic ideal expressed in the art and literature of Greece, or to the extraordinary vitality of her athletic festivals. The growth of this ideal, and the history of the athletic festivals, are the subject of the following chapters.

The athletic ideal of Greece is largely due to the practical character of Greek athletics. Every Greek had to be ready to take the field at a moment’s notice in defence of hearth and home, and under the conditions of ancient warfare his life and liberty depended on his physical fitness. This is especially true of the earlier portion of Greek history, but is more or less true of the whole period with which we are concerned. Greece was never free from war—wars of faction, wars of state against state, wars against foreign invaders—and ancient warfare made no distinction between combatants and non-combatants. Every citizen was a soldier, physical fitness was a necessity to him, and his athletic exercises were admirably calculated to produce this fitness. Running and jumping made him active and sound of wind; throwing the diskos and the spear trained hand and eye for the use of weapons; wrestling and boxing taught him to defend himself in hand-to-hand warfare.

The practical value of these exercises explains their importance in Greek education. They constituted what the Greeks described as gymnastic, the term athletics being properly confined to competitions. Gymnastic trained the body as music trained the mind. There was no artificial separation, no antagonism between the two such as has disfigured much of our modern education. The one was the complement of the other: together they comprised the whole of Greek education. An ill-trained body was as much a sign of an ill-educated man as ignorance of letters, and the training of the body by athletic exercises distinguished the Greek from the barbarian. The training began often as early as seven, but it did not end at the age when boys leave school. The Greek did not consider his education finished at the age of sixteen or seventeen, and he continued the training of body and mind till middle age or later, daily resorting to the gymnasium for exercise and recreation.

Music and gymnastic reacted on one another. The tone and manly vigour which athletic exercises gave saved the Greek from the effeminacy and sensuality to which the artistic temperament is prone. At the same time the refining influence of music saved him from the opposite faults of brutality and Philistinism. The Greek carried the artist’s love of beauty into his sports. Mere strength and bulk appealed to him no more in the human body than they did in art. Many of his exercises were performed to music, and he paid as much attention to the style in which he performed as to the result of his performance. This love of form refined even his competitions. Hence, in spite of his love of competition, the Greek was no record-breaker. In this we have one of the principal differences which distinguished Greek from modern athletics, in which the passion for records is becoming more and more prevalent.

The Greek did not care for records, and he kept no records. It is futile, therefore, to try to compare the performances of Greek athletes and of modern. But of the effect which athletic training produced on the national physique in the fifth century, we can judge from the art which it inspired. The sculptors of this period portrayed the most perfect types of physical development, of strength combined with grace, that the world has ever seen. The athletic art of Greece is the noblest tribute to the results of Greek education at its best.

A further difference between modern and Greek athletics results from the practical character of the latter. The Greek regarded athletics as an essential part of his education and life; we usually regard them as recreation or play, and it is only of late years that their educational value has been realized. Consequently in England athletic games have to a large extent superseded athletics proper. In some respect games have a decided advantage; their interest is more varied, there is more scope for combination, and they are undoubtedly superior as a training of character. On the other hand, they do not produce the same all-round development as an athletic system like that of the Greeks produced. In many cases the benefit derived from them is confined to the skilled players. They tend to become too scientific, and when this is the case require an expenditure of time and an amount of organization which put them beyond the reach of most men when they have left school.

The interest which is somewhat wanting in pure athletics was provided in Greece by innumerable competitions. The love of competition was characteristic of the Greek. In whatever he did, he sought to excel his fellows, and the rivalry between cities was as keen as that between individuals. On the table on which the prizes were placed at Olympia, the figure of Agon or Competition was represented side by side with that of Ares. There were competitions in music, poetry, drama, recitation. At some places there were beauty competitions for men, or boys, or women. We hear of competitions in drinking and in keeping awake. Strangest of all was a competition in kissing, which took place at the Dioclea at Megara. But no competitions were so numerous or so popular as athletic and equestrian competitions. The Greek was always competing or watching competitions; yet, strange to say, among all the evils produced by over-competition, betting was not found.

Competitions were from an early time associated with religious Festivals. And it is to this association with religion that Greek athletics owed their wonderful vitality. The connexion between sport and religion dates from the early custom of celebrating a chieftain’s funeral with a feast and games. Sometimes the chieftain’s tomb became a religious and political centre for the neighbouring tribes, where a festival was held in his honour at stated periods. Some of these festivals retained their local character, others gradually extended their influence till they became national meeting-places for the whole Greek race.

These Panhellenic festivals played an important part in the politics of Greece. They appealed to those two opposite principles which determine the whole history of Greece, the love of autonomy and the pride of Hellenism. The independent city states felt that they were competing in the persons of their citizens, whose fortunes they identified with their own. At the same time, the gathering of citizens from every part of the Greek world quickened the consciousness of common brotherhood, and kept them true to those traditions of religion and education which distinguished Greek from barbarian.

Enough has been said to show the importance of athletics in the whole life of the Greeks, and their intimate connexion with their education, their art, their religion, and their politics. It is by virtue of this many-sided interest that the subject deserves the attention of all who are interested in the life and thought of Greece.

At the same time, it must be borne in mind that the athletic ideal which we have described was only realized during a short period of the fifth century, under the purifying influence of the enthusiasm evoked by the war with Persia. Even then, perhaps, it was only partially realized. We must not close our eyes to the element of exaggeration inherent in all such ideals. Before the close of the fifth century the excessive prominence given to bodily excellence and athletic success had produced specialization and professionalism. From this time sport, over-developed and over-specialized, became more and more the monopoly of a class, and consequently ceased to invigorate the national life. The old games, in which all competed in friendly and honourable rivalry, gave place to professional displays, in which victory was too often bought and sold, where an unathletic crowd could enjoy the excitement of sport by proxy. Yet in spite of specialization, professionalism, corruption, in spite of all the vicissitudes through which Greece passed, the athletic festivals survived. The athletic ideal, often and long obscured, but never wholly lost, reappeared from time to time in different parts of the Greek world, till, under the patronage of the Antonines, the Panhellenic festivals recovered some semblance at least of their olden glory.

The extraordinary vitality of those festivals gives interest to the attempt to trace their history. This history extends over some 1200 years. We are apt to limit our conceptions of Greek history to the few centuries comprised in the curricula of our universities and schools, and to forget that Greek history does not end with the death of Alexander, or even with the loss of Greek independence, but that, under the rule of Rome, the life of Greece, its institutions and festivals, went on, to a great extent, unchanged, acquiring more and more hold over her conquerors, till the whole Roman world was Hellenized, and with the founding of Constantinople the centre of the empire itself was transferred to Greek soil. To such a narrow conception of history it is a wholesome corrective to trace the story of one branch of Greek activity from beginning to end. And nowhere can the continuity of Greek life be traced more clearly than in the history of her athletic festivals. That we are able to do so is chiefly due to the excavations conducted at Olympia under the auspices of the German government, which are still being continued by Dr. Dörpfeld. It is for this reason that in the following chapters the history of Olympia forms the basis of the history of Greek athletics.

The story of Greek athletics has a peculiarly practical interest in the present day in view of the development of athletics which has taken place in the last fifty years, and of the revival of the Olympic games. There are striking resemblances between the history of modern athletics and of Greek. The movement began in the sports of our public schools and universities, spread rapidly through all English-speaking lands, and is now extending to the Continent. Athletics are as popular among us as they were in Greece, and for us, as for the Greeks, they have been a great instrument of good. Unfortunately the signs of excess are no less manifest to-day than they were in the times of Xenophanes and Euripides. History repeats itself strangely. We have seen the same growth of competition, the same hero-worship of the athlete, the same publicity and prominence given to sport out of all proportion to its deserts, the same tendency to specialization and professionalism. Sport has too often become an end in itself. The hero-worship of the athlete tempts men to devote to selfish amusement the best years of their lives, and to neglect the true interests of themselves and of their country. The evil is worse with us, because our games have not the practical value as a military training which Greek sports had. Still more grievous than this waste of time and energy is the absorbing interest taken by the general public in the athletic performances of others. The crowds which watch a professional football match, the still larger crowds of those who think and read of little else, the columns of the daily press devoted to accounts of such matches, are no proof of an athletic nation, but rather of the reverse. They are merely a sign of an unhealthy love of excitement and amusement, and of the absence of all other interests. Of the evils of professionalism this is no place to speak. They are well known to any one who has followed the history of boxing, wrestling, or football. The history of football during the last two years is ominous. On the one hand we see the leading amateur clubs revolting from the tyranny of a Football Association conducted in the interests of various joint-stock companies masquerading as Football Clubs; on the other hand we see the professional players forming a trades-union to protect themselves against the tyranny of this same commercialism. The Rugby Union has struggled manfully to uphold the purity of the game, and has often received but scanty encouragement for its efforts. Fortunately there are signs that public opinion is changing, and is beginning to appreciate the efforts of the amateur bodies controlling various sports. The very existence of these bodies proves how real the danger is. Under these circumstances the history of the decline of Greek athletics is an object-lesson full of instruction.

What has been said above explains perhaps why the revival of the Olympic games has not been received in England with any great amount of enthusiasm. The promoters of these games were inspired by the ideal of ancient Greece, and wished to establish a great international athletic meeting which would be for the nations of the world what Olympia was for Greece. We must all sympathize with their aspirations. Unfortunately they do not seem to have realized the full lesson of Greek athletics, nor did they realize the dangers of competition on so vast a scale under the more complicated conditions of modern life. In England, where athletics have already developed to an extent unknown on the Continent, we have begun to realize the dangers of over-competition. The experience of recent years has taught us that international competitions do not always make for amity, and do not always