Greek Spectacles and Games
A supplementary sourcebook on Greek sports
Siobhán McElduff
Table of Contents:
(Note each entry is for the reading for the class listed on the syllabus):
Timeline
Greek Sports I: Athletic Events
Greek Sports II: Equestrian Events
Greek Sports III: Athletes and their Reputations
Olympic Games (covers both classes on the Olympics: please also reader the section marked
‘the Heraia and Women and Athletic
Beyond the Olympics: the Circuit of Games
1
Timeline for Greek athletics (with some other dates for context)
776 BCE: First recorded Olympic Games are held at Olympia, a holy site dedicated to the
worship of the god Zeus. Sole event is the stadion, a sprint race.
724 BCE: Diaulos added to Olympics games
720 BCE Dolichos (long distance race) added to the Olympics; Orsippus 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; dropped immediately
616 BCE boxing for boys added to the Olympics
586 BCE First Pythian Games held in Delphi (or possible relaunch). Events are singing to
the lyre, playing the aulos (flute), singing to the aulos (dropped at once as too depressing);
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, the circuit of crown games.
560s BCE Panatheniac Games first celebrated
558 BCE: lyre playing added to the Pythian Games
540–516 Milo of Croton wins wrestling six times at the 60th and 62nd–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
2
496 BCE Kalpe added to the Olympics
492-490 BCE: 1st Persian War and invasion of Greece; Battle of Marathon won by the
Greeks led by the Athenians
480 BCE: 2nd Persian War and invasion of Greece; victory of the 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 allies against Sparta and hers;
Sparta wins
416 BCE: the Athenian aristocrat Alcibiades enters 7 chariot teams 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 the Olympics. Cynisca of Sparta
becomes the first woman to win at the 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 chariot race at the Olympics
336 BCE: Death of Philip II of Macedon; Alexander (not yet the Great) ascends the throne
of Macedonia
334 BCE: Alexander the Great invades Persia
323 BCE: death of Alexander the Great
279 BCE: The Ptolemaia Games, modelled after the Olympics, are first celebrated in
Alexandria. These are the first so-called ‘Iso-Olympic Games’, games modelled on the
Olympics.
264 BCE: four horse chariot race for foals added to the Olympics
256 BCE: horse race for foals added to the Olympics
c. 250s BCE: Nemean Games are moved from their original site to the city of Argos
200 BCE: pankration for boys added to Olympics
3
197 BCE: Romans defeat the Macedonians in the Second Macedonian War
196 BCE: Titus Quinctius Flaminius, victor over the Macedonians, declares Greece free at
the Isthmian Games
168 BCE: Romans defeat the Macedonians at the battle of Pydna; Greece divided into four
sections
149 BCE: Greece becomes a Roman province
146 BCE: Corinth burned to the ground by the Romans; control of the Isthmian Games
moves to Sicyon from now crispy Corinth
c. 40 BCE: Control of the Isthmian Games is transferred back to Corinth (now a Roman
colony)
4 BCE Tiberius wins the 4 horse chariot race at Olympia
65 CE Nero participates in the Olympic Games and the circuit of crown games (Pythian,
Nemean, and Isthmian); games are held out of sequence.
393 CE: Final Olympic Games are held in Olympia. Theodosius I bans all pagan festivals,
including the Olympics, the next year.
4
Greek Sports I
a. Nudity and equipment
Greek men competed naked, although they had not always done so, a fact which they were aware of. In
Homer’s epic poem Iliad (c. 8th century CE) the athletes at the funeral games for Patroclus wore clothes
(. At some point in the 7th century, however, clothing was abandoned and eventually not only did the
Greeks train and compete naked in all spores (with the exception of some equestrian events and races
where wearing equipment was part of the race), but nudity in athletics became a marker of Greek
identity: barbarians might wear clothes, but Greeks stripped in the gymnasium.
The first victor in the stadion, the premier foot race at the Olympic Games to run naked was a matter
of contention. Some argued for Orsippos:
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
that later, when Orsippos was a general he cut off land from neighbouring people. I
think that he deliberately dropped his loin-cloth at Olympia, realizing that a naked man
can run easier than a man with a loin-cloth.
Pausanias, Description of Greece, 1.44.1
Here’s the funeral inscription that Pausanias saw at Megara recording this 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
Others argued that the Spartans came up with the idea of exercising and competing naked:
The Spartans were the first who stripped naked and rubbed themselves over with olive
oil for their athletic exercises. But this was not the ancient custom; athletes formerly, even
when they were competing at Olympia, wore loin-cloths, a practice which lasted until
quite lately, and still prevails among barbarians, especially those of Asia, where the
combatants at boxing and wrestling matches wear loin-cloths.
Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesians
The first winner of the stadion at the Olympic Games.
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.
1
2
5
The Romans, of course, did not exercise naked,3 a fact which Dionysius of Halicarnassus attributes to
them retaining ancient Greek customs:
Before beginning the games the principal magistrates conducted a procession in honour
of the gods from the Capitol through the Forum to the Circus Maximus. Those who led
the procession were, first, the Romans' sons who were nearing adulthood and were old
enough to take a part in this ceremony, who rode on horseback if their fathers were
entitled by their fortunes to be equestrians, while the others, who were destined to serve
in the infantry, went on foot, the former in squadrons and troops, and the latter in
divisions and companies, as if they were going to school; this was done in order that
strangers might see the number and beauty of the youths of the Republic who were
approaching adulthood. These were followed by charioteers, some of whom drove four
horse chariots, some two, while others rode unyoked horses. After them came the
contestants in both the light and the heavy games, their whole bodies naked except for
their loins. This custom continued even to my time at Rome, as it was originally
practised by the Greeks; but it is now abolished in Greece, the Spartans having put an
end to it. The first man who undertook to strip and ran naked at Olympia, at the fifteenth
Olympiad, was Acanthus the Spartan. Before that time, it seems, all the Greeks had been
ashamed to appear entirely naked in the games, as Homer, the most credible and the
most ancient of all witnesses, shows when he represents the heroes as wearing clothes
around their loins. At any rate, when he is describing the wrestling-match of Ajax and
Odysseus at the funeral of Patroclus, he says: “and then the two with their loins well
covered stepped forth into the ring.”
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 7.72.2-3.
The Greeks used relatively little equipment in their athletics. Below I’ve listed some of the standard
equipment you would find Greek athletes using in a gymnasium.
aryballos: vase for holding your olive oil for oiling up before exercising
caestus: a hard version of the himantes (see illustration in boxing section)
discus: originally made of stone; later made of bronze or iron. No standard weight
halteres: weights for the long jump
hairnets: used for preventing your hair getting tangled up especially if you were
throwing the javelin, where the throwing strap might get caught in your hair
himantes: leather strips (c.4 metres in length) wrapped around hands and wrists for
protection. These were made of ox-hide; pigskin was forbidden because it left wounds
that would not close easily and were too painful.
javelins: for the javelin throw. c. 2 metres long with a throwing strap
konis: a type of dust that you used after you had cleaned up after exercising
olive oil: this was rubbed on your body before exercising
Augustus once forbade women to appear at an exhibition of Greek athletics because of this. The Greeks
(apart from the Olympic Games) seem to have had no such worries about their womenfolk seeing men
compete naked.
3
6
strigil: a tool with which to scrape off oil, sweat, and dust after exercising (oil scrapings
from famous athletes fetched high prices). Usually bronze, but could be iron or even
precious metal
Athletics and Greek Identity
Athletics were central to Greek identity, and were one activity that they felt separated them from the
barbarians (all non-Greeks were barbarians to the ancient Greeks) around them. In the following
fictional dialogue set in the 7th century BCE, between the Athenian lawmaker Solon and a Scythian
called Anacharsis, the satirist Lucian (who was 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 personal advantages to winning at games like the Olympics: they might only give you a crown but
many cities gave bonuses to athletes who won at major games, and some got to dine for free for life in
the city’s dining halls. Winning at a major set of games could also make your political career for life:
An.4 Why do your young men behave like this, Solon? Some of them grappling and
tripping each other, some throttling, struggling, mixing it up in the dust just like a crowd
of pigs wallowing. And yet when they first strip naked (I noticed that) they oil and
scrape each other quite amicably. But I do not know what comes over them after that:
they lower their heads and begin to push, and crash their foreheads together like a pair
of rams battling. Look - that one has lifted the other right off his legs and dropped him
on the ground; then he jumps on top of him and will not let him get his head up, but
presses it down into the dust; and to finish him off he twines his legs tight round his
belly, thrusts his elbow hard against his throat, and throttles the wretched victim, who
meanwhile is patting his shoulder; that will be a form of supplication; he is asking not to
be quite choked to death. Regardless of their fresh oil, they get all filthy, smother
themselves in mud and sweat till they might as well not have been anointed, and
present, to me at least, the most ludicrous resemblance to eels slipping through a man’s
hands. Then here in the open court are others doing just the same, except that, instead of
the clay, they have for floor a depression filled with deep sand, with which they sprinkle
one another, scraping up the dust on purpose, like chickens; I suppose they want their
interfacings to be tighter; the sand is to neutralize the slipperiness of the oil, and by
drying it up to give a firmer grip. And here are others, sanded too, but on their legs,
kicking and punching each other. We shall surely see this poor fellow spit out his teeth in
a minute; his mouth is all full of blood and sand; he has had a blow on the jaw from the
other’s fist, you see. Why does not the official there separate them and put an end to it? I
guess that he is an official from his purple; 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 to know what is the good of it all. To me it
looks more like madness than anything else. It will not be very easy to convince me that
people who behave like this are not wrong in their heads.
4
An = Anacharisis; So = Solon.
7
So. It is quite natural it should strike you that way, as it is new to you and absolutely not
the way Scythians behave. Similarly you have no doubt many ways of behaving and
customs that would seem extraordinary enough to us Greeks, if we saw them as you see
ours. But be reassured; these proceedings are not madness; it is no spirit of violence that
sets them hitting each other, wallowing in clay, and sprinkling dust. The thing has its
use, and its delight too, resulting in admirable physical condition. If you make some stay,
as I imagine you will, in Greece, you are bound to be either a clay-bob or a dust-bob
before long; you will be so taken with the pleasure and profit of the pursuit.
An. Hands off, please. No, I wish you all joy of your pleasures and your profits; but if
any of you treats me like that, he will find out that we do not wear scimitars for
ornament. But would you mind giving a name to all this? What are we to say they are
doing?
So. The place is called a gymnasium, and is dedicated to Lycian Apollo. You see his
statue there - the one leaning on the pillar, with a bow in the left hand. The right arm
bent over the head indicates that the god is resting after some great exertion. Of the
exercises here, that in the clay is called wrestling; the youths in the dust are also called
wrestlers, and those who strike each other standing are engaged in what we call the
pankration. But we have other gymnasia for boxing, discus-throwing, and high-jumping;
and in all these we hold contests, the winner in which is honoured above all his
contemporaries, and receives prizes.
An. What do they win?
So. At Olympia a wreath of wild olive, at the Isthmus one of pine, at Nemea of parsley, at
the Pythian games some of the god’s sacred apples,5 and at our Panathenaea6 oil pressed
from 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 givers may well plume themselves
on their generosity, and the competitors be incredibly keen on winning. Who would not
go through this amount of preparatory toil, and take his chance of a choking or a
dislocation, for apples or parsley? It is obviously impossible for any one who has a fancy
to a supply of apples, or a wreath of parsley or pine, to get them without a mud plaster
on his face, or a kick in the stomach from his competitor.
So. My dear sir, it is not the things’ intrinsic value that we look at. They are the symbols
of victory, labels of the winners; it is the fame attaching to them that is worth any price to
their holders; that is why the man whose quest for honour leads through toil is content to
The four great stephanitic/crown games, so called because the winners did not win money, but were
awarded crowns. Some of the crowns’ materials changed over time, though that at Olympia was always
olive.
6 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).
5
8
take his kicks. No toil, no honour; he who covets that must start with enduring hardship;
when he has done that, he may begin to look for the 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. You will change your opinions
before long, when you go to the great festivals and see the crowds gathering to look on,
the stands 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 they endure
— who, I am to believe, consider them happy when they see them dripping with blood
or being throttled; for such are the happy concomitants of victory. In my country, if a
man strikes a citizen, knocks him down, or tears his clothes, our elders punish him
severely, even though there were only one or two witnesses, not like your vast Olympic
or Isthmian gatherings. However, though I cannot help pitying the competitors, I am still
more astonished at the spectators; you tell me the chief people from all over Greece
attend; how can they leave their serious concerns and waste time on such things? How
they can like it passes my comprehension — to look on at people being struck and
knocked about, dashed to the ground and pounded by one another.
So. If the Olympic, Isthmian, or Panatheniac games were on now, those lessons might
have been enough to convince you that our keenness is not thrown away. I cannot make
you understand the delights of them by description; you should be there sitting in the
middle of the spectators, looking at the men’s courage and physical beauty, their
marvellous condition, effective skill and invincible strength, their enterprise, their
emulation, their unconquerable spirit, and their unwearied pursuit of victory. Oh, I
know very well, you would never have been tired of talking about your favourites,
backing them with voice and hand.
An. I dare say, laughing and celebrating too. All the fine things in your list, your courage
and conditions, your beauties and enterprises, I see you wasting for no great purpose;
your country is not in danger, your land not being ravaged, your friends or relations not
being dragged away.7 The more ridiculous that such patterns of perfection as you make
them out should endure the misery all for nothing, and spoil their beauty and their fine
figures with sand and black eyes, just for the triumphant possession of an apple or a
sprig of wild olive. Oh, how I love to think of those prizes! By the way, do all who enter
get them?
So. No, indeed. There is only one winner.
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.
7
9
Lucian, Anacharsis 1-14
Because of the centrality of athletics to Greek identity, gymnasia were social centres in Greek towns,
and served as places where men could forge relationships, both sexual and non-sexual. They were
often places where art was displayed and those in richer cities had beautiful paintings and mosaics –
in fact, one of the first places the Greek travel writer Pausanias went in a city was its gymnasium.
Some came just to look at and lust for the athletes; we have a number of ‘kalos’ cups, cups which will
say something like ‘so and so is kalos’, handsome or lovely. We have about 200 names listed on these
cups: one we have is that of Leagros, a famously beautiful man who also went on to become a general
for the Athenians.8 The cup was found in 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
(or perhaps because of it) there were restrictions on entering many gymnasia when youths and
children were exercising there. This prosecution speech from 346 BCE refers to these laws in Athens;
we also know they were in place around the Greek world:
In the first place, consider the case of the teachers. Although the very livelihood of these
men, to whom we must entrust our own children, depends on their good character,
while the opposite conduct on their part would mean poverty, yet it is plain that the
lawgiver distrusts them; for he expressly states, first, what time of day the free-born boy
is to go to the school-room; next, how many other boys may go there with him, and
when he is to go home. He forbids the teacher to open the school-room, or the gymnastic
trainer the wrestling school, before sunrise, and he commands them to close the doors
before sunset; for he is extremely suspicious of their being alone with a boy or in the dark
with him. He says what children can be admitted as pupils and their age at admission.
He provides for a public official who shall superintend them, and for the oversight of
slave-attendants of school-boys. He regulates the festivals of the Muses in the schoolrooms and of Hermes in the wrestling-schools. Finally, he regulates the companionships
that the boys may form at school, and their cyclic dances. He states, namely, that the
choregus, a man who is going to spend his own money for your entertainment,9 shall be
a man of more than forty years of age when he performs this service, in order that he
may have reached the most temperate time of life before he comes into contact with your
children. These laws, then, shall be read to you, to prove that the lawgiver believed that
it is the boy who has been well brought up that will be a useful citizen when he becomes
a man. But when a boy's natural disposition is subjected at the very outset to vicious
training, the product of such wrong nurture will be, as he believed, a citizen like this
man Timarchus. Read these laws to the jury.
The Law: The teachers of the boys shall open the school-rooms not earlier than sunrise,
and they shall close them before sunset. No person who is older than the boys shall be
permitted to enter the room while they are there, unless he be a son of the teacher, a
brother, or a daughter's husband. If any one enters in violation of this prohibition, he
shall be executed. The superintendents of the gymnasia shall under no conditions allow
any one who has reached the age of manhood to enter the contests of Hermes together
The Panathenaea also had a male beauty competition as one of its events.
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.
8
9
10
with the boys.10 A gymnasiarch who does permit this and fails to keep such a person out
of the gymnasium, shall be liable to the penalties prescribed for the seduction of freeborn youth. Every choregus who is appointed by the people 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 palaestrae11 is not usual in Italy, I think it best to explain
the traditional way and to show how they are constructed by the Greeks. The square or
oblong peristyle in a palaestra should be so formed that the circuit of it makes a walk of
two stadia, a distance which the Greeks call the diaulos. Let three of its colonnades be
single, but let the fourth, which is on the south side, be double, so that when there is bad
weather accompanied by wind, the drops of rain may not be able to reach the interior. In
the three colonnades construct roomy recesses with seats in them, where philosophers,
rhetoricians, and others who delight in learning may sit and talk. In the double
colonnade let the rooms be arranged in this way: the young men's hall in the middle; this
is a very spacious recess (the exedra) with seats in it, and it should be one third longer
than it is broad. At the right, the equipment room; then next, the dust room; beyond the
dust room, at the corner of the colonnade, the cold washing room, which the Greeks call
the loutron. At the left of the young men's hall is the anointing room; then, next to the
anointing room, the cold bath room, and beyond that a passage into the furnace room at
the corner of the colonnade. Next, but inside and on a line with the cold bath room, put
the vaulted sweating bath, its length twice its breadth, and having at the ends on one
side a Laconicum, proportioned in the same manner as above described, and opposite
the Laconicum the warm washing room. Inside a palaestra, the peristyle ought to be laid
out as described above. But on the outside, let three colonnades be arranged, one as you
leave the peristyle and two at the right and left, with running-tracks in them. The one
which faces the north should be a double colonnade of very ample width, while the other
should be single, and so constructed that on the sides next the walls and the side along
the columns it may have edges, serving as paths, of not less than ten feet, with the space
between them sunken, so that steps are necessary in going down from the edges a foot
and a half to the plane, which plane should be not less than twelve feet wide. Thus
people walking round on the edges will not be interfered with by those are oiled up and
exercising. This kind of colonnade is called among the Greeks xystos, because athletes
during the winter season exercise in covered running tracks. Next to this xystos and to
the double colonnade should be laid out uncovered walks which the Greeks call
paradromides and Romans xysta, into which, in fair weather during the winter, the
athletes come out from the xystos for exercise. The xysta ought to be so constructed that
there may be trees planted between the two colonnades, or groves of plane trees, with
walks laid out in them among the trees and resting places there, made of opus signinum.12
Hermes was the Greek god most associated with gymnasia. Games were often held in his honour.
Palaestra is interchangeable with gymnasium.
12 This was a common building material in Rome.
10
11
11
Behind the xystos a stadium, so designed that great numbers of people may have plenty
of room to look on at the contests between the athletes.
Vitruvius, On Architecture Book 5
12
Types of Greek athletics (an * indicates that this was an Olympic sport)`
A. Heavy/combat sports
Heavy sports were so called because, as the Greeks did not always compete in age classes 13 (in other
words, youths might compete with mature men), they give a distinct advantage to the heavier, more
mature man – there were also no weight classes in any of the events.
This vase shows a competitor in
boxing signaling his surrender by
raising a finger.
(Black figure Attic amphora; 510–500
BCE; found in Vulci in Italy)
Pairings in the heavy events were selected by lot, and if there was an uneven number the odd person out
got a bye, which gave him a huge advantage. Lucian, a Greek satirist and philosopher of the 2nd century
CE, describes how competitors drew lots:
A silver urn consecrated to Zeus is produced and into it are thrown little lots about the
size of a bean, with letters on them. Two are marked alpha, two beta, two more gamma,14
and so on, if the competitors run to more than that--two lots always to each letter. A
competitor comes up, makes a prayer to Zeus, dips his hand into the urn, and pulls out
one lot; then another does the same; there is an umpire who stands by whoever draws a
lot, who holds his hand so that he cannot see what letter he has drawn. When all have
drawn, the chief police officer, I think it is, or one of the stewards themselves--I cannot
quite remember this detail--, goes round and examines the lots while they stand in a
circle, and puts together the two alphas for the wrestling or pankration, and so for the
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 situations where a 15 year old might be asked to wrestle with a 25
year old.
14 These are Greek letters of the alphabet.
13
13
two betas, and the rest. That is the procedure when the number of competitors is even, as
eight, four, or twelve. If it is five, seven, nine, or other odd number, an odd letter is
marked on one lot, which is put in with the others, not having a duplicate. Whoever
draws this is a bye, and waits till the rest have finished their pairings; no duplicate turns
up for him, you see; and it is a considerable advantage to an athlete, to know that he will
come fresh against tired competitors.
Lucian, Hermotimos 43
Boxing
It’s hard to say what was the most brutal of the heavy sports, but boxing certainly came close. There
were no rounds or breaks, unless your opponent agreed on it: you got up and boxed until one of you
won, usually by the other collapsing or begging for mercy. Greeks originally wore thongs of leather
around the hands and wrists. Eventually it evolved into this, the cestus:
The extent of the brutality of ancient boxing can be seen in this poem by the Roman poet Lucilius (fl. 60s
CE) describing a statue of a boxer:
Olympicos here, who now looks so terrible, emperor, once had a nose, a chin, eyebrows,
ears, and eyes. Then he entered a boxing contest and lost them all. He did not even
receive his part of his father’s inheritance. His brother had a picture of him and showed
it to the judge, who ruled that it was 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 through Greece. He often
describes monuments set up to celebrate athletes (some of which were set up by themselves, others by
their cities or communities). He has proven to be remarkably reliable by various finds from the sites he
visited and is an invaluable source for many things, including Greek sports. In the following he
describes a statue of Glaucus who suffered terribly in a boxing match at Olympia:
14
The ploughshare15 one day fell out of the plough, and Glaucus fitted it into its place,
using his hand as a hammer. Demylus happened to see his son's performance, and after
this brought him to Olympia to box. There, Glaucus, inexperienced in boxing, was
wounded by his antagonists, and when he was boxing with the last of them he was
thought to be fainting from the number of his wounds. Then they say that his father
called out to him, “Son, the plough touch.” So he dealt his opponent a more violent blow
which brought him the victory at once. 3 He is said to have won other crowns besides:
two at the Pythian; eight at the Nemean; and eight at the Isthmian Games. The statue of
Glaucus was set up by his son, while Glaucias of Aegina made it. The statue represents a
figure sparring, as Glaucus was the best exponent of the art of all his contemporaries.
When he died the Carystians,16 they say, buried him in the island still called the island of
Glaucus.
Pausanias, Description of Greece, 6.10.2-3
Boxing resulted in some vicious and deliberately deadly tactics, as Pausanias relates in a different part of
his book:
I know that the people of Argos acted in the same way in the case of Creugas, a boxer
from Epidamnus. For they gave Creugas the crown in the Nemean Games after his
death, because his opponent Damoxenus of Syracuse broke their mutual agreement. For
evening drew near as they were boxing, and they agreed within the hearing of witnesses
that each should in turn allow the other to deal him a blow. At that time boxers did not
yet wear a sharp thong on the wrist of each hand, but still boxed with the soft gloves,
binding them in the hollow of the hand, so that their fingers were left bare. These soft
gloves were thin thongs of raw ox-hide plaited together after an ancient manner. On the
occasion to which I refer Creugas aimed his blow at the head of Damoxenus, and the
latter ordered Creugas lift up his arm. On his doing so, Damoxenus struck his opponent
under the ribs with straight fingers; and what with the sharpness of his nails and the
force of the blow he drove his hand into the other's inside, caught his bowels, and tore
them as he pulled them out. Creugas died on the spot and the people of Argos
disallowed Damoxenus for breaking his agreement by dealing his opponent many blows
instead of one. They gave the victory to the dead Creugas, and had a statue of him made
in Argos. It still stood in my time in the sanctuary of Lycian Apollo.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 8.40.3-5.
Pankration*
Think boxing was bad? Pankration (which means all-powerful) was a brutal sport in which everything
was legal, except biting and eye-gouging. Except in Sparta, where both of those were allowed.
Arrhachion died during one bout, but still was crowned Olympic victor:
15
16
A blade fitted to the end of the plough to turn up earth.
A large island in the North East of Greece.
15
The Phigalians have in their marketplace a statue of the pankratiast Arrhachion; it is
archaic, especially in its posture. The feet are close together, and the arms hang down by
the side as far as the hips.17 The statue is made of stone, and it is said that an inscription
was written upon it. This has disappeared with time, but Arrhachion won two Olympic
victories at the games before the fifty-fourth, while at this games he won one due partly
to the fairness of the judges and partly to his own manhood. For when he was competing
for the wild olive18 with the last remaining competitor, whoever he was, the latter got a
grip first, and held Arrhachion, hugging him with his legs, and at the same time he
squeezed his neck with his hands. Arrhachion dislocated his opponent's toe, but died of
suffocation; but the man who suffocated Arrhachion was forced to give in at the same
time because of the pain in his toe. The Eleans crowned 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 who wrote on
athletics) describes paintings in an imaginary gallery. One of them is of Arrhachion in his moment of
triumph:
You have come to the Olympic Games themselves and to the noblest of the contests held
at Olympia; for this is the men’s pankration. Arrhachion is being crowned for winning
this event, having died just after his victory, and the Judge of the Games is crowning him
– let him be called “the strict judge,” both because he sedulously strives for the truth and
because he is indeed depicted like the Olympic judges. The land furnishes a stadium in a
simple glen of sufficient length, from which issues the stream of the Alpheios, a light
stream – that, you know, is why it alone of rivers flows on top of the sea, and about it
grow wild olive trees of green-grey colour, beautiful and curly like parsley leaves. Now
after we have looked at the stadium, we will turn our attention to various other
elements, and in particular let us take note of the deed of Arrhachion before it is ended.
For he seems to have conquered not his antagonist alone, but all the Greeks; at any rate,
the spectators jump up from their seats and shout, some wave their hands, some their
garments, some leap from the ground, and some grapple with their neighbours for joy;
for these really amazing deeds make it impossible for the spectators to contain
themselves. Is anyone so without feeling as not to applaud this athlete? For after he had
already achieved a great deed by winning two victories in the Olympic Games, a yet
greater deed is depicted on this, in that, having won this victory at the cost of his life, he
is being conducted to the realms of the blessed with the very dust of victory still 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; for they must meet blows on the face that are not safe for the
wrestler, must clinch in struggles that one can only win by pretending to fall, and they
This type of statue is now called a Kouros. Here is a good example of the type of status Pausanias is
describing.
18 Victors at Olympia were given a crown of olive.
17
16
need skill so they can choke an opponent in different ways at different times, and the
same contestants are both wrestling with the ankle and twisting the opponent’s arm, to
say nothing of dealing a blow and leaping upon the adversary; for these things are all
permissible in the pankration – anything except biting and gouging. The Spartans,
indeed, allow even these, because, I suppose, they are training themselves for battle, but
the contests of Elis exclude them, though they do permit choking. Accordingly the
antagonist of Arrhachion, having already clinched him around the middle, thought to
kill him; already he had wound his forearm about the other’s throat to shut off his
breathing, while, pressing his legs on the groins and winding his feet one inside each
knee of his adversary, he stopped Arrhachion’s resistance by choking him till the sleep of
death thus induced began to creep over his senses. But in relaxing the tension of his legs
he failed to forestall the scheme of Arrhachion; for the latter kicked back with the sole of
his right foot (as the result of which his right side was in danger since now his knee was
hanging unsupported), then with his groin he holds his adversary tight till he can no
longer resist, and, throwing his weight down toward the left while he locks the latter’s
foot tightly inside his own knee, by this violent outward thrust he wrenches the ankle
from its socket. Arrhachion’s soul, though it makes him feeble as it leaves his body, yet
gives him strength to achieve that for which he strives. The one who is choking
Arrhachion is painted so he looks like a corpse and as indicating with his hand that he
gives up the struggle; but Arrhachion is painted as all victors are; for his blood is of rich
colour, the perspiration is still fresh on his body and he smiles as do the living when they
are conscious of victory.
Philostratus, Imagines, 2.6
Non-heavy sports
Running
There were a number of different lengths in the footraces, although on the whole the Greeks 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 5,000 metres.
The main races:
a. Stadion: One length of the stadium, however long it was. The premier foot race: those
who won this in the Olympics had the next Olympiad (four year period) named after
them
b. Diaulos: two lengths of the stadium
c. Dolichos: a long distance race; the one at Olympia was 24 lengths of the stadium, about
5,000 metres.
d. Hoplitodromos: a race in (partial) armour.
e. Lampadedromia: a torch race, run in relays. Not an Olympic sport
The most celebrated race was a sprint, the stadion. Whoever won this event at Olympia had the
Olympiad, the period of the next four years, named after him – a great honour and which ensured his
17
reputation would live forever. As a result races were fiercely competitive and not without underhand
methods:
The good runner, from the moment the barrier falls, simply makes the best of his way;
his thoughts are on the winning-post, his hopes of victory in his feet; he leaves his
neighbour alone and does not concern himself at all with his competitors. It is the ill
qualified, with no prospect of winning by his speed, who resorts to foul play; his one
pre-occupation is how he may how he may stop, impede, curb the real runner, because
failing that his own victory is out of the 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 a fact) seventh of five runners in
the long race. "As there were six," you will probably say, " how did he come in seventh?"
A friend of his came in his cloak calling out " Go for it, Charmus," so that he came in
seventh and if he had had five more friends, Zoilus, he would have come in twelfth.
Recently, the great earth made everything quake, but only the runner Erasistratus it did
not move from his place.
Greek Anthology 4.82-3.
Pausanias describes the stadium at Olympia, where all foot races and athletic events took place:
There is within the Altis19 by the processional entrance the Hippodameium, as it is called,
about a quarter of an acre of ground surrounded by a wall. Into it once every year the
women who sacrifice to Hippodameia may enter this and do her honor in other ways.
The story is that Hippodameia withdrew to Midea in Argolis, because Pelops was very
angry with her over the death of Chrysippus. The Eleans declare that subsequently,
because of an oracle, they brought the bones of Hippodameia to Olympia. At the end of
the statues20 which they made from the fines levied on athletes, there is the entrance
called the Hidden Entrance. Through it judges and competitors uusally enter the
stadium. Now the stadium is an embankment of earth, and on it is a seat for the
presidents of the games. Opposite the judges is an altar of white marble; seated on this
altar a woman looks on at the Olympic Games, the priestess of Demeter Chamyne, which
office the Eleans bestow from time to time on different women. Maidens are not
debarred from looking on at the games. 21 At the end of the stadium, where is the
starting-place for the runners, there is, the Eleans say, the tomb of Endymion.
The sacred precinct of Olympia – see figure 1 for map.
The zanes: their bases are still visible, although the statues have vanished.
21 This exclusion of married women from watching events is very unusual; other athletic events had no
such restrictions. And given the reputation for the Olympics for rowdiness, it probably was not a
19
20
18
Pausanias, Description of Greece, 6.20.7-8
Philostratus, a rhetorician and a biographer of the early 3rd century CE, wrote a book on gymnastics:
here he describes the ideal bodily build for a runner (be aware, though, that Philostratus has some very
strange ideas about idea bodily shapes for athletes)22
To be an excellent dolichos-runner one should have shoulders and a neck about as strong
as those of a pentathlete, but he should have slender and light legs as a stadion-runner.
These bring their legs into a sprint with their hands, as if their hands give them wings.
Dolichos-runners do this only in the final sprint, the rest of the time it is almost as if they
stride, with their hands in a fist, for which they need strong shoulders…. As stadion
runners - this is the lightest event - proportionate people are very well suited, but even
better are tall people, not the very tall, but those who are just a little taller than the
proportionate ones, for extraordinarily tall people lack stability, like overgrown plants.
They should be build firmly, because the start of a good sprint is a good posture. The
proportions of their body should be as follows: the legs should be in equipoise with the
shoulders, the chest smaller than the average and with healthy organs, they should have
swift knees, straight shins and hands bigger than the average. They should have
proportionate muscles, for excessive muscles are like chains when speed is involved.
Philostratus, On Gymnastics 32-33
suitable place for children of either gender. We know that many parents would not let their sons
compete there because of anxieties about this.
22 For information on Philostratus see this page at Livius
19
Race in Armour (Hoplitodromos)*
Vase showing a runner in the
hoplitodromos in the starting
position
(Attic red-figured amphora,
c. 480–470 BCE)
One popular event was the race in armour: at the start runners worse a helmet, shield, and greaves, but
as time went on many places had the runners race only carrying a shield. Pausanias describes the statue
of Damaretos, one of the winners of the race at Olympia:
Damaretos of Heraea, his son and his grandson each won twice at Olympia. Damaretos
won at the sixty-fifth Olympiad, when the race in armour was held for the first time, and
also at the following Olympiad. His statue shows him with the shield that is also carried
in our time, with a helmet on his head and greaves on his legs. These were removed from
the race eventually both by the Eleans and by the other Greeks.
Pausanias, Description of Greece, 6.10.4
The Roman satirist Lucilius wrote on one unfortunate competitor who 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 public slaves all thought that he was one of the honorary stone
statues of men in armour set up there. What happened? Why next year they opened, and
Marcus came in, but a whole stadion behind.
Greek Anthology 4.85
20
Torch Races
The vase above is an Athenian red-figure vase from the 4th century BCE showing a torch relay 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 the Panathenaea. It was a relay race in
which you could not let the torch die out. The race in Athens started at the shrine of Prometheus in the
Academy, which was also a gymnasium:
In the Academy is an altar to Prometheus, and from it they run to the city carrying
burning torches. While running they must keep the torch still alight; if the torch of the
first runner goes out, he has no longer any claim to victory, but the second runner has. If
his torch also goes out, then the third man is the victor. If all the torches go out, no one
can be declared winner. There is an altar to the Muses, and another to Hermes, and one
within to Athena, and they have built one to Heracles. There is also an olive tree, thought
to be the second that appeared.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.30.2
Torch relay races could also be ran on horseback, though that was unusual, as the following passage
shows:
"Didn’t you know," said Adeimantos, "there is to be a torchlight race this evening on
horseback in honour of the goddess?" "On horseback?" I said. "That is something new.
21
Will they carry torches and pass them along to one another as they race with the horses,
or how do you mean?" "That's it!" said Polemarchos.
Plato, Republic I 328 A
22
Pentathlon*
The long jump in ancient Greece: notice the weights used for increasing distance in the jump.
The pentathlon consisted of five sports: discus throwing, long jump, javelin throwing, stadion, and
wrestling (only the last two were also competitive sports in their own right). Some people revered the
athletes as the best all-round athletes:
For each age there is a different form of beauty. For a young man, beauty means that one
has a body fit for all efforts, both running and the use of strength. He is pleasant to look
upon, a pure delight. That is why the pentathlete are the most beautiful people, because
they have a natural talent for both strength and swiftness. ...The athletic quality of a body
lays in size, strength and swiftness, for who is swift, is also strong. Who is able to throw
his legs about in a certain way and move with rapid and large paces, is a good runner.
Who can hug and grapple, a wrestler. Who can hit with his fists? The boxer.. Who can do
both? The pankratiast. Who can do everything? The pentathlete.
Aristotle, Rhetorica 1361b
Others thought of them, however, as not particularly good at anything.
None among the competitors was thrown quicker than myself and none ran the race
slower. With the discus I never came near the rest, I never was able to lift my legs for a
jump and a cripple could throw the javelin better than I, I am the first who out of the five
events was proclaimed beaten in all five.
Lucilius, Greek Anthology 4.84
23
The Palombara Disco bolus, a Roman copy of the bronze original by Myron.
The Greek discus was not like the modern one: first they were made of stone and then after that of bronze
or iron and sometimes lead. They were heavy and getting hit with one (as occasionally happened) was
very likely to be fatal. They were not, however, of a consistent weight or size, varying from 1.3 to 6.6
kilos. Generally people seem to have brought their own to games, but the discuses for the Olympic
Games were special and kept 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 five hundred talents, and that the dedicators were Myron and the
Sicyonian 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, and along 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 and still win, so the
skill was to throw it as close to the boundary as possible without going outside. We are, however, not
sure how far away this boundary was. This was also probably a measure to ensure you didn’t kill
24
members of the audience and bystanders – which happened from time to time as the discus was a heavy
object and potentially deadly object.
Halma23 (long jump)
This was very different from our 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:
The 'halter' was invented by the penathletes for the long jump, the sport after which it is
also named. Because the rules consider the long jump as one of the more difficult events
in the games, they stimulate the jumper with flute music and with the halter they make
him light as a feather. It is a safe guide for the hands and leads the feet to the ground
stably and with a clear print. The rules make clear how much this is worth, for they do
not allow the jump to be measured if the footprint is not clean. The oblong halters train
the shoulders and the hands, the spherical halters also train the fingers. Both light as
heavy athletes should hold them 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 they surely could not jump the 55 feet ascribed to the
some athletes.
Javelin
We don’t know if a win in the javelin throw was based on the length of the throw or some degree of
accuracy was involved. The following speech revolves around the issue of who is at fault when someone’s
child is accidentally killed by a javelin in a gymnasium. Here the father whose son was killed, argues
that the thrower was at fault because he aimed at a target and hit his son. This suggests that javelin
throwers were aiming at targets rather than simply trying to throw their javelin as far as possible:
For the defendant has had the audacity and shamelessness to say that he who struck and
killed neither wounded nor killed, whereas he who neither touched the javelin nor had
any intention of throwing it missed every other point on earth and every other person,
and pierced his own side with the javelin. Why, I should myself sound more convincing,
I think, were I accusing the lad of willful murder, than does the defendant in claiming
that the lad neither struck nor killed. My son was ordered at that moment by the master
in charge, who was taking the javelins of the throwers into his keeping, to pick them up;
but thanks to the carelessness of he who cast it, he was greeted by that boy’s there lad's
weapon; though guilty of error in respect of no single person, he died a wretched death.
The lad, on the other hand, who mistook the moment at which the javelins were being
picked up, was not prevented from making a hit. To my bitter sorrow, he struck a target;
and although he did not kill my son deliberately, there are better grounds for
maintaining that he did than for asserting that he neither struck nor killed.
23
You should learn the Greek term for this as the Greek long jump is not at all like the modern one.
25
Antiphon, Second Tetralogy
Javelins were around two metres long and had a throwing strap to help with the throw as the following
image shows:
Attic red figure cup, c. 470 BCE; found in Southern Italy.
26
Greek Athletics II: Equestrian events
Chariot racing
This was the most expensive sport to compete in. Greece is not very suited to either horse rearing or
chariot racing, being mountainous and rocky: horses were luxury items not suited for the type of work
most Greek farmers needed done and chariots are not suited for transporting one around Greece. Race
horses and chariot horses were massively expensive, fragile, high spirited, rather useless creatures which
could only be afforded by the extremely wealthy. Some city-states like Argos24 had their own city stables
and entered chariot racing competitions as a community; others relied on wealthy citizens wanting to
compete and win glory. Owners rarely raced their teams themselves: it was usually 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 far more about certain horses than the charioteers.) Chariot
racing took place in a hippodrome; unlike Roman chariot racing it did not have a spina, a central barrier
to prevent head-on crashes, making it incredibly dangerous. This was not helped by the large number of
entries in each race, which ensured maximum chaos; in addition various hippodromes added features to
scare horses. In the following extract Pausanias first describes the hippodrome at Olympia, before going
on to talk of others. (The hippodrome at Olympia has not yet been discovered.)
When you have passed beyond the stadium, at the point where the 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 is turned towards the course. At the
point where the prow adjoins the porch of Agnaptus it broadens and a bronze dolphin
on a rod has been made at the very point of the ram. Each side of the starting-place is
more than four hundred feet in length, and in the sides are built stalls. These stalls are
assigned by lot to those who enter for the races. Before the chariots or race-horses is
stretched a cord as a barrier. An altar of unbaked brick, plastered on the outside, is made
at every Festival as near as possible to the centre of the prow, and a bronze eagle stands
on the altar with his wings stretched out to the fullest extent. The man appointed to start
the racing sets in motion the mechanism in the altar, and then the eagle has been made to
jump upwards, so as to become visible to the spectators, while the dolphin falls to the
ground. First on either side the barriers are withdrawn by the porch of Agnaptus, and
the horses standing thereby run off first. As they run they reach those to whom the
second station has been allotted, and then are withdrawn the barriers at the second
station. The same thing happens to all the horses in turn, until at the ram of the prow
they are all abreast. After this it is left to the charioteers to display their skill and the
horses their speed. 14. It was Cleoetas who originally devised the method of starting, and
he appears to have been proud of the discovery, as on the statue at Athens he wrote the
inscription:
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 extra device was added to the
mechanism. The race-course has one side longer than the other, and on the longer side,
24
They won the four horse chariot race in 480 BCE and the horse race in 472.
27
which is a bank, there stands, at the passage through the bank, Taraxippus, the terror of
the horses. It has the shape of a round altar, and as they run along the horses are seized,
as soon as they reach this point, by a great fear without any apparent reason. The fear
leads to disorder; the chariots generally crash and the charioteers are injured.
Consequently the charioteers offer sacrifice, and pray that Taraxippus may show himself
propitious to them. The Greeks differ in who they think Taraxippus was. Some hold that
it is the tomb of an original inhabitant who was skilled in horsemanship; they call him
Olenius, and say that after him was named the Olenian rock in the land of Elis. Others
say that Dameon, son of Phlius, who took part in the expedition of Heracles against
Augeas and the Eleans, was killed along with his horse by Cteatus the son of Actor, and
that man and horse were buried in the same tomb. There is also a story that Pelops made
here an empty mound in honour of Myrtilus, and sacrificed to him in an effort to calm
the anger of the murdered man, naming the mound Taraxippus (Frightener of horses)
because the mares of Oenomaus were frightened by the trick of Myrtilus. Some say that
it is Oenomaus himself who harms the racers in the course. I have also heard some attach
the blame to Alcathus, the son of Porthaon. Killed by Oenomaus because he wooed
Hippodameia, Alcathus, they say, here got his portion of earth; having been unsuccessful
on the course, he is a spiteful and hostile deity to chariot-drivers. An Egyptian said that
Pelops received something from Amphion the Theban and buried it where is what they
call Taraxippus, adding that it was the buried thing which frightened the mares of
Oenomaus, as well as those of every charioteer since. This Egyptian thought that
Amphion and the Thracian Orpheus were clever magicians, and that it was through 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 makes Taraxippus a
surname of Horse Poseidon. There is another Taraxippus at the Isthmus, namely
Glaucus, the son of Sisyphus. They say that he was killed by his horses, when Acastus
held his contests in honour of his father. At Nemea of the Argives there was no hero who
harmed the horses, but above the turning-point of the chariots rose a rock, red in color,
and the flash from it terrified the horses, just as though it had been fire. But the
Taraxippus at Olympia is much worse for terrifying the horses. On one turning-post is a
bronze statue of Hippodameia carrying a ribbon, and about to 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 other than Romans; the
various games and especially chariot racing and other equestrian events allowed them a way to show off
their wealth on an international stage without incurring the hatred and envy of their fellow citizens –
after all, they could say they were doing it for the community. The Spartans were especially fond of
chariot racing and entered in huge numbers: in 420 BCE Spartans entered 7 chariots; Athens only
entered 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 was not without his critics,25 who
pointed out that he presented the precious vessels that Athens kept in Olympia as his own, thus making
a mockery of the city:
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.
25
28
In order to make it clear, however, that he was insulting the whole city of Athens; in
addition to Diomedes, he asked the leaders of the Athenian deputation to lend him the
processional vessels, saying that he intended to use them for a celebration of his victory
on the day before the sacrifice; he then abused the trust placed in him and refused to
return them, as he wanted to use the golden basins and censers next day before Athens
did so. Naturally, when those strangers who did not know that they belonged to us saw
the state-procession taking place after that of Alcibiades, they imagined that we were
using his vessels: while those who had either heard the truth from the Athenians present
or else knew the ways of Alcibiades, laughed at us when they saw one man showing
himself superior to our entire community.
Against Alcibiades 29
He was also prosecuted for apparently stealing one of those 7 chariot teams from Argos, which kept a
city owned team:
11 His breeds of horses were famous the world over and so was the number of his
racing-chariots. No one king or commoner ever entered seven of these at the Olympic
Games but he alone. And the fact that he came first, second, and fourth (as Thucydides
says; Euripides, says third),26 all that ambition can aspire to in this field was exceeded by
the fame of this action. The ode of Euripides to which I refer runs thus:
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,27 and, wreathed with the olive of Zeus,
To furnish a theme for the herald's proclamation."
12 Moreover, this splendour of his at Olympia was made even more conspicuous by the
rivalry of the cities on his behalf. The Ephesians equipped him with a tent of magnificent
adornment; the people of Chios furnished him with food for his horses and innumerable
animals for sacrifice; those of Lesbos with wine and other provisions for his abundant
entertainment for the masses. However, a serious insult — or abuse on his part —
connected with this rivalry was talked about even more. It is said that there was at
Athens one Diomedes, a reputable man and a friend of Alcibiades, and very eager to win
a victory at Olympia. He learned that there was a racing-chariot at Argos which was the
property of that city, and knowing that Alcibiades had many friends and was very
influential there, got him to buy the chariot. Alcibiades bought it for his friend, and then
entered it in the competition as his own, telling Diomedes to not bother him. Diomedes
Thucydides was an Athenian historian; Euripides wrote tragedies.
You should not assume from this that Alcibiades would risk driving one of these chariots himself; like
most competitors he hired professionals, which all the glory went to him.
26
27
29
was full of indignation and called on gods and men to witness his wrongs. It appears
also that a law-suit arose over this matter, and a speech was written by Isocrates for the
son of Alcibiades "Concerning the Team of Horses." In this speech, however, it is Tisias,
not Diomedes, who is the plaintiff.
Plutarch, Life of Alcibiades 11-12
In the following speech (the one Plutarch references above) his son defends Alcibiades on this charge of
stealing these horses:
About the same time Alcibiades saw that the festival at Olympia was extremely
respected by all men and that the Greeks gave demonstrations of their wealth, power,
and culture there, He saw also that the athletes were admired and that the cities of the
victors shared in the glory. Moreover he thought that performances here in Athens
happen on behalf of the family in front of fellow citizens, but performances at these
games on behalf of the city towards the whole of Greece. With this disposition, he was
not interested in the athletic events, although he was inferior to no one in physical
strength, for he knew that some athletes were of low descent or lived in unimportant
cities. He did take to breeding horses, an activity for the happy few, something that
would never be in the possibilities of an ordinary man. He not only outrivaled all his
opponents, but all the victors ever before him, for he sent so many chariots that even the
greatest cities could not participate with so many, and they were of such formidable
quality that he finished first, second and third. Moreover, he was so generous and
munificent at the offerings and the other expenses of the festival that everything what
the others spent with public money, seemed less than the expenses from his private
pocket. In this way he ended his visit to the games: he made the successes of his
predecessors look small against his, those who won in his time no longer received
admiration and for those who wished to breed horses in the future, 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 been many, owing to the
fact that the Greek hippodrome did not have a central spina and often raced large numbers of chariots.
What we do have is this description of a chariot crash from Sophocles tragedy Electra, describing a
crash at Delphi. It is told 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
to the foot-race which was first to be decided, he entered, a brilliant form, a wonder in
the eyes of all there; and, having finished his course at the point where it began, he went
out with the glorious share of victory. To speak briefly although there is much to tell, I
know not the man whose deeds and triumphs have matched his; but one thing you must
know: in all the contests that the judges announced, he took the prize and men thought
him happy as often as the herald proclaimed him an Argive, by name Orestes, son of
30
Agamemnon, who once gathered the famous army of Greece.28 Thus far, it was well; but,
when a god sends harm, not even a strong man can escape. For, on another day, when
chariots were to try their speed at sunrise, he entered along with many other charioteers.
One was an Achaean, one from Sparta, two masters of yoked chariots were Libyans;29
Orestes, driving Thessalian mares, came fifth among them; the sixth from Aetolia, with
chestnut colts; a Magnesian was the seventh; the eighth, with white horses, was of
Aenian stock; the ninth, from Athens, built by gods; there was a Boeotian too, driving the
tenth chariot.
They took their stations where the appointed judges placed them by lot and arranged the
chariot; then, at the sound of the brazen trumpet, they started. All shouted to their
horses, and shook the reins in their hands; the whole course was filled with the noise of
rattling chariots; the dust flew upward; and all, in a confused throng, plied their goads
unsparingly, each of them striving to pass the wheels and the snorting steeds of his
rivals; at their backs and at their rolling wheels the breath of the horses foamed and
struck them. Orestes, driving close to the pillar at either end of the course, almost grazed
it with his wheel each time, and, giving rein to the trace-horse on the right, checked the
horse on the inner side. Hitherto, all the chariots had escaped crashing; but presently the
Aenian's hard-mouthed colts ran away, and, swerving, as they passed from the sixth into
the seventh round, dashed their foreheads against the team of the Barcaean. Other
mishaps followed the first, shock on shock and crash on crash, till the whole race-ground
of Crisa was strewn with the wreck of the chariots.
Seeing this, the wary charioteer from Athens drew aside and paused, allowing the billow
of chariots, surging in mid-course, to go by. Orestes was driving last, keeping his horses
behind - for his trust was in the end; but when he saw that the Athenian was alone left in,
he sent a shrill cry ringing through the ears of his swift colts, and gave chase. Team was
brought level with team, and so they raced, first one man, then the other showing his
head in front of the 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 was caught in the reins; and, as he fell on the ground, his colts were
scattered into the middle of the course. But when the 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; 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.
Agamemnon was in charge of the Greek army that sailed to Troy; on his return his was murdered by
his wife Clytemnestra.
29 The Greeks had established colonies in North Africa, as well as Italy, Southern Gaul and a number of
other cities.
28
31
Sophocles, Electra 681-754.
32
Other equestrian events
Coin celebrating the victory of Anaxilas of Rhegium (S. Italy), 480/4 BCE) in the mule cart race. The
Olympics briefly added two equestrian events, the apene, a mule cart race and the kalpe, a trotting race
for mares, where the riders leapt off the horses and ran along side them for a portion of the race. The
mule cart race in particular was felt to be rather undignified; a poet once turned down a commission for
an Olympic victor in this event – until the victor offered him twice as much money.
Certain contests, too, have been dropped at Olympia, the Eleans resolving to discontinue
them. The pentathlon for boys was instituted at the thirty-eighth Festival; but after
Eutelidas of Sparta had received the wild olive for it, the Eleans disapproved of boys
entering for this competition. The races for mule-carts, and the trotting-race, were
instituted respectively at the seventieth Festival and the seventy-first, but were both
abolished by proclamation at the eighty-fourth. When they were first instituted, Thersius
of Thessaly won the race for mule-carts, while Pataecus, an Achaean from Dyme, won
the trotting-race. The trotting-race was for mares, and in the last part of the course the
riders jumped off and ran beside the mares, holding on to the bridle, just as at the
present day those do who are called andabatai. The andabata, however, differ from the
riders in the trotting-race by having different badges, and by riding stallions instead of
mares. The cart-race was neither very old nor yet a graceful performance. Moreover, each
cart was drawn by a pair of mules, not horses, and there is an ancient curse on the Eleans
if this animal is even born in Elis.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.9.1-2.
33
34
Horse racing was very dangerous: the Greeks had no stirrups nor anything like modern saddles, so you
were basically clinging on with your knees – which got harder the more horses sweated. The races were 6
laps of the courses – so the distances varied according to the length of the hippodrome. As Greek horses
were considerably smaller than ours, they were ridden by child jockeys (almost certainly slaves). So
unimportant were the jockeys considered that horses could win even if they threw their riders; we know
this from Pausanias’ discussion of a famous race in 512 BCE at the Olympic Games.
The mare of the Corinthian Pheidolas was called Aura [Breeze] according to the
Corinthians and at the beginning of the race she threw her rider. But nevertheless she
went on running properly, turned round the post, and, when she heard the trumpet,
quickened her pace, reached the judges first, realized that she had won and stopped
running. The Eleans proclaimed Pheidolas the winner and allowed him to dedicate 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 Athenian Xenophon (4th century BCE). It is
mainly about training horses for battle, but does incidentally give some information on riding and
training horses in general:
Nor must we omit another topic: how the rider is to accommodate himself to these
different movements. Thus, when the horse breaks off into a gallop, the rider ought to
bend forward, since the horse will be less likely to slip from under and so throw his rider
off. So again in pulling him up short the rider should lean back and thus escape a shock.
In leaping a ditch or tearing up a steep incline, it is no bad plan to let go the reins and
take hold of the mane, so that the animal may not feel the burden of the bit in addition to
that of the ground. In going down a steep incline the rider must throw himself right back
and hold in the horse with the bit, to prevent himself being hurled headforemost down
the slope himself if not his horse. It is a correct principle to vary these exercises, which
should be gone through sometimes in one place and sometimes in another, and should
sometimes be shorter and sometimes longer in duration. The horse will take much more
kindly to them if you do not confine him to one place and one routine. Since it is a matter
of prime necessity that the rider should keep his seat while galloping full speed on every
sort of ground, and at the same time be able to use his weapons effectively on horseback,
nothing could be better, where the country suits and there are wild animals, than to
practise horsemanship in combination with the chase. But when these resources fail, a
good exercise may be supplied in the combined efforts of two horsemen. One of them
will play the part of fugitive, retreating haphazardly over every sort of ground, with
lance reversed and plying the butt end. The other pursues, with covers on his javelins
and his lance. Whenever he comes within javelin range he lets fly at the retreating
foeman with his blunted missiles; or whenever within spear thrust he deals the
overtaken combatant a blow. In coming to close quarters, it is a good plan first to drag
the foeman towards oneself, and then on a sudden to thrust him off; that is a device to
bring him to the ground. The correct plan for the man so dragged is to press his horse
forward: by which action the man who is being dragged is more likely to unhorse his
assailant than to be brought to the ground himself…
35
How these desirable results are, in our opinion, to be produced, we will now try to
explain. In the first place, then, you ought to have at least two bits. One of these should
be smooth, with discs of a good size; the other should have heavy and flat discs studded
with sharp spikes, so that when the horse seizes it and dislikes the roughness he will
drop it; then when the smooth is given him instead, he is delighted with its smoothness,
and whatever he has learnt before upon the rough, he will perform with greater
eagerness on the smooth. He may certainly, out of contempt for its very smoothness,
perpetually try to get a purchase on it, and that is why we attach large discs to the
smooth bit, the effect of which is to make him open his mouth, and drop the mouthpiece.
It is possible to make the rough bit of every degree of roughness by keeping it slack or
taut….
To quote a saying of Simon,30 what a horse is forced to do he does blindly, and his
performance is no more beautiful than would be that of a dancer taught by whip and
goad. The performances of horse or man so treated would seem to be displays of clumsy
gestures rather than of grace and beauty. What we need is for the horse to display his
finest airs and paces 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 fine effect, you promptly dismount and take off the bit, you may rely upon it he
will of his own accord another time break into the same prancing action. Such are the
horses on which gods and heroes ride, as represented by the artist. The majesty of men
themselves is best discovered in the graceful handling of such animals. A horse so
prancing is indeed a thing of beauty, a wonder and a marvel; riveting the gaze of all who
see him, young and old. They will never turn their backs, I venture to predict, or weary
of their gazing so long as he continues to display his splendid action.
Xenophon, On Horsemanship excerpts
30
He also wrote a (now lost) work on training horses.
36
Greek Sports III: Athletes: their status and reputations:
Athletes might be treated with special regard even when taken prisoner as the following story by
Pausanias describes (though it does end badly for Doreius in the end):
Doreius the son of Diagoras won in addition to his Olympic titles eight victories at the
Isthmian Games and seven at the Nemean Games. It is said that he also won at the
Pythian games without having to fight.31 He and Peisirodos were proclaimed victors as
Thurians, because, banished from Rhodes by their political enemies, they went to Thurioi
in Italy. After a while Dorieus returned to Rhodes. Most clearly of all men this man
seems to have favoured the Spartans. He even fought with ships of his own against the
Athenians, until he was caught by Attic ships and brought to Athens alive. Before
Dorieus was brought to them, the Athenians were angry at him and threatened him.
When they were gathered in the assembly and saw such a great and famous man as a
prisoner, their opinion about him changed and they let him go, without treating him
badly at all, while it lay in their power to punish him severely according to the laws.
Androtion tells in his Attic history about the end of Dorieus: when the fleet of the king
was anchored in Caunos, with Conon as general, the Rhodians were persuaded by
Conon to leave the Spartans and ally with the king and the Athenians. Dorieus was away
from Rhodes at the moment, inland in the Peloponnesus. After he was caught by Spartan
men and brought to Sparta, he was convicted of treachery by the Spartans and sentenced
to death.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.7.4-6
Some athletes might even be considered more than human and receive heroic honours:
Not far from these kings stands the statue of Theagenes , the son of Timosthenes of
Thasos. The Thasians assert that Theagenes is not the son of Timosthenes. They say that
Timosthenes was a priest of the Thasian Heracles and that the spirit of Heracles, in the
form of Timosthenes, had sex with the mother of Theagenes. They say that when the boy
was nine years old, he returned home from school and saw on the marketplace a bronze
statue of a god. Because he liked the statue, he took it on his shoulder and brought it
home. The citizens were furious at him because of what he had done, but an man of
advanced age with great authority did not allow them to kill the boy and ordered him to
carry the statue from his house back to the market-place. When he had carried it, the boy
became famous for his strength and all over 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:
At the games previous to this it is said that Cleomedes of Astypalaea killed Iccus of
Epidaurus during a boxing-match. On being convicted by the judges of foul play and
being deprived of the prize he became mad through grief and returned to Astypalaea.
31
In other words his competitors withdrew rather than fight him.
37
Attacking a school there of about sixty children he pulled down the pillar which held up
the roof. This fell upon the children, and Cleomedes, pelted with stones by the citizens,
fled into the sanctuary of Athena. He entered a chest standing in the sanctuary and drew
down the lid. The Astypalaeans toiled in vain in their attempts to open the chest. At last,
however, they broke open the boards of the chest, but found no Cleomedes, either alive
or dead. So they sent envoys to Delphi to ask what had happened to Cleomedes. The
response given by the Pythian priestess 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 Cleomedes as a hero.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.9.6-8
One of the most legendary athletes was Milo of Croton,32 who reigned at the Olympics and other crown
games for some 30 years. In the following Pausanias describes Milo’s statue at 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 for wrestling at Olympia, one of them among the boys; at the
Pythian games he won six among the men and one among the boys. He came to Olympia
to wrestle for the seventh time, but did not succeed in mastering Timasitheus, a fellowcitizen who was also a young man, and who refused, moreover, to come to close quarters
with him. It is further stated that Milo carried his own statue into the Altis. His feats with
the pomegranate and the discus are also remembered by tradition. He would grasp a
pomegranate so firmly that nobody could wrest it from him by force, and yet he did not
damage it by pressure. He would stand upon a greased discus, and make fools of those
who charged him and tried to push him from the discus. He used to perform also the
following exhibition feats. He would tie a cord round his forehead as though it were a
ribbon or a crown. Holding his breath and filling with blood the veins on his head, he
would break the cord by the strength of these veins. It is said that he would let down by
his side his right arm from the shoulder to the elbow, and stretch out straight the arm
below the elbow, turning the thumb upwards, while the other fingers lay in a row. In this
position, then, the little finger was lowest, but nobody could bend it back by pressure.
They say that he was killed by wild beasts. The story has it that he came across in the
land of Croton a tree-trunk that was drying up; wedges were inserted to keep the trunk
apart. Milo in his pride thrust his hands into the trunk, the wedges slipped, and Milo
was held fast by the trunk until the wolves – a beast that roves in vast packs in the land
of Croton – ate him.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.14.5-8
Another legendary athlete was Polydamas, whose statue Pausanias also saw at Olympia:
32
Croton was a wealthy Greek town in Southern Italy.
38
The statue on the high pedestal is the work of Lysippus, and it represents the tallest of all
men except those called heroes and any other mortal race that may have existed before
the heroes. But this man, Polydamas the son of Nicias, is the tallest of our own era.
Scotussa, the native city of Polydamas, has now no inhabitants, for Alexander the tyrant
of Pherae seized it in time of truce. It happened that an assembly of the citizens was
being held, and those who were assembled in the theatre the tyrant surrounded with
targeteers and archers, and shot them all down; all the other grown men he massacred,
selling the women and children as slaves in order to pay his mercenaries. This disaster
befell Scotussa when Phrasicleides was archon at Athens, in the hundred and second
Olympiad, when Damon of Thurii was victor for the second time, and in the second year
of this Olympiad. The people that escaped remained but for a while, for later they too
were forced by their destitution to leave the city, when Heaven brought a second
calamity in the war with Macedonia.
Others have won glorious victories in the pankration, but Polydamas, besides his prizes
for the pankration, has to his credit the following exploits of a different kind. The
mountainous part of Thrace, on this side the river Nestus, which runs through the land
of Abdera, breeds among other wild beasts lions, which once attacked the army of
Xerxes, and mauled the camels carrying his supplies. These lions often roam right into
the land around Mount Olympus, one side of which is turned towards Macedonia, and
the other towards Thessaly and the river Peneius. Here on Mount Olympus Polydamas
killed a huge and powerful lion, without the help of any weapon. He was driven to do
this by an ambition to rival the labours of Heracles, because Heracles also, legend says,
killed the lion at Nemea.33
In addition to this, Polydamas is remembered for another wonderful performance. He
went among a herd of cattle and seized the biggest and fiercest bull by one of its hind
feet, holding fast the hoof in spite of the bull's leaps and struggles, until at last it put
forth all its strength and escaped, leaving the hoof in the grasp of Polydamas. It is also
said of him that he stopped a charioteer who was driving his chariot onwards at a great
speed. Seizing with one hand the back of the chariot he kept a tight hold on both horses
and driver. Darius, the bastard son of Artaxerxes, who with the support of the Persian
common people put down Sogdius, the legitimate son of Artaxerxes, and ascended the
throne in his stead, learning when he was king of the exploits of Polydamas sent
messengers with the promise of gifts and persuaded him to come before his presence at
Susa. There he challenged three of the Persians called Immortals34 to fight him – one
against three – and killed them. Of his exploits enumerated, some are represented on the
pedestal of the statue at Olympia, and others are set forth in the inscription.
But after all, the prophecy of Homer respecting those who glory in their strength was to
be fulfilled also in the case of Polydamas, and he too was fated to perish through his own
might. For Polydamas entered a cave with the rest of his boon companions. It was
summer-time, and, as ill-luck would have it, the roof of the cave began to crack. It was
obvious that it would quickly fall in, and could not hold out much longer. Realizing the
33
34
This was one of the foundations of Nemea.
These were a special select force in the Persian army.
39
disaster that was coming, the others turned and ran away; but Polydamas resolved to
remain, holding up his hands in the belief that he could prevent the falling in of the cave
and would not be crushed by the mountain. Here Polydamas met his end.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.5.1-9
However, athletes could also be mocked. They were considered gluttonous because in a culture where
most people lived on simple diet which relied on bread and olive oil, they lived largely off meat:
A man from Stymphalus, by name Dromeus [Runner], proved true to it in the long race,
for he won two victories at Olympia, two at the Pythian games, three at the Isthmian and
five at Nemea Games. He is said to have also conceived the idea of a flesh diet; up to this
time athletes had fed on cheese from the basket.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.7.10
The athlete Theagenes ate a bull on his own, as Poseidippos says in his epigrams: "On an
assembly I once ate a Maeonian ox, for my ancestral Thasos could not have supplied a
meal for Theagenes. Whatever I ate, I kept asking for more. For this reason I stand in
bronze, holding forth my hand." According to Theodorus of Hierapolis, in his book
about competitions, Milo of Croton used to eat twenty pounds of meat and bread and he
drank three jars of wine. In Olympia he lifted a four-year-old bull on his shoulders and
carried it around the stadion. Afterwards he cut it in pieces and ate in on his own in a
single day.
Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 10.412 d-f
Xenophon insisted that what philosophers contributed to the community was worth more than what
athletes did – and in turn he gives us a window in what athletes gained for their victories
If someone should win a victory thanks to the swiftness of his feet or when competing in
the pentathlon there in the sanctuary of Zeus by the streams of Pisa at Olympia, or gain
the prize in wrestling or painful boxing, or in that fearful contest people call pankration,
his fellow citizens would think him more glorious to look on than ever, and he would
gain from his polis the right to meals at public expense and a gift which would be his
personal treasure. And if his victory were won with horses, he would also gain all these
things, even though he is not as worthy as I. For our wisdom is better than the strength
of men or horses. For even if there were a good boxer among the citizens or one skilled in
the pentathlon or wrestling, or, indeed, even if there were a great sprinter, which holds
the front rank among the athletic achievements of men, the polis would still not be better
governed because of this. A polis would gain little joy if someone should win in
competition by the banks of the Pisa, for that victory would not fill its storehouses.
Xenophon: Hellenica, c. 370 BCE
40
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The Olympic Games
Click here for more images and information on the Olympic Games:
This was the oldest and greatest of the crown games: crown games were games in which you won not
money, but a crown. However, such was the prestige that a win in the in the Olympics was felt to bring
to a polis (city-state) that many offered rich rewards if you won. These rewards ranged from cash35 to
being fed at public expense for the rest of your life; you might also be freed from paying taxes. Olympia
was a sanctuary for Zeus, not a town, and was run by the town of Elis (with some interruptions when
other towns tried to seize, even leading at one point to fighting right among and in the temples. In his
Description of Greece Pausanias devoted two books to Olympia – more than to any other place he visited.
He starts his description of the place by describing the various origin stories for the games:
These things then are as I have described them. As for the Olympic Games, the most
learned antiquaries of Elis say that Cronus was the first king of heaven, and that in his
honor a temple was built in Olympia by the men of that age, who were named the
Golden Race. When Zeus was born, Rhea entrusted the guardianship of her son to the
Dactyls 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 his
brothers, as a game, in a running-race, and crowned the winner with a branch of wild
olive, of which they had such a copious supply that they slept on heaps of its leaves
while still green. It is said to have been introduced into Greece by Heracles from the land
of the Hyperboreans, men living beyond the home of the North Wind. Olen the Lycian,
in his hymn to Achaea, was the first to say that from these Hyperboreans Achaea came to
Delos. When Melanopus of Cyme composed an ode to Opis and Hecaerge declaring that
these, even before Achaea, came to Delos from the Hyperboreans. And Aristeas of
Proconnesus – for he too made mention of the Hyperboreans – may perhaps have learnt
even more about them from the Issedones, to whom he says in his poem that he came.
Heracles of Ida, therefore, has the reputation of being the first to have held, on the
occasion I mentioned, the games, and to have called them Olympic. So he established the
custom of holding them every fifth year, because he and his brothers were five in
number. 10. Now some say that Zeus wrestled here with Cronus himself for the throne,
while others say that he held the games in honor of his victory over Cronus. The record
of victors include Apollo, who outran Hermes and beat Ares at boxing. It is for this
reason, they say, that the Pythian flute-song is played while the competitors in the
pentathlon are jumping; for the flute-song is sacred to Apollo, and Apollo won Olympic
victories.
Later on there came (they say) from Crete Clymenus, the son of Cardys, about fifty years
after the flood came upon the Greeks in the time of Deucalion. He was descended from
Heracles of Ida; he held the games at Olympia and set up an altar in honor of Heracles,
his ancestor, and the other Curetes, giving to Heracles the surname of Parastates
[Assistant]. And Endymion, the son of Aethlius, deposed Clymenus, and set his sons a
race in Olympia with the kingdom as the prize. [And about a generation later than
In the 6th century BCE the Athenian politician Solon gave Athenians 500 drachmas if they won the
Olympics; 100 if they won the Isthmian Games.
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Endymion, Pelops held the games in honor of Olympian Zeus in a more splendid
manner than any of his predecessors. When the sons of Pelops were scattered from Elis
over all the rest of Peloponnesus, Amythaon, the son of Cretheus, and cousin of
Endymion on his father's side (for they say that Aethlius too was the son of Aeolus,
though supposed to be a son of Zeus), held the Olympian games, and after him Pelias
and Neleus in common.
Augeas too held them and Heracles, the son of Amphitryon, after the conquest of Elis.36
The victors crowned by Heracles include Iolaus, who won with the mares of Heracles. So
of old a competitor was permitted to compete with mares which were not his own.
Homer, at any rate, in the games held in honor of Patroclus, has told how Menelaus
drove a pair of which one was Aetha, a mare of Agamemnon, while the other was his
own horse. 4. Moreover, Iolaus used to be charioteer to Heracles. So Iolaus won the
chariot-race, and Iasius, an Arcadian, the horse-race; while of the sons of Tyndareus one
won the foot-race and Polydeuces the boxing-match. Of Heracles himself it is said that he
won victories at wrestling and the pankration.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.7.6-5.8.3
In the historical period the Olympic Games and Olympia were under the control of and governed by the
town of Elis (though that was contested by the citizens of Pisa, leading to battles right among the
temples ). Here Pausanias goes on to give the more recent history of the games, some of the order of
events, and when they were added or dropped.
After the reign of Oxylus, who also celebrated the games, the Olympic festival was
discontinued until the reign of Iphitus. When Iphitus, as I have already related, renewed
the games, men had by this time forgotten the ancient tradition, the memory of which
revived bit by bit, and as it revived they made additions to the games. This I can prove;
for when the unbroken tradition of the Olympiads began there was first the foot-race,
and Coroebus an Elean was victor. There is no statue of Coroebus at Olympia, but his
grave is on the borders of Elis. Afterwards, at the fourteenth Festival, the double stadion
was added: Hypenus of Pisa won the prize of wild olive in the double race, and at the
next Festival Acanthus of Sparta won in the long course. At the eighteenth Festival they
remembered the pentathlon and wrestling. Lampis won the first and Eurybatus the
second, these also being Spartans. At the twenty-third Festival they restored the prizes
for boxing, and the victor was Onomastus of Smyrna, which already was a part of Ionia.
At the twenty-fifth they recognized the race of full-grown horses, and Pagondas of
Thebes was proclaimed “victor in the chariot-race.” At the eighth Festival after this they
admitted the pankration for men and the horse-race. The horse-race was won by
Crauxidas of Crannon, and Lygdamis of Syracuse overcame all who entered for the
pankration. Lygdamis has his tomb near the quarries at Syracuse, and according to the
Syracusans he was as big as Heracles of Thebes, though I cannot vouch for the statement.
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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The contests for boys are not of ancient creation, but were established by the Eleans
themselves because they approved of them. The prizes for running and wrestling open to
boys were instituted at the thirty-seventh Festival; Hipposthenes of Sparta won the prize
for wrestling, and that for running was won by Polyneices of Elis. At the forty-first
Festival they introduced boxing for boys, and the winner out of those who entered for it
was Philytas of Sybaris. The race for men in armour was approved at the sixty-fifth
Festival, to provide, I suppose, military training; the first winner of the race with shields
was Damaretus of Heraea. The race for two full-grown horses, called synoris, was
instituted at the ninety-third Festival, and the winner was Evagoras of Elis. At the ninetyninth Festival they resolved to hold contests for chariots drawn by foals, and Sybariades
of Sparta won the garland with his chariot and foals. Afterwards they added races for
chariots and pairs of foals, and for single foals with rider. It is said that the victors
proclaimed were: for the chariot and pair, Belistiche, a woman from the seaboard of
Macedonia; for the ridden race, Tlepolemus of Lycia. Tlepolemus, they say, won at the
hundred and thirty-first Festival, and Belistiche at the third before this. At the hundred
and forty-fifth Festival prizes were offered for boys in the pankration, the victory falling
to Phaedimus, an Aeolian from the city Troas.
Certain contests, too, have been dropped at Olympia, the Eleans resolving to discontinue
them. The pentathlon for boys was instituted at the thirty-eighth games; but after
Eutelidas of Sparta had received the wild olive for it, the Eleans disapproved of boys
entering for this competition. 37 The races for mule-carts, and the trotting-race, were
added respectively at the seventieth Festival and the seventy-first, but were both
abolished by proclamation at the eighty-fourth. When they were first instituted, Thersius
of Thessaly won the race for mule-carts, while Pataecus, an Achaean from Dyme, won
the trotting-race. The trotting-race was for mares, and in the last part of the course the
riders jumped off and ran beside the mares, holding on to the bridle, just as at the
present day those do who are called aphobatai. The mounters, however, differ from the
riders in the trotting-race by having different badges, and by riding horses instead of
mares. The cart-race was neither of venerable antiquity nor yet a graceful performance.
Moreover, each cart was drawn by a pair of mules, not horses, and there is an ancient
curse on the Eleans if this animal is even born in Elis.
The order of the games in our own day, which places the sacrifices to the god for the
pentathlon and chariot-races second, and those for the other competitions first, was fixed
at the seventy-seventh Festival. Previously the contests for men and for horses were held
on the same day. But at the Festival I mentioned the pankratiasts prolonged their
contests till night-fall, because they were not summoned to the arena soon enough. The
cause of the delay was partly the chariot-race, but still more the pentathlon. Callias of
Athens was champion of the pankratiasts on this occasion, but never afterwards was the
pankration to be interfered with by the pentathlon or the chariots. The rules for the
presidents of the games are not the same now as they were at the first institution of the
festival. Iphitus acted as sole president, as likewise did the descendants of Oxylus after
Iphitus. But at the fiftieth Festival two men, appointed by lot from all the Eleans, were
I would give a great deal to know what actually happened that caused them to only run this event
once.
37
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entrusted with the management of the Olympic Games, and for a long time after this the
number of the presidents continued to be two. But at the ninety-fifth Festival nine judges
were appointed. To three of them were entrusted the chariot-races, another three were to
supervise the pentathlon, the rest superintended the remaining contests. At the second
Festival after this the tenth umpire was added. At the hundred and third Festival, the
Eleans having twelve tribes, one umpire was chosen from each. 5.9.6 But they were hard
pressed in a war with the Arcadians and lost a portion of their territory, along with all
the parishes included in the surrendered district, and so the number of tribes was
reduced to eight in the hundred and fourth Olympiad. Thereupon were chosen judges
equal in number to the tribes. At the hundred and eighth Festival they returned again to
the number of ten judges, which has continued unchanged down to the present day.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.8-9.
Unlike other games Olympia insisted that athletes turned up and trained at Elis for 30 days before the
Olympics. Those who were late by their own fault could be fined or refused the chance to compete;
during those 30 days some were counselled to drop out; others chose to do so voluntarily after they saw
what their competition would be. Pausanias describes the gymnasia and other features of the town.
One of the noteworthy things in Elis is an old gymnasium. In this gymnasium the
athletes go through the training through which they must pass before going to Olympia.
High plane-trees grow between the tracks inside a wall. The whole of this enclosure is
called Xystus, because an exercise of Heracles, the son of Amphitryon, was to scrape up
each day all the thistles that grew there. The track for the competing runners, called by
the natives the Sacred Track, is separate from that on which the runners and pentathletes
practise. In the gymnasium is the place called Plethrium. In it the judges match the
competitors according to age and skill; it is for wrestling that they match them. There are
also in the gymnasium altars of the gods, of Idaean Heracles, surnamed Comrade, of
Love, of the deity called by Eleans and Athenians alike Love Returned, of Demeter and
of her daughter. Achilles has no altar, only a cenotaph raised to him because of an oracle.
On an appointed day at the beginning of the festival, when the course of the sun is
sinking towards the west, the Elean women do honor to Achilles, especially by bewailing
him.
There is another enclosed gymnasium, but smaller, adjoining the larger one and called
Square because of its shape. Here the athletes practise wrestling, and here, when they
have no more wrestling to do, they are matched in contests with the softer gloves. There
is also dedicated here one of the images made in honor of Zeus out of the fines imposed
upon Sosander of Smyrna and upon Polyctor of Elis.
There is also a third enclosed gymnasium, called Maltho from the softness of its floor,
and reserved for the youths for the whole time of the festival. In a corner of the Maltho is
a bust of Heracles as far as the shoulders, and in one of the wrestling-schools is a relief
showing Love and Love Returned, as he is called. Love holds a palm-branch, and Love
Returned is trying to take the palm from him. On each side of the entrance to the Maltho
stands an image of a boy boxer. He was by birth, so the Guardian of the Laws at Elis told
me, from Alexandria over against the island Pharos, and his name was Sarapion; arriving
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at Elis when the townsfolk were suffering from famine he supplied them with food. For
this reason these honours were paid him here. The time of his crown at Olympia and of
his benefaction to the Eleans was the two hundred and seventeenth Festival.
In this gymnasium is also the Elean Council House, where take place exhibitions of
extempore speeches and recitations of written works of all kinds. It is called Lalichmium,
after the man who dedicated it. About it are dedicated shields, which are for show and
not made to be used in war. The way from the gymnasium to the baths passes through
the Street of Silence and beside the sanctuary of Artemis Philomeirax. The goddess is so
surnamed because she is neighbour to the gymnasium; the street received, they say, the
name of Silence for the following reason. Men of the army of Oxylus were sent to spy out
what was happening in Elis. On the way they exhorted each other, when they should be
near the wall, themselves to keep a strict silence, but to listen attentively if perchance
they might learn anything from the people in the town. These men by this street reached
the town unobserved, and after hearing all they wished they went back again to the
Aetolians. So the street received its name from the silence of the spies. One of the two
ways from the gymnasium leads to the market-place, and to what is called the Umpires'
Room; it is above the grave of Achilles, and by it the judges go to the gymnasium. They
enter before sunrise to match the runners, and at midday for the pentathlon and for such
contests as are called heavy.
Pausanias 6.23.1-6.24.1
After their stay at Elis, all the athletes, the judges, many of the audience, and all the horses marched out
to Olympia. On arrival at Olympia athletes and judges swore a great oath to Olympian Zeus at his
statue in the council house (the bouleterion):
The Zeus in the council house is made to frighten the unjust more than any other statue
of Zeus. He is called Zeus Horkios [of the oath] and carries a thunderbolt in each hand.
It is a habit for the athletes, their fathers and brothers, and also their trainers to swear at
this statue on wild boar meat that they will commit no offence to the Olympic Games. In
addition, the adult athletes swear that they have trained for ten months without
interruption. The judges who examine the boys and foals swear that they will judge
according to the law and without receiving bribes 38 and that they will keep secret
everything about the candidate, admitted or not.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.24.9-10
I must adopt what they say at the Olympics to you, my brave friends; and the following
is an Olympic exordium. When the Olympic Games are about to happen the people of
Elis train the athletes for thirty days in their own country. In the same way, when the
Pythian games approach, the natives of Delphi; and when the Isthmian, the Corinthians
assemble them and say: 'Go now into the arena and prove yourselves men worthy of
victory.’
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 than a man; the same went for foals.
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Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyre 5.43
All of those who competed at the games were Greeks (non-Greeks were not allowed to take part, though
when the Romans came along they were accepted as Greeks). Ordinary Macedonians could not compete
in the Olympics as they were not considered Greek; the royal family, however, claimed descent from
Achilles and could compete as they were considered Greek:
Now that these descendants of Perdiccas are Greeks, as they themselves say, I myself
chance to know and will prove it in the later part of my history. Furthermore, the judges
who manage the contest at Olympia determined that it is so for when Alexander39 chose
to contend and entered the lists for that purpose, the Greeks who were to run against
him wanted to bar him from the race, saying that the contest should be for Greeks and
not for foreigners. Alexander, however, proving himself to be an Argive, was judged to
be a Greek. He accordingly competed in the furlong race and tied step for first 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 modern Olympics, some
athletes were lured to run for cities other than their own, as the following set of anecdotes from
Pausanias show:
After Hysmon comes the statue of a boy wrestler from Heraea in Arcadia, Nicostratus
the son of Xenocleides. Pantias was the artist, and if you count the teachers you will find
five between him and Aristocles of Sicyon. Dicon, the son of Callibrotus, won five
footraces at The Pythian games, three at the Isthmian Games, four at Nemea, one at
Olympia in the race for boys besides two in the men's race. Statues of him have been set
up at Olympia equal in number to the races he won. When he was a boy he was
proclaimed a native of Caulonia, as in fact he was. But afterwards he was bribed to
proclaim himself a Syracusan. The statue of Cyniscus, the boy boxer from Mantinea, was
made by Polycleitus. Ergoteles, the son of Philanor, won two victories in the long footrace at Olympia, and two at the Pythian, Isthmian and Nemean Games. The inscription
on the statue states that he came originally from Himera; but it is said that this is
incorrect, and that be was a Cretan from Cnossos. Expelled from Cnossos by a political
party he came to Himera, was given citizenship and won many honours besides. It was
accordingly natural for him to be proclaimed at the games as a native of Himera.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.4.10-11
Sotades at the ninety-ninth Festival was victorious in the long race and proclaimed a
Cretan, as in fact he was. But at the next Festival he made himself an Ephesian, being
bribed to do so by the Ephesian people. For this act he was banished by the Cretans
Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.18.6
39
Not the famous Alexander the Great, but Alexander I, king of Macedon from c.492-450 BCE.
47
Olympia had two age classes: boys and men. There was an obvious advantage in being placed in the
younger class, even if winning in the older class held more prestige, because the competition was less
fierce (people did not like their young sons to travel and possibly run into all sorts of shocking behaviour
at Olympia, which was incredibly crowded and full of parties during the Olympics games. Because there
were no birth certificates in ancient Greece, some tried to pass themselves off as younger than they were
to compete in the boys’ category. Boys might be quite young when they competed:
Beside this is the Messenian Damiscus, who won an Olympic victory at the age of
twelve. I was extremely surprised to learn that while the Messenians were in exile from
the Peloponnesus, their luck at the Olympic Games failed. For with the exception of
Leontiscus and Symmachus, who came from Messene on the Strait, we know of no
Messenian, either from Sicily or from Naupactus, who won a victory at Olympia. Even
these two are said by the Sicilians to have been not Messenians but of old Zanclean
blood.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.2.10
Although the Eleans claimed to be impartial, they were judges in events where people from their own
city state competed. Some people wondered if that were possibl,e as the following story from the Greek
historian Herodotus shows:
While Psammis was king of Egypt, there came to him men sent by the Eleans, who
boasted that they ordered the contest at Olympia in the most just and honourable
manner possible and thought that not even the Egyptians, the wisest of men, could find
out anything besides, to be added to their rules. Now when the Eleans came to Egypt
and said that for which they had come, then this king called together those of the
Egyptians who were reputed the wisest, and when the Egyptians had come together they
heard the Eleans tell of all that which it was their part to do in regard to the contest; and
when they had related everything, they said that they had come to learn in addition
anything which the Egyptians might be able to find out besides, which was juster than
this. They then having consulted together asked the Eleians whether their own citizens
took part in the contest; and they said that it was permitted to any one who desired it,
both of their own people and of the other Hellenes equally, to take part in the contest:
upon which the Egyptians said that in so ordering the games they had wholly missed the
mark of justice; for it could not be but that they would take part with the man of their
own State, if he was contending, and so act unfairly to the stranger: but if they really
desired, as they said, to order the games justly, and if this was the cause for which they
had come to Egypt, they advised them to order the contest so as to be for strangers alone
to contend in, and that no Elean should be permitted to contend. Such was the
suggestion made by the Egyptians to the Eleans.
Herodotus, Histories 2.160
Cheating did occur at the Olympics and took various forms. The Eleans were sometimes suspected of
giving preference to their own, and it became worse when one of the officials in charge of the festival was
competing:
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The inscription on Cleogenes the son of Silenus declares that he was a native, and that he
won a prize with a riding-horse from his own private stable. Hard by Cleogenes are set
up Deinolochus, son of Pyrrhus, and Troilus, son of Alcinous. These also were both
Eleans by birth, though their victories were not the same. Troilus, at the time that he was
umpire, succeeded in winning victories in the chariot-races, one for a chariot drawn by a
full-grown pair and another for a chariot drawn by foals. The date of his victories was
the hundred and second Festival.2
After this the Eleans passed a law that in future no umpire was to compete in the chariotraces. The statue of Troilus was made by Lysippus.
Pausanias, Description of Greece, 6.1.4-5
Cities and rulers went around trying to attract runners to compete for them:
By the statue of Thrasybulus stands Timosthenes of Elis, winner of the foot-race for boys,
and Antipater of Miletus, son of Cleinopater, conqueror of the boy boxers. Men of
Syracuse, who were bringing a sacrifice from Dionysius to Olympia, tried to bribe the
father of Antipater to have his son proclaimed as a Syracusan. But Antipater, thinking
naught of the tyrant's gifts, proclaimed himself a Milesian and wrote upon his statue that
he was of Milesian descent and the first Ionian to dedicate his statue at Olympia.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.2.6
Before any athletic events were held, there were contests for trumpeters and heralds. The winners were
considered as Olympic victors, just like those who competed in the athletic competitions. However, after
they won they had to work during the rest of the Olympics announcing events and the winners of those
events
There is in the Altis an altar near the entrance leading to the stadium. On it the Eleans do
not sacrifice to any of the gods, but it is customary for the trumpeters and heralds to
stand upon it when they compete. By the side of this altar has been built a pedestal of
bronze, and on it is an image of Zeus, about six cubits in height, with a thunderbolt in
either hand. It was dedicated by the people of Cynaetha.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.22.1
Surprisingly for such a prestigious and important event in the Greek world we’re not certain of the order
of events at the Olympics; it changed over time and could be rearranged after issues with the last
Olympics, or sometimes for an athlete who was competing in more than one sport
The present-day program of the games (offering to the god after the pentathlon and the
horse-races but before the other contests) was fixed in the 77th Olympiad (472 BCE).
Before that Olympiad, they held the games for horses and men on the same day. But then
the pankratiasts continued into the night because they were not called up in time. The
cause of this were the horse races and even more the pentathlon contest. The Athenian
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Kallias won the victory in the pankration, but henceforth the pentathlon and the horse
races would never again hold up the pankration
Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.9.3
Celebrating Victory at the Olympics:
Victors might pay to have a victory ode written in their honour. The premier writer of such odes was
Pindar, who charged a hefty price to write for you, but it was worth it to have not only everlasting fame,
but an ode that could be brought back to your city and performed as you entered it in glory (and
presumably on other occasions when you wanted to remind people of your athletic fame). The following
odes were all written for Olympic victors; Pindar also wrote for victors of the Nemean, Pythian and
Isthmian Games.
May I find suitable speech for my journey in the Muses' chariot; and let me now have daring
and powers of ample scope. To back the prowess of a friend I came, when Lampromachos won
his Isthmian crown, when on the same day both he and his brother overcame. And afterwards
at the gates of Corinth two triumphs again befell Epharmostos and more in the valleys of
Nemea. At Argos he triumphed over men, as over boys at Athens. And I might tell how at
Marathon he stole from among the beardless and confronted the full-grown for the prize of
silver vessels, how without a fall he threw his men with swift and coming shock, and how loud
the shouting pealed when round the ring he ran, in the beauty of his youth and fair form and
fresh from fairest deeds.
No. 9
Great is the glory stored for Olympian winners; and so my shepherd tongue is trying to keep
some part held back. But only by the help of Zeus is wisdom kept ever blooming in the soul.
Son of Archestratos, Agesidamos, know certainly that for your boxing I will lay a glory of
sweet strains upon your crown of golden olive and will have in remembrance the race of the
Locrians in the west.
No. 10
Who then won to their lot the new-appointed crown by hands or feet or chariot, setting before
them the prize of glory in the games, and winning it by their act? Likymnios' son Oionos first
in the foot-race down the straight course of the stadion, from Nodea had he led his host: in the
wrestling was Tegea glorified by Echemos: Doryklos won the prize of boxing, a dweller in the
city of Tiryns, and with the four-horse chariot, Samos of Mantinea, Halirrhotios' son: with the
javelin Phrastor hit the mark: in distance Enikeus beyond all others hurled the stone with a
circling sweep, and all the warrior company thundered a great applause. Then on the evening
the lovely shining of the fair-faced moon beamed forth and the whole precinct sounded with
songs of festal glee, after the manner which is to this day for triumph.
No. 11
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Also two parsley-wreaths shadowed his head before the people at the games of Isthmus, nor
does Nemea tell a different tale. And of his father Thessalos' lightning feet is recorded by the
streams of Alpheos, and at the Pythian Games he has renown for the single and for the double
stadion gained both in a single day, and in the same month at rocky Pan-Athenaios a day of
swiftness crowned his hair for three illustrious deeds, and the Hellotia seven times, and at the
games of Poseidon between seas longer hymns followed his father Ptoiodoros with Terpsias
and Eritimos. And how often you were first at Delphi or in the Pastures of the Lion, though
with full many do I match your crowd of honours, yet can I no more surely tell than the tale of
pebbles on the sea-shore.
No. 13
The Heraia, Women, and Athletics
At Olympia, after the men’s events were finished, there was a contest for girls. We are not sure how
many took part and if they were mainly locals or if some came with their families for the male members
to compete in the Olympics and the girls to compete in the Heraia – our only source is Pausanias and we
don’t have any secure victory images (although some have been suggested).
Every four years the sixteen women [of Elis] weave a robe for Hera. The same women
organize the Heraia. The games consist of a foot-race for girls. These girls are not all of
the same age. The youngest run first, the second age-categories after them and the oldest
girls run last. They run as follows: their hair is let down and their tunic reaches to a little
above the knee. They bare the right shoulder as far as their breasts. The Olympic stadion
is reserved for their games and its length is shortened by about a sixth. To the winners
they give olive crowns and a part of the cow which is sacrificed to Hera. They can also
dedicate painted portraits.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.2-4
Married women were not allowed to watch the Olympic Games - though those who had never been
married were. Given the reputation the Olympics had for drunkenness and wild behaviour (especially
the further you got away from the Altis), this is a little surprising, and we have no way of knowing how
many girls were there with their families. The penalty for being found as a married woman watching the
games was death. But one enterprising mother passed herself off as a male trainer to accompany her son
to the Olympics and watch him compete and managed to escape the death penalty because of her son’s
victory and because her father and brothers had also won at Olympia:
As you go from Scillus along the road to Olympia, before you cross the Alpheios, there is
a mountain with high, precipitous cliffs. It is called Mount Typaeum. It is a law of Elis to
throw any women who are caught present at the Olympic Games off it, or even on the
other side of the Alpheios, on the days prohibited to women. However, they say that 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 a
gymnastic trainer and brought her son to compete at Olympia. Peisirodus, for so her son
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was called, was victorious, and Callipateira, as she was jumping over the enclosure in
which they keep the trainers shut up exposed her person. So her gender was discovered,
but they let her go unpunished out of respect for her father, her brothers, and her son, all
of whom had been victorious at Olympia. But a law was passed that in the future
trainers should strip before entering the arena.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.6.7-8
The only sports that women could compete at the Olympics were the equestrian events: although they
did not drive their chariots or ride their horses, they could still send teams, and those whose teams won
were considered and celebrated as Olympic victors:
Archidamus left sons when he died, of whom Agis was the elder and inherited the
throne instead of Agesilaus. Archidamus had also a daughter, whose name was Cynisca;
she was exceedingly ambitious to win at the Olympic Games, and was the first woman to
breed horses and the first to win an Olympic victory. After Cynisca other women,
especially Spartan women, have won Olympic victories, but none of them was 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 this inscription:
My forefathers and brothers are kings of Sparta
I, Cyniska, was victorious with my team of swift horses,
and I have erected this statue. I may say that I am the only woman
in all of Greece to have obtained this garland.
Palatine Anthology 13.16
According to another source, the real motivating force was her brother, the Spartan king Agesilaus, who
had her enter the chariot races to show that all there was to winning these races was money and not
athletic ability:
However, on seeing that some of the citizens regarded themselves highly and were all
puffed up because they bred racing horses, he persuaded his sister Cynisca to enter a
chariot in the Olympic Games, wishing to show the Greeks that the victory there was not
a mark of any great excellence, but simply of wealth and lavish outlay.
Plutarch, Life of Agesilaus 20.1
Whatever the truth of the matter Cynisca had a hero shrine at Sparta, honouring her achievements:
At Plane-tree Grove there is also a hero-shrine of 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-
52
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 (something which made
Sparta a popular tourist destination for Romans):
Lycurgus pursued a different path. Clothes were things, he held, the furnishing of which
might well enough be left to female slaves.40 And, believing that the highest function of a
free woman was the bearing of children, in the first place he insisted on the training of
the body as incumbent no less on the female than the male; and in pursuit of the same
idea instituted rival contests in running and feats of strength for women as for men. His
belief was that where both parents were strong their progeny would be found to be more
vigorous.
Xenophon, Spartan Constitution 1.4
However, there is relatively little evidence for sporting competitions for Spartan women:
Opposite is what is called the Knoll, with a temple of Dionysus of the Knoll, by which is
a precinct of the hero who they say guided Dionysus on the way to Sparta. To this hero
sacrifices are offered before they are offered to the god by the daughters of Dionysus and
the daughters of Leucippus. For the other eleven ladies who are named daughters of
Dionysus there is held a footrace; this custom came to Sparta from Delphi.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 3.13.7
The following inscription from 47 CE records the remarkable feats of three young women who
competed all over the Greek world; it was discovered at Delphi on a base that once held the statues of
the three sisters it mentions. This inscription is a subject of contention because it suggests that some
women competed directly against 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 as well as of
Athens 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 Pythian Games in the stadion when
Antigonos and Cleomachidas sponsored41 the games, and the following Isthmian Games
when Iouventios Proklos did the same there. For Hedea, who won the chariot race in
armor at the Isthmian Games when Cornelius Pulcher was the sponsor, and the stadion
In some city states (Athens in particular) Greek women spent most of their time indoors, and weaving
was their main activity. The Spartans, however, had enslaved the surrounding populations so thus did
not need to do domestic or agricultural labour.
41 The Greek word that I translate as sponsor can also refer to the person in charge of the games as well.
40
53
at the Nemean Games when Antigonos was sponsor and at Sicyon when Menoitas was
sponsor. She also won the lyre singing in the boys’ category at the Sebasteia in Athens
when Nouios son of Philinos was sponsor. For Dionysia, who won the Isthmian Games
when Antigonos was sponors, and the stadion in the games of Asclepius at the holy
town of Epidauros when Nicoteles was sponsor.
SIG 802
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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 (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 their crowns were
mad of
There are four games in Greece, four sacred games,
Two celebrate mortals, two immortals:
Zeus, the son of Leto, Palaimon and Archemoros.
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 let us put an end to these solemn
gathering at tombs - the Isthmian, Nemean, Pythian, and, above all, the Olympian
games. At the Pythian games they worship the Pythian serpent,42 and the gathering held
in honour of this snake is entitled Pythian. At the Isthmus the sea cast up a miserable
carcass, and the Isthmian Games are lamentations for Melicertes. At Nemea another, a
child Archemorus, lies buried, and it is the celebrations held at the grave of this child
that are called by the name Nemean. And Pisa – mark it, you Panhellenic peoples! – your
Pisa is the tomb of a Phrygian charioteer, and the libations poured out for Pelops, which
constitute the Olympian festivities, are appropriated by the Zeus of Phidias.43
Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks 1
The Pythian games were held in Apollo’s sanctuary at Delphi. They are notable in that they had both
artistic and athletic competitions, which fits with Apollo’s identity as the god of music and the arts; they
also seem to have had some sort of arrangement with the Olympics, because the person who won the
flute-playing competition at Delphi played the flute during the long-jump at the Olympics. Plutarch,
who was a priest at Delphi, reports a discussion about getting rid of newer additions to the Pythian
games and gives us a good account of the various events that took place there. One interesting upshot of
adding artistic events was that women could and did compete directly with men in these:
At the Pythian games there was a discussion about taking away all the sports which had
recently crept in and were not there from ancient times. For after they had taken in the
tragedian in addition to the three ancient music competitions, which were as old as the
Apollo killed a giant serpent called Pytho to get control of the Delphic Oracle.
The great statue of Zeus at Olympia was sculpted by Phidias (you can still see the remains of his
workshop): it was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
42
43
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games themselves, the Pythian flute-player, the lyre player, and the singer to the lyre, as
if a large gate were opened, they could not keep out an infinite crowd of plays and
musical entertainments of all sorts that rushed in after him. Which indeed made no
unpleasant variety, and increased the company, but impaired the gravity and neatness of
the games. Besides it must create a great deal of trouble to the judges, and considerable
dissatisfaction to very many, since only a few could win. It was agreed upon that the
orators and poets should be got rid of – this decision did not come from any hatred of
learning, but as these contenders are the most noted and worthiest men of all, they
admired them, and were troubled that, when they must judge every one deserving, they
could not give the prize equally to all. I, as I was there at this discussion, dissuaded those
who were for removing things from their present settled order and who thought this
variety as unsuitable to the games as many strings and many notes to an instrument.
When the same subject was talked about at supper, as Petraeus the president and
director of the sports, was entertaining us, I defended music, and maintained that poetry
was no upstart intruder, but that had been admitted into the sacred games in the dim
and distant past, and crowns were given to the best performer. Some guests imagined
that I intended to produce some old musty stories, like the funeral games of Oeolycus the
Thessalian or of Amphidamas the Chalcidean, at which they say Homer and Hesiod
contended for the prize. But passing by these instances as the common theme of every
grammarian, as likewise their criticisms who, in the description of Patroclus’ obsequies
in Homer, read ϱ̔ήμονες, orators, and not ϱ̔’ ἥ μονες, darters, as if Achilles had proposed a
prize for the best speaker — omitting all these, I said that Acastus at his father Pelias’
funeral set a prize for contending poets, and Sibylla won it. At this, a great many
demanded some authority for this unlikely and incredible story, I happily recollecting
myself produced Acesander, who has this story in his description of Africa; but I must
confess this is not an easy to find book. But Polemo the Athenian’s Commentary of the
Treasures of Delphi, which I suppose most of you have read through and through as he is
a very learned man and diligent in the Greek antiquities. In him you shall find that in the
Sicyonian treasure there was a golden book dedicated to the god, with this inscription:
“Aristomache, the poetess of Erythraea, dedicated this after she had won the prize at the
Isthmian Games.” Nor is there any reason, I continued, why we should so admire and
reverence the Olympic Games, as if, like Fate, they were unalterable, and never admitted
any change since the first institution. For the Pythian Games, it is true, has had three or
four musical prizes added; but all the exercises of the body were for the most part the
same from the beginning. But in the Olympian games everything except running is a late
addition. They added some and abolished them again; such were the apene,44 either rode
or in a chariot, as likewise the crown appointed for boys that were victorious in the
pentathlon. And, in short, 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:
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.
44
56
The oldest contest and the one for which they first offered prizes was, according to
tradition, the singing of a hymn to the god. The man who sang and won the prize was
Chrysothemis of Crete, whose father Carmanor is said to have cleansed Apollo. After
Chrysothemis, says tradition, Philammon won with a song, and after him his son
Thamyris. But they say that Orpheus, a proud man and conceited about his mysteries,
and Musaeus, who copied Orpheus in everything, refused to submit to the competition
in musical skill. They say too that Eleuther won a Pythian victory for his loud and sweet
voice, for the song that he sang was not of his own composition. The story is that Hesiod
too was forbidden to compete because he had not learned to accompany his own singing
on the lyre. Homer too came to Delphi to inquire about his needs, but even though he
had learned to play the lyre, he would have found the skill useless owing to the loss of
his eye-sight.
In the third year of the forty-eighth Olympiad, at which Glaucias of Croton was
victorious, the Amphictyons45 held contests for playing the lyre as from the beginning,
but added competitions for flute-playing and for singing to the flute. The conquerors
proclaimed were Melampus, a Cephallenian, for playing the lyre, and Echembrotus, an
Arcadian, for singing to the flute, with Sacadas of Argos for flute-playing. This same
Sacadas won victories at the next two Pythian festivals. On that occasion they also
offered for the first time prizes for athletes, the competitions being the same as those at
Olympia, except the four-horse chariot, and the Delphians themselves added to the
contests running-races for boys, the long course and the double course. At the second
Pythian Festival they no longer offered prizes for events, and hereafter gave a crown for
victory. On this occasion they no longer included singing to the flute, thinking that the
music was ill-omened to listen to. For the tunes of the flute were most dismal, and the
words 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:
Echembrotus of Arcadia dedicated this pleasant gift to Heracles
When 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 was dropped. But they added a
chariot-race, and Cleisthenes, the tyrant of Sicyon, was proclaimed victor in the chariotrace.
At the eighth Pythian Festival they added a contest for lyre players playing without
singing; Agelaus of Tegea was crowned. At the twenty-third Pythian Festival they added
the hoplitodromos. For this Timaenetus of Phlius won the laurel, five Olympiads after
Damaretus of Heraea was victorious. At the forty-eighth Pythian Festival they
established a race for two-horse chariots, and the chariot won of Execestides the Phocian.
At the fifth Festival after this they yoked foals to a chariot, and the chariot of Orphondas
of Thebes came in first. The pankration for boys, a race for a chariot drawn by two foals,
45
The people in charge of the Pythian games
57
and a race for ridden foals, were introduced from Elis many years. The first was brought
in at the sixty-first Pythian Festival, and Iolaidas of Thebes was victorious. At the next
Festival but one they held a race for a ridden foal, and at the sixty-ninth Festival a race
for a chariot drawn by two foals; the victor proclaimed for the former was Lycormas of
Larisa, for the latter Ptolemy the Macedonian. For the kings of Egypt liked to be called
Macedonians, as in fact they were. The reason why a crown of laurel is the prize for a
Pythian victory is in my opinion simply and solely because the prevailing tradition has it
that Apollo fell in love with the daughter of Ladon.46
Pausanias, Description of Greece 10.7.4-8
There was anciently a contest held at Delphi, of players on the cithara, who executed a
paean in honor of the god. It was instituted by the Delphians. But after the Crisaean war
the amphictyons, in the time of Eurylochus, established contests for horses and
gymnastic sports, in which the victor was crowned. These were called Pythian games, in
addition to the musical contests.
Strabo, Geography c. 20 CE
The Isthmian Games, like the other games, had their own foundation story.
There are legends about the rocks, which rise especially at the narrow part of the road.
As to the Molurian, it is said that from it Ino flung her self into the sea with Melicertes,
the younger of her children. Learchus, the elder of them, had been killed by his father.
One account is that Athamas did this in a fit of madness; another is that he vented on Ino
and her children unbridled rage when he learned that the famine which befell the
Orchomenians and the supposed death of Phrixus were not accidents from heaven, but
that Ino, the step-mother, had intrigued for all these things.[1.44.8] Then it was that she
fled to the sea and cast herself and her son from the Molurian Rock. The son, they say,
was landed on the Corinthian Isthmus by a dolphin, and honors 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 and athletes from Elis did
not compete in the Isthmian Games. This feud was traced back to mythical times:
When she discovered him, the Eleians demanded satisfaction for the crime from the
people of Argos, for at the time Heracles had his home at Tiryns. When the Argives
refused them satisfaction, the Eleians as an alternative pressed the Corinthians entirely to
exclude the people of Argos from the Isthmian Games. When they failed in this also,
Moline is said to have laid curses on her countrymen, should they refuse to boycott the
Isthmian festival. The curses of Molione are respected right down to the present day, and
no athlete of Elis competes in the Isthmian Games.
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.
46
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Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.8.3
The popularity of the Isthmian Games and its very convenient location led to Nero using it to announce
the freedom of Greece when he doing his tour of the games. (Freedom in this case meant local selfgovernment and freedom from taxation, rather than 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 sweat from his brow with his arm. Once, indeed, during the
performance of a tragedy, when he had dropped his sceptre but quickly recovered it, he
was terribly afraid that he might be excluded from the competition because of his slip,
and his confidence was restored only when his accompanist swore that it had passed
unnoticed amid the delight and applause of the people. When he won he made the
announcement himself; and for that reason he always took part in the contests of the
heralds. To obliterate the memory of all other victors in the games and leave no trace of
them, their statues and busts were all thrown down by his order, dragged off with hooks,
and cast into toilets. He also drove a chariot in many places, and a ten-horse chariot team
at Olympia, although in one of his own poems he had criticized Mithridates for just that
thing. But after he had been thrown from the car and put back in it, he was unable to
hold out and gave up before the end of the course; but he received the crown just the
same. On his departure he presented the entire province with freedom and at the same
time gave the judges Roman citizenship and a large sum of money. These favors he
announced in person on the day of the Isthmian Games, standing in the middle of the
stadium.
Suetonius, Life of Nero 24
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And back to Rome:
As we leave Greece to return to Rome, here’s a brief description by Pausanias of the statues of the
emperors at Olympia:
There are statues of emperors: Hadrian, of Parian marble dedicated by the cities of the
Achaean confederacy, and Trajan, dedicated by all the Greeks. This emperor subdued the
Getae beyond Thrace, and made war on Osroes the descendant of Arsaces and on the
Parthians. Of his architectural achievements the most remarkable are baths called after
him, a large circular theatre, a building for horse-races which is actually two stades long,
and the Forum at Rome, worth seeing not only for its general beauty but especially for its
roof made of bronze. Of the statues set up in the round buildings, the amber one
represents Augustus the Roman emperor, the ivory one they told me was a portrait of
Nicomedes, king of Bithynia. After him the greatest city in Bithynia was renamed
Nicomedeia; before him it was called Astacus, and its first founder was Zypoetes, a
Thracian by birth to judge from his name. This amber of which the statue of Augustus is
made, when found native in the sand of the Eridanus, is very rare and precious to men
for many reasons; the other “amber” is an alloy of gold and silver. In the temple at
Olympia are four offerings of Nero – three crowns representing wild-olive leaves, and
one representing oak leaves. Here too are laid twenty-five bronze shields, which are for
the armed men to carry in the race. Tablets too are set up, including one on which is
written the oath sworn by the 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
Apollonius was a Greek holy man and philosopher who was a contemporary of Nero and Vespasian:
The conversations which Apollonius held about things which met his eyes were,
according to Damis, many in number, but the following he said deserve to be recorded.
On one occasion they were sitting in the temple of Heracles [in Spain] and Menippus
gave a laugh, for it happened that Nero had just come to his mind, "And what," he said,
"are we to think of this splendid fellow? In which of the contests has he won wreaths of
late? Don't you think that self-respecting Hellenes must shake with laughter when they
are on their way to the festivals?"
And Apollonius replied: "As I have heard from Telesinus,47 the worthy Nero is afraid of
the whips of the Eleans; for when his flatterers urged him to win at Olympia and to
proclaim Rome as the victor, he answered: 'Yes, if the Eleans will only not depreciate me,
for they are said to use whips and to look down upon me.' And many worse bits of
nonsense than this forecast fell from his lips. I however admit that Nero will conquer at
Olympia, for who is bold enough to compete against him? But I deny that he will win at
the Olympic festival, because they are not keeping it at the right season. For custom
requires that this should have been held last year, but Nero has ordered the Eleans to put
it off until his own visit, in order that they may sacrifice to him rather than to Zeus. And
47
A Roman senator
60
it is said that he has announced a tragedy and a performance on the lyre for people who
have neither a theatre nor a stage for such entertainments, but only the stadium which
nature has provided, and races which are all run by athletes stripped of their clothes. He
however is going to take the prize for performances which he ought to have hidden in
the dark, for he has thrown off the robes of Augustus and Julius Caesar and has dressed
himself up in the garb of an Amoebeus or a Terpnus.
Philostratus, Life of Apollonius 5.7
61
Figure I: Map of Olympia
1: Propyleon NE
2: Prytaneon
3: Monument of Philip II of Macedon
4: Temple of Hera
5: Sanctuary of Pelops
6. Fountain of Herodes Atticus
7: Temple of the Great Mother
8: Zanes
9: Cryptaeum
10: Stadium
11: Portico of Eco
12: Monument of Ptolemy II and
Arsinoe
13: Portico of Hestia
14: Hellenistic building
15: Temple to Olympian Zeus
16: Altar of Olympian Zeus
17: Treasury of the Achaeans
18 Dedications of Michito of
Reggio
19: Nike of Paeonias
20: Gymnasium
21: Palaestra
22: Theokoleon
23: Heroon
24: Office of the officials and
early Christian basilica
25: Baths of Claudius
26: Greek baths
27 and 28: Hostels
29: Sanctuary of Leonidas
30 Baths
31 Bouleuterion
32: South Portico
33: 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):
63
Figure 3: Side B of a Panatheniac vase; winners received a number of these (the number
depended on the sport) filled with olive oil – this held considerable monetary value because of
the oil and because the vases were highly valued. All these vases had Athena on one side and
the sport on the other. This one is now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York and dates
from c. 490 BCE.
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