Greek Athletics and the Anti-Christ
Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 7:30 am
The Greeks did not play sports. Our word play is related to the Greek word pais (child), and there was nothing childish about Greek athletics. The Greek word was Agonia, and our modern derivation, agony, hits closer to their mark. From Homeric times, sports were a deadly serious affair. Poets, philosophers and statesmen placed athletic victories above all other human achievements. "There is no greater glory for a man, no matter how long his life than what he achieves with his hands and feet."
So important was victory in Greek sport that the name of the victor provided the basic system of Greek dating. The serious nature of the sport was equaled by its danger. One inscription from a statue erected at Olympia reads simply, "here he died boxing in the stadium having prayed to Zeus for either the crown or death." The most celebrated hero Arrichion won, but died in victory.
The ultimate disgrace in Greek sport was not injury or even death, but defeat.
In the Olympic Games of ancient Greece you cannot just be beaten and then depart, but first of all, you will be disgraced not only before the people of Athens or Sparta or Nicopolis but before the whole world.
Greeks did not honor good losers, only winners. Pindar, the great lyric poet who celebrated Victorious athletes wrote: "as the losers returned to their mothers no laughter sweet brought them pleasure, but they crept along the backstreets avoiding their enemies bitten by misfortune."
If failure was bitter, victory was sweet indeed. Victors received enduring fame and enormous fortune. Most cities granted winners public honors and allowed them to eat at public expense for the rest of their lives.
So important was victory in Greek sport that the name of the victor provided the basic system of Greek dating. The serious nature of the sport was equaled by its danger. One inscription from a statue erected at Olympia reads simply, "here he died boxing in the stadium having prayed to Zeus for either the crown or death." The most celebrated hero Arrichion won, but died in victory.
The ultimate disgrace in Greek sport was not injury or even death, but defeat.
In the Olympic Games of ancient Greece you cannot just be beaten and then depart, but first of all, you will be disgraced not only before the people of Athens or Sparta or Nicopolis but before the whole world.
Greeks did not honor good losers, only winners. Pindar, the great lyric poet who celebrated Victorious athletes wrote: "as the losers returned to their mothers no laughter sweet brought them pleasure, but they crept along the backstreets avoiding their enemies bitten by misfortune."
If failure was bitter, victory was sweet indeed. Victors received enduring fame and enormous fortune. Most cities granted winners public honors and allowed them to eat at public expense for the rest of their lives.