Greek Athletic Sports and Festivals

In Homeric times the gymnasium and the palaestra did not exist. The broad runs in Ithaca,[795] which are sometimes quoted as the prototype of the Greek gymnasia, were not runnin...

The athletic meeting was unknown to Homer: in historic times it is associated with religious festivals celebrated at definite periods at the holiest places in Greece. If the gro...

Greek athletics must have been familiar to the Romans from early times. We have seen how prominent a part the Greek cities of Italy and Sicily had taken in the festivals of Gree...

Though the Greeks of the sixth and fifth centuries attained a remarkable standard of athletic excellence, it is probable that in individual performance the modern athlete could...

The sixth century is the age of organized athletics. The rise of Sparta and her success in sport and war gave to the Greek world an object lesson on the value of systematic trai...

No sport was older, and none was more popular at all periods among the Greeks than boxing. Its antiquity and its popularity are manifest in their mythology.[691] Apollo himself...

Literature and art purified and refined athletics for a while, but at the same time by encouraging competition intensified these very evils which result from excessive competiti...

The length of the various foot-races was determined for the Greeks by the length of the stadium. The stade-race, as its name implies, was a single length, approximately 200 yard...

Greek civilization is regarded by modern authorities as the result of a fusion between two races—a short, dark, highly artistic race belonging to that Eurafrican stock which see...

Wrestling is perhaps the oldest and most universal of all sports. The wall-paintings of Beni Hassan show that almost every hold or throw known to modern wrestlers was known to t...

It is impossible within the limits of this work to give any account of the various local festivals which existed in every state of Greece. Such an account would too often resolv...

We have seen how in 582 B.C. the old local musical festival which had been held at Delphi every eight years was transformed into a Panhellenic four-yearly festival with an athle...

It will be remembered that while frequent reference is made in the Homeric poems to throwing the diskos,[562] the weight thrown at the games of Patroclus was a lump of unwrought...

From this time onward there is little change to record in the history of athletics. Competitions became more and more the monopoly of professionals and all the evils attendant o...

The stadium[433] or racecourse of the Greeks was the natural development of that primitive type of race which is described in Homer, and which we may still see at school treats...

Jumping is not a military exercise but an amusement of peace. It is useful, of course, at times for a soldier to be able to leap over any obstacle in his way. But the Homeric ch...

Many of the details and regulations connected with the Olympic festival have been already mentioned in previous chapters, where the reader can readily find them by consulting th...

The javelin used in Greek sports is called variously ἄκων, ἀκόντιον, μεσάγκυλον, ἀποτομάς.[593] The latter term appears to denote merely a lath or stick, and accurately describe...

Chariot and horse races were so important a part of most Greek festivals that, though we cannot strictly describe them as athletics, a brief account of the hippodrome and the ev...

The pentathlon was a combined competition in five events, running, jumping, throwing the diskos, throwing the javelin, and wrestling. This is one of the few facts regarding the...

The combination of boxing and wrestling known as the pankration was a development of the primitive rough and tumble. To get his opponent down, and by throttling, pummelling, bit...

27. Copper coins of Delphi, in British Museum. 208 Imperial period. (_a_) Prize table, bearing crow, five apples, vase and crown. (_b_) Ins. Πύθια in crown of bay leaves. (_B.M....

The recent revival of the Olympic games is a striking testimony to the influence which ancient Greece still exercises over the modern world, and to the important place which ath...

R. M. Burrows, _Discoveries in Crete_, p. 35. As far as the athletic argument is concerned, the connexion which Professor Burrows suggests between Crete and Central Europe and E...

_J.H.S._ xxv. p. 280, διαλαμβάνειν, μεσοφέρδειν, μεσοφέρδην, μέσον ἔχειν; διαλαμβάνειν means to clasp both hands round an opponent’s waist; περιτιθέναι means rather to put one a...

186. Stele of Diodorus, a gymnasiarch; showing 490 oil-tank, crown, palms, votive tablets, and wrestler’s cap. Found at Prusa. Imperial period. (_Berichte d. Sächsischen Gesells...