The falling off in competition and the growth of professionalism are shown by the number of men who won victories in more than one event at the same festival. Philinus of Cos, who won the stadium race in Ols. 129, 130, is credited with three other victories at Olympia, four in the Pythia, four in the Nemea, and eleven in the Isthmia—twenty-four in all. A still finer record is that of Leonidas of Rhodes, who won all four foot-races in three successive Olympiads 164-156 B.C., thus three times earning the title of τριαστής or triple victor given to those who won the stade-race, diaulos, and dolichos. Besides the professional runner, we have the professional fighter represented by the successors of Heracles already alluded to, with regard to whom we may add that with the exception of Caprus of Elis all holders of the title came from the East. The successors of Heracles are further honoured with the title of παράδοξος or παραδοξονίκης, and in the second century we find for the first time in Olympic inscriptions the term περίοδος or περιοδονίκης used of those who won victories in all the four great festivals which formed the athletic cycle or period. Such terms suggest the age of athletic “records” which was to come under the Romans.
Two more equestrian events were added during this period—the two-horse chariot-race for colts, and the riding-race for colts, introduced in Ols. 129 and 131 respectively. Both these events, introduced obviously with the intention of encouraging horse breeding, had been introduced half a century earlier at Delphi, doubtless owing to Macedonian influence. Lastly in Ol. 145 the athletic programme was completed by the introduction of the pankration for boys, which was won by Phaedimus, described variously as from Alexandria Troas, or from Naukratis in Egypt. The pankration was not a competition suited for boys, and it was a true athletic feeling which had so long excluded it from the boys’ events at Olympia. Its introduction is significant of the growing love of sensational and brutal displays which we associate rather with the Romans than the Greeks. It was only a few years later that Antiochus Epiphanes (175-164 B.C.) introduced into Syria the Roman gladiatorial games, and though the innovation at first met with criticism and opposition, the Greeks only too soon became accustomed to such sights.
With the advent of the Romans the history of Greek athletics really ends, though the athletic festivals were destined to survive four centuries or more under their patronage. The Romans posed as the champions and kinsmen of the Greeks, and like the Macedonians fully realised the importance of these festivals. As early as 228 B.C. they had been admitted to participation in the Eleusinian mysteries and the Isthmian games, in recognition of their services in freeing the Adriatic from Illyrian pirates, though it may be doubtful if Roman citizens deigned to compete in the actual sports. Again in 196 B.C. it was at the Isthmian games that Flamininus proclaimed the liberation of Greece from the tyranny of Macedon. At Olympia Titus Manlius had appeared as ambassador in 208 B.C. to secure the support of the Sicilian and Italian Greeks against their common foe Carthage. Finally Mummius commemorated the defeat of the Achaeans, the destruction of Corinth, and the restoration of unity to Greece by dedicating at Olympia a bronze statue of Zeus and twenty-one golden shields arrayed above the colonnade surrounding the temple of Zeus. But the unity thus commemorated was secured at the cost of liberty.
It was the spirit of independence which had given life to those great athletic meetings where the free citizens of free states contended not for personal glory so much as for the honour of their states. These states were no longer free, and all the pomp and splendour lavished on the festivals by their imperial patrons could not recall to life the spirit that had fled.
CHAPTER VIII
ATHLETICS UNDER THE ROMANS
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 Greece during the sixth and fifth centuries. The popularity of athletics among the Etruscans is proved by the numerous scenes painted on the walls of Etruscan tombs, where every variety of sport is represented. The “ludi Maximi” of Rome herself show strong traces of Greek influence. Moreover the Romans, like all vigorous nations, were fond of physical exercises—running, wrestling, throwing the diskos and the spear, and especially games of ball. But they were not fond of competitions. Consequently athletics never acquired at Rome the importance which they possessed in Greece, and their festivals, if originally similar in character to those of Greece, soon became mere spectacles in which the performers, whether actors, riders, or athletes, were professionals belonging to subject races and the lower classes, hired for the amusement of the Roman citizens. Rome recognized no peers among the neighbouring states, and free competition between independent states was therefore impossible at Rome. Moreover, the centuries of struggle during which she step by step extended and consolidated her power had left little time or inclination for less serious contests, and had developed in her citizens a strongly practical type of character that could feel no sympathy with the athletic ideal of Greece. To the Roman as to the Spartan athletics were nothing but a means to an end, and that end military efficiency. To devote to sport the time and energy necessary to secure success at Olympia, to submit for months to the tyranny of a trainer, often a man of no birth or position, and above all to exhibit oneself naked before the eyes of one’s fellow-citizens—these were things quite inconsistent with the Roman’s idea of his dignity as a citizen. Even as spectacles the Greek sports did not appeal to his taste. Brutalized by incessant war, he preferred more exciting contests, and took more pleasure in the gladiatorial shows of his Etruscan and Campanian neighbours than in musical or gymnastic competitions. It was 186 B.C. that Greek athletes and actors first appeared at the Roman games; but a more pleasing innovation must have been the importation in the same year of lions and panthers from Africa to provide more exciting sport for the spectators in the circus. When in 167 B.C. some famous Greek flute-players who were performing at a festival failed to please the Roman audience, the managers ordered them to box, a performance which caused boundless delight to the spectators.
When in the second century B.C. the Romans were first brought into closer contact with Greece, they found ample justification for their anti-athletic prejudice in the vicious and corrupt state into which athletics had fallen at that period in Greece. The competitions were in the hands of professional athletes, whose training rendered them useless as soldiers; the gymnasia, instead of producing healthy, useful citizens, had become schools of idleness and immorality; from a physical and military point of view the whole nation had degenerated. The athletic festivals were useful political factors, and as such the Romans knew how to utilize them. Some, like Aemilius Paulus, standing before the Zeus of Pheidias might feel something of the beauty and the grandeur of the Greek ideal, or, like Cato, that odd mixture of conservatism and Hellenism, might train their sons in the athletic exercises of Greece; but the mass of the nation was unaffected; for a long time no gymnasia or palaestrae rose in Rome, no Roman deigned to compete in the games of Greece.
The old Roman prejudice died hard. More than a century after the founding of the Empire, in spite of imperial Philhellenism, we find an echo of it in the reign of Nero, in the protests of the old school against the introduction in Rome of a festival on Greek lines. “The youths were degenerating under the influence of foreign tastes, passing their time in athletics, in idling, and low intrigues; what remained for them but to strip themselves naked, put on the caestus, and practise such battles instead of the arms of legitimate warfare?”[[235]]
Such being the feeling of Rome towards Greek athletics, it is no matter for wonder that in spite of the growing influence of Hellenism, the festivals languished during the century which followed the fall of Corinth. In 80 B.C. Sulla transferred the whole Olympic festival, athletes and all, to Rome, leaving only the boys’ foot-race to be decided at Olympia. Perhaps his object was to transfer the festival permanently to Rome; but ere another Olympiad came round Sulla himself was dead, and his purpose was never accomplished. But the prestige of the festival suffered. We possess the list of Olympic victors for the year 72 B.C. In this Olympiad, as in the Olympiad which followed the Spartan invasion of 399 B.C., the falling off in the competition is marked by a series of local victories. Eight, possibly eleven events fell to Elis, Hecatomnus, the winner of three of the foot-races, being variously assigned to Elis and Miletus; two events fell to Sicyon, one to Cyparissia in Messenia, the remaining four events being divided between Alexandria, Mysia, Asia, and Cos. Elis carried off all the equestrian events. In the Olympic inscriptions which belong to this period it is remarkable that nearly all the victors are Eleans and nearly all their victories are gained in the horse-races.[[236]] This local predominance, coupled with the depression produced by Sulla’s invasion, may account for the fact, recorded by Africanus, that the chariot-race and perhaps other equestrian events were discontinued in the year 68 B.C., not to be revived until the time of the Empire.[[237]]
Meanwhile a change had come over the character of the Roman people. No longer occupied incessantly in war, the dwellers in the capital had become more and more addicted to amusements. Festival after festival was added to their calendar, and ambitious politicians vied with one another in the variety and magnificence of the entertainments which they provided in the hopes of winning the favour of the sovereign people. These entertainments, though containing athletic and equestrian competitions, were, however, purely spectacular, and it was regarded as a disgrace for a Roman citizen to take part in them personally. The character of these entertainments and their difference from the Greek festivals may be illustrated by the account given by Suetonius of those provided by Julius Caesar.[[238]] Besides a variety of dramatic and musical performances, there were the games in the circus, athletic displays, and a sea-fight. In these certain Roman citizens of position actually took part. There was a gladiatorial contest between Furius Leptinus, a member of a praetorian family, and Quintus Calpenus, an ex-senator. The Pyrrhic dance was performed by noble youths from Asia and Bithynia; and one Decimus Laberius, a Roman knight, actually performed in a farce of his own composition, for which he was handsomely rewarded by Caesar, and restored to the rank which he had forfeited by his performance. At the games in the circus youths of noble birth took part in the chariot and horse-races. Two companies of boys exhibited the semi-military manœuvres called the Trojan game. Five days were occupied in venationes, or combats with wild beasts, and there was a sham fight between two forces consisting each of 500 foot-soldiers, 30 cavalry and 20 elephants. To provide more space for this performance the metae of the circus were removed and a camp was formed at either end. A temporary stand was erected in the field of Mars, where athletic competitions took place lasting three days. Lastly, a huge artificial lake was constructed in which biremes, triremes, and quadriremes from Tyre and Egypt joined in mimic battle. All the neighbouring roads and streets were occupied by the tents of visitors, and so great was the crowd that many were crushed to death. But Caesar himself, the giver of all, cared for none of these things; and his enemies accused him of amusing himself with reading and writing when he ought to have been watching the progress of the games.[[239]]