Athletics and Games of the Ancient Greeks

by Edward M. Plummer

Of all the peoples, whose deeds have been recorded, the Greeks alone made physical culture a matter of study. They did this not so much because they considered it from the standpoint of philosophy to be a duty to perfect the body, as because they clearly discerned the advantages and prestige that accrued to the possessor of a powerful and graceful body.

For the earliest account of this phase of Hellenic life one naturally turns to the poems of Homer. Yet one must not presume that these poems, simply because they are the earliest literary records of the Greeks, exhibit this or any other feature of Hellenic civilization in its initial state. The art of literature, mechanical on the one hand and artistic on the other, though when its technique is once learned, it becomes inseparable from civilization, and though now we justly consider the nation that has nothing to transcribe as uncivilized;—this art of literature is, nevertheless, only one phase of the life of civilized man! If we reflect that even today the lives of the majority of persons are, in most of their relations, outside the sphere of literature, it becomes easy to conceive how a people that has not yet mastered this art could, notwithstanding, be versed in simpler arts that would fully entitle them to the epithet civilized; and if we should find portrayed in the earliest literary records of that people a very high and perfect social life, our conception would be corroborated. We must not, therefore, regard the Homeric poems as affording data concerning the origin and initial condition of this phase of Hellenic life. On the contrary, the Homeric athletics especially presuppose a long antecedent course of development. Hellenic legend strengthens this inference. According to a myth, Apollo enjoyed the diskos no less than music. He practiced for amusement with his favorite Hyakinthos, whom, as it is related, he accidentally killed by an unlucky throw. Other traditions inform us, that Orion challenged Artemis to a contest with the diskos, and that Autolykos, son of Hermes, instructed young Herakles in the art of wrestling.

It must be remembered, again, that Homer sang of the deeds of a very select aristocracy, just as in later times, the French Troubadours and Trouvères were to sing exclusively of the nobility and to them. French literature remained aristocratic until the closing years of the seventeenth century, when Molière made room on his stage for the Parisian bourgeois. For Homer, even the noblest men were not sufficient, and the gods themselves were made to act in his scenes. There is, accordingly, some room for doubt as to whether the régime, described in the Homeric poems, may be taken without modification, as the régime of the Hellenic race at large at that time. It must be remembered, too, that the poems were sung to the very class whose deeds they portrayed, so that any additional splendor, with which the scenes of this high life were adorned, would add to the credit of the poet.

Let us, therefore, rightly appraise the Iliad, with reference to our subject: “Athletic Games among the Homeric Heroes.” The Homeric poems give us the idealistic picture of the lives of a band of Greek nobles who, with their followers, had left their native land, to besiege a foreign and hostile city.

Occasionally, however, we find the poet dropping a line that throws light on the pleasures and employments of the less notable classes. Such a side reference are the lines in the second book of the Iliad, where the followers of Achilles, unable to engage in the martial occupations of the rest of the army, because of Achilles’ estrangement from Agamemnon, are described as contending in games. Il. ii, 773-775. λαοὶ δὲ παρὰ, ῥηγμῖνι θαλάσσης δίσκοισιν τέρποντο καὶ αἰγανέῃσιν ἱέντες, τόξοισίν θ’.

The word λαός, here used, is usually considered as denoting the people or multitude. The λαός before Troy, however, was undoubtedly of the minor nobility, since at this time the servants of the Greeks were, probably, the vanquished portions of other peoples. And so the “folk” regaled themselves along the shore of the sea with the diskos, spear-throwing, and archery. Of the three missiles, the diskos alone was originally invented for athletic purposes. The spear, in this case at least, was an implement of hunting, while the bow was used both in the chase and in war.

The training of the Homeric youth and heroes in athletic sports was, to a considerable extent, the result of the prestige of those qualities required in war and in hunting. Athletics were a means to an end, but they were also an end in themselves. Bodily exercise was not an irksome task, but an agreeable pastime. The ancient Hellenes were therefore a very happy people, the ends that they sought to attain prescribed tasks that were congenial with their national temperament. Accordingly, we find, in a well-established condition, a system of athletic sports that were not directly related to the feats of battle. Such a sport was diskos throwing. The diskos was in shape a transverse section of a cylinder, and in Homeric times was made of stone. The contestant who hurled the diskos farthest from him was victor in the game. Doubtless the advantageous positions and movements were well understood by the skilled diskobolos.

That athletics were regarded as a mode of enjoyment, as well as of military training, is shown by the fact that when for any reason the exercises of war were suspended, the heroes and their followers resorted to games. It was hardly necessary for warriors with years of experience, to train for the next day’s battle; they exercised, because to do so was a congenial pleasure. Habitual fighting will not alone explain this temperament. With the Hellenes, bodily exercise was almost synonymous with life itself. When they desired to escape from the chilling effect of a hero’s death, they instituted games, and thereby reasserted life. Perhaps the sufficient cause of this predilection for athletic exercise was the climate of the Grecian peninsula. The clear, serene sky over Hellas, the mild, bracing air which permitted nudity but did not dispose to indolence, the picturesque country, girdled by the sea, and presenting such a wonderful interchange of mountains and valleys, smiling plains, and beautifully winding rivers, must necessarily have aroused in the hearts of its people the desire for a free life full of activity in the open air, and thus have contributed to the formation of strong minds in vigorous bodies.

In order to understand Homeric athletics—the substantial basis of all subsequent athletics—one must become interested in the method and details of Greek warfare. For to the Greek the road to distinction lay in the acquisition of the qualities required of the successful warrior, and it was only natural that pleasure and expediency should combine to make a pastime of the feats of war. Victory in modern warfare is achieved largely by the use of superior machines and by advantage of position. Until the time of Alexander, victory among the Greeks, depended on the muscular power, endurance, and skill of the individual warriors. The central and principal feature of early Greek warfare was a personal hand-to-hand grapple. Therefore, it was essential in preparing for war that each separate soldier should be made as active and vigorous as possible. That this mode of warfare prevailed until a late date, may be seen from the fact that Plutarch attributed the victory of the Thebans over the Spartans at the battle of Leuktra, B. C. 371, to the superiority of the former in the art of wrestling.

Battle itself was an effective, even if a very perilous, mode of physical culture. It often involved, to be sure, the death of the weaker adversary, who was weak only comparatively, and who, considered by himself, was usually an admirable specimen of man. But, throughout all historic time, a branch of athletic sports has existed that could not be practiced without risk, as fencing, boxing, or wrestling. And it is certain that those who have survived the risks of these sports—the fittest—had developed bodies far superior in agility, and attained far greater command over the muscular system, as a whole, than would have been possible from practicing sports that do not involve risk.