The Olympic Games;
The First Thousand Years
by M.I. Finley and
H.W. Pleket
(Viking; $12.50)
Olympia is not as pretty as the pictures in this book. But if we read its text with care, we learn to see between the lines of Pindar's odes. The history of this athletic festival epitomizes man's capacity for self-delusion. The so-called Sacred Games were neither holy nor, in our sense," played" Time, the Greek word for honor, the goal of heroes on the field of battle or of sport, has also from the earnest connotated acquisition of wealth. It becomes clearer in English, which has dichotomized the Latin analogue for time—pretium—into both "praise" and "price". We have often misconstrued the Greeks. The fact many moderns posit sport as the antithesis of war is yet another fallacy without substantiation from the past. somewhat idiosyncratic terms of their "Olympic Truce" simply gave safe conduct through the enemy lines to pilgrims and contestants headed for the great event. But the hostilities went on. In 400 BC Leonidas' 300 Spartans died at Thermopylae while their countrymen vied at Olympia. Civilization has advanced since then and—commendably — Olympiads of 1916, 1940 and 1944 were cancelled due to worldwide conflagration. And yet, Spartan-like, America was represented at the Games while she was still competing in Vietnam, In 1968, while some brave Russian athletes were exerting themselves in Mexico, others were asserting themselves in Czechoslovakia. Actually, this was the classical way. The Greek vocabulary made no significant distinctions between sport and war.. The word athlos (whence athletics) can denote a confrontation on a battle field or on a playing field. Agon, the term for athletic event, can also mean a death struggle (Euripides) or simply a clash of armies (Thucydides), Moreover, they had proverbs which encouraged men to do or die defending country in a war or at Olympia. The authors quote a fascinating anecdote regarding a competitor in the most brutal pugilistic contest, the pankration. As one Arrachion was being choked to death, his trainer urged him not to give the signal of defeat: "O what a noble funeral, if you have undefeated on your epitaph." An obvious (per) version of a famous military slogan. Moreover, thus inspired, Arrachion did not surrender and, although he lost his life, he won the match.
Some still cherish the fiction that in antiquity wars were suspended when the Games were on. In fact, the Finley and Pleket have assembled their wealth of information from innumerable sources. As they put it, "a curious miscellany of evidence, among which number archeological finds, figured monuments, Pindaric odes and fine Athenian pottery.'" Indeed, the breadth of their research alone justifies the publishing of yet another history of Olympia they have taken up a challenge and produced the best book of its kind. Their illustrations are imaginatively chosen and impeccably produced. Not only are they to the point, they are to points not always dwelt upon, e.g. the important role of pederasty in the whole athletic (and educational) system of the Greeks (see plate 32b, for example). With learning couched in lucid prose, they touch upon all aspects of the Games: the festival itself, techniques the athletes used, the social and political significance of what transpired at Olympia, etc. They are never pedantic and yet never superficial. Some may wish they had included references and bibliography as Finiey did in his splendid World of Odysseus. But we must accept the authors' statement that they are here omitted for a purpose.
They begin with chronology, setting everything in its proper historical and political context, limning the three distinct phases of Olympia s rise and fall. The first 430 years, the era of evolving city states might be referred to as "'the Greekest", racially if not exactly geographically. Great champions came from towns in Sicily and Southern Italy hut, as the rules required, they all were absolutely Greek. Then came Alexander who, in conquering the East, took captive minds as well as lands. Hellenistic culture, one might say, gave license to be Greek if not by ethnos than by ethos. The authors aptly compare "Hellas'" to both medieval Christendom and modern Islam —all three being spirits not mere places. The third and final phase—in every sense—was when the Romans conquered everyone and spread the word that they were now the Master Race. It is a curious paradox, however, that Rome which was to be the European conduit for Greek culture nonetheless rejected one of its most central aspects. For the Romans saw no point in taking part in competitions. This can only partly be explained by the conservative Roman abhorrence of nudity. .After all. Homer's athletes are clothed and, according to Thucydides, Olympic runners wore a loincloth for the first half century the Games were held. Simply stated, Romans had no penchant for participation. Perhaps their attitude was closer to the truth of human nature when they tacitly admitted that the spectacle was better than the sport itself Let lowly gladiators and the radical dissenters fight the lions We'll just watch the blood.
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