The Heroic Athlete in Ancient Greece, DAVID J. LUNT†
Departments of History and Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies The Pennsylvania State University
Lunt sees an effort by historic champions to attain heroic honors.
“Plutarch, in his Life of Thesesus, speculated that Theseus’ era had produced a race of beings that far surpassed normal human athletic abilities such as bodily strength and swiftness of foot.”
“Kurke has argued that victory, especially prominent victory in a major festival or contest, brought kudos to the victor. This word, often translated as “praise” or “renown,” carried additional meaning for the ancient Greeks. As understood traditionally, the pos- sessor of kudos enjoyed “special power bestowed by a god that makes a hero invincible.”
“The kudos of victory elevated human athletes to a liminal status between mortals and gods, “
“Nearly two hundred years later, during the fourth-century B.C. campaigns of Alexander of Macedon, an Athenian athlete named Dioxippos defeated a fully armed Macedonian soldier in single combat. The Macedonian, named Koragos, must have had a little too much to drink at the raucous banquet where he challenged Dioxippos, a renowned athlete and a boxing champion in one of the Crown Games.27 On the day of the duel, Koragos arrived decked out in fine armor and weapons. Dioxippos, on the other hand, came naked, his body oiled, wearing a garland, and carrying only a club. Appearing as a victo- rious athlete and armed as Herakles, Dioxippos easily defeated the well-armed Macedonian. The Olympic champion relied on his athleticism, avoiding Koragos’ javelin throw, shat- tering his lance with a blow from the club, and wrestling him to the ground as the Macedonian reached for his sword. In accordance with the myths surrounding Herakles and his manifold duels and contests, Dioxippos treated this encounter as a contest in which he, the Heraklean athlete, vanquished the better armed (and not entirely Greek) enemy.” I am reminded of the 10,000 singing the Paean (The Victory Song) as they entered battles i the Persian Civil War. In each case the Persian forces opposing them ran!
“Polydamas, a pankratiast, won a crown at the Olympic games of 408 B.C. His ex- ploits, surely exaggerated, reportedly included pulling the hoof from a struggling bull and stopping a moving chariot by grabbing on and digging his heels into the ground. Further- more, in some sort of agonistic duel, he simultaneously fought and defeated three mem- bers of the elite bodyguard of the Persian King in the court of Darius II. Without exagger- ating the connections to mythic precedent, this one-against-three battle certainly evokes echoes of Herakles’ combat with the triple-bodied Geryon. Both the Persians and the monstrous Geryon represented fantastic, non-Greek forces, and the triplicate enemy sug- gests a convenient parallel.”
“Out of ambitious envy of Achilles,”
“many respects, the use of poetic meter represented the language of the gods. The Greeks delivered divine communications, such as pronouncements from the Delphic oracle, in dactylic hexam- eter. According to Plato, the Muses spoke to poets in verse, and the poets acted merely as vehicles for conveying the divine words.”
Departments of History and Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies The Pennsylvania State University
Lunt sees an effort by historic champions to attain heroic honors.
“Plutarch, in his Life of Thesesus, speculated that Theseus’ era had produced a race of beings that far surpassed normal human athletic abilities such as bodily strength and swiftness of foot.”
“Kurke has argued that victory, especially prominent victory in a major festival or contest, brought kudos to the victor. This word, often translated as “praise” or “renown,” carried additional meaning for the ancient Greeks. As understood traditionally, the pos- sessor of kudos enjoyed “special power bestowed by a god that makes a hero invincible.”
“The kudos of victory elevated human athletes to a liminal status between mortals and gods, “
“Nearly two hundred years later, during the fourth-century B.C. campaigns of Alexander of Macedon, an Athenian athlete named Dioxippos defeated a fully armed Macedonian soldier in single combat. The Macedonian, named Koragos, must have had a little too much to drink at the raucous banquet where he challenged Dioxippos, a renowned athlete and a boxing champion in one of the Crown Games.27 On the day of the duel, Koragos arrived decked out in fine armor and weapons. Dioxippos, on the other hand, came naked, his body oiled, wearing a garland, and carrying only a club. Appearing as a victo- rious athlete and armed as Herakles, Dioxippos easily defeated the well-armed Macedonian. The Olympic champion relied on his athleticism, avoiding Koragos’ javelin throw, shat- tering his lance with a blow from the club, and wrestling him to the ground as the Macedonian reached for his sword. In accordance with the myths surrounding Herakles and his manifold duels and contests, Dioxippos treated this encounter as a contest in which he, the Heraklean athlete, vanquished the better armed (and not entirely Greek) enemy.” I am reminded of the 10,000 singing the Paean (The Victory Song) as they entered battles i the Persian Civil War. In each case the Persian forces opposing them ran!
“Polydamas, a pankratiast, won a crown at the Olympic games of 408 B.C. His ex- ploits, surely exaggerated, reportedly included pulling the hoof from a struggling bull and stopping a moving chariot by grabbing on and digging his heels into the ground. Further- more, in some sort of agonistic duel, he simultaneously fought and defeated three mem- bers of the elite bodyguard of the Persian King in the court of Darius II. Without exagger- ating the connections to mythic precedent, this one-against-three battle certainly evokes echoes of Herakles’ combat with the triple-bodied Geryon. Both the Persians and the monstrous Geryon represented fantastic, non-Greek forces, and the triplicate enemy sug- gests a convenient parallel.”
“Out of ambitious envy of Achilles,”
“many respects, the use of poetic meter represented the language of the gods. The Greeks delivered divine communications, such as pronouncements from the Delphic oracle, in dactylic hexam- eter. According to Plato, the Muses spoke to poets in verse, and the poets acted merely as vehicles for conveying the divine words.”
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