Miller Yale University Press, Nike crowning an athlete Winning was everything in ancient Greek sports. The Greeks were primarily into individual sports in which there was only one winner.
Contestants did not bother to enter events in which they thought they were going to lose. Winners received a crown of wild olives branches and prestige that was sometimes worth a lot of money. Losers did not shake the hands of the victor and they returned to their hometowns "by back ways Sport was seen as more than just sport.
There was an acceptance at both popular and philosophical levels, of prime imaginative and imitative purpose in play, an understanding, essentially that, all games were war games. In addition to sport there was athletics for exercise.
This was carried out at gymnasiums and the primary purpose was prepare and train and keep them in shape afterwards every citizen under 60 could be called up for military service. Physical fitness was only viewed as something one did for himself; it was a civic duty integral to preservation of the state. At the gymnasiums, older men taught boys about their duties to the community, proper behavior and how to carry oneself as a man.
Sacrifice of a boar Sacrifices were held to mark the beginning of special events and to commemorate the birthdays of the important gods and goddesses.
Wine, barley and blood of the sacrificed cattle, pigs and sheep were offered on the altars of the gods and then consumed by the people attending the sacrifice to symbolize the union between mortals and gods. Sports competition were sometimes seen contests for divine favor. The Olympic games began with the sacrifices of a pig to honor Zeus and a black ram to honor Pelops. During the games a three-month truce was declared and all the athletes attending the games were guaranteed safe passage. At the games themselves spectators and contestants were required to leave their weapons outside the stadium before they entered.
A large annual dramatic and lyrical festival and competition honoring Dionysus was held in the city Dionysia in Athens. It began with a religious procession, culminating in songs, choral dances and sacrifices.
The main events featured choral songs called dithyrambs. Dithyrambs were performed by a "circular chorus" of 50 men and boys who sang and danced around an altar in the orchestra area of a theater. Tribal choruses competed against one another in festivals sponsored by wealthy citizens. The first prize was a bull and a tripod dedicated to Dionysus, second prize was an amphora of wine, and third prize was a goat. At this point in time music, poetry and drama were essentially the same thing and the subjects of the poem-songs were the Greek myths and episodes from the Iliad and Odyssey.
Fertility festivals started dying out around this time because the harvests and rains they promised to deliver failed to arrive. Each of the ten Athenian tribes sponsored two dithyramb choruses: one made up of men and other of boys.
A wealthy patron paid for the costuming and training for the chorus members and a poetwho composed a poem for the events and choreographed the dances and a trainer and flutist. It is thought the chorus members circled an altar in the theater and did some dance steps as they did. The chorus also sang and danced during interludes between the dramatic plays. The contest are said to go back a long time. The Greeks played ball game called phainmuda that is similar to netball. Episkyros was team game that required dodging and marking in a relatively small space.
Hockey is one of the oldest stick and ball games. Early forms of hockey were played in ancient Egypt, Greece and Persia. It would have been equally unthinkable in Classical times for an object as fun and frivolous as the ball to have been allowed entry to the hallowed sanctuary of Olympia.
When Odysseus was shipwrecked on the shore of Phaeacia, he encountered the beautiful princess Nausicaa playing an ancient version of dodgeball with her maids.
While oxen were being sacrificed and athletes rubbed down with olive oil to compete for Zeus' honor at Olympia, ordinary Greeks were playing a silly game called ephedrismos, in which players mounted on the shoulders of teammates threw a ball at a target or to another pair of players.
Scenes of women and men playing variations of this strange game of people polo appear repeatedly on painted jars and statues of the Classical period, and in much earlier scenes from ancient Egypt — suggesting it was more than just a passing fad. The 4th century playwright Antiphanes vividly described a game in progress, handing down possibly history's first play-by-play sports commentary: "He caught the ball and laughed as he passed it to one player at the same time as he dodged another Too far!
Past him! Over his head! The ancient Chinese, Greeks, Indians and Persians also practiced forms of tumbling and acrobatics to prepare for battle. The word gymnastics is derived from the Greek word for "naked" gymnos. The sport was revived in the s in Germany as an activity for schoolchildren. Traveling puppets provided entertainment in ancient Greece and Rome.
Magic as a form of entertainment was known to the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. The Greeks were one of the first people to use advertising. Announcers shouted announcements during the lulls of cattle actions and handbills made of papyrus were tacked up at community bulletin boards. Prostitutes at Ephesus advertised their services outside the doorway of the brothel with an inscription of a foot and a woman with a mohawk haircut. Kottoabis is one of the world first known drinking games, A fixture of all-night parties and reportedly even played by Socrates, the game involved flinging the dregs left over from a cup of wine at a target.
Usually the participants sat in a circle and tossed their dregs at the basin in the center. Banquet scene A symposium was a dinner party with family, friends or associates. It generally began with a bout of drinking, followed by a big meal. There were often rules to ensure equality. They also made shields, vases, jewellery and even sculptures of each other. In Ancient Greek they took sport very seriously and they also really enjoyed it.
They wanted to get fit bodies so they could look good. Hockey was one of the most popular sports as well as discus. The discuss were very heavy as they were made out of stone and sometimes iron. They had competitions yearly so that they had a lot of time to train up ready for it.
We have Olympics like they did but we do it every 4 years. Art and theatre. They were held at Olympia every four years, in honour of Zeus, who was the father and most powerful of all the gods Zeus is shown on the coin pictured opposite. Over 40, spectators would come to watch the events. The games started off with just one event: a sprint across the stadium. Gradually more events were added, including javelin, discus, chariot racing, boxing and the long jump.
People still compete in many of these events, but today they are usually very different and much safer. In the Ancient Greek long jump, instead of taking a running jump athletes took a short run up carrying a heavy weight in each hand, which they swung forward as they jumped from a standing position. The heavy weights pulled the athlete forward in order to give them a longer jump.
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