Old Sports

The Olympic Games were not the earliest athletic rituals in the eastern Mediterranean

by Allen Guttmann

Guttman has completed an English translation of Sports and Games of Ancient Egypt, by Wolfgang
Decker. A professor of English and American studies at Amherst College, he has also examined the
diffusion of modern sports from England and America as a case of cultural imperialism.

Every four years at Olympia, the athletes of ancient Greece paid homage to Zeus by demonstrating
their arete, their excellence of mind and body. According to Hippias of Elis, the nearby city-state that
organized the competitions, the Olympic Games began in 776 B.C. with a simple footrace, and other
events were subsequently added. But the list of victors Hippias compiled, sometime about 400 B.C.,
exaggerated the age of the games, apparently to aggrandize the glory of his native city. Plutarch
admonished that Hippias "had no fully authoritative basis for his work," and historians now believe
that the games began, with as many as five different sports, about 600 B.C., more or less at the same
time as the sacred games at Delphi, Corinth, and Nemea, which rounded out the four-year cycle of
Greek athletics. (Isaac Newton anticipated modem scholars, estimating the games' later origin by re-
calculating the duration of royal reigns and accurately dating eclipses referred to by ancient
astronomers.)

The true precursors of the sixth-century games remain elusive, but we do know that the Greeks were
not the only people of the eastern Mediterranean to emphasize athletic ritual as a religious and
political statement. In ancient Egypt, for example, from at least 3000 B.C., physical prowess was a
necessary sign of a pharaoh's fitness to rule. As a representative of divinity on earth, his role required
him to maintain order against the forces of chaos. A pharaoh commemorating the thirtieth
anniversary of his enthronement would formally prove his fitness by executing a ceremonial run in
the jubilee known as the Festival of Sed. The course, from one mark to another and back,
symbolized the boundaries of the kingdom he protected. The earliest known turn markers, at the
pyramid of Djoser (ca. 2600 B.C.), lie about sixty yards apart.

There were numerous other occasions for a pharaoh to display his strength and stamina. Inscriptions
and reliefs testify to almost superhuman demonstrations of hunting skill, events that mayor may not
have actually occurred. Tuthmosis III, for example, one of the monarchs of the Eighteenth Dynasty
(1552-1306 B.C.), boasted, "In an instant I killed seven lions with my arrows." Similarly, he and
several other monarchs of that dynasty were said to have so mastered the composite bow (made of
hardwood, softwood, and horn) that their arrows were able to transfix sheets of copper "three fingers
thick." (Modem attempts to replicate this feat have failed.) The pharaoh had to be seen as the
mightiest archer, most successful hunter, and swiftest runner. An American president can lose a
tennis match without unleashing the forces of chaos, but Tuthmosis III was required to surpass all
mortal achievements.

In the biography of Cheti, prince of Siut, who lived during the Eleventh Dynasty (2134-1991 B.C.),
we read that "he learned to swim together with the children of the pharaoh." But despite the central
role of the Nile in Egyptian life, there is no evidence that the pharaoh was expected to demonstrate
his prowess at swimming. Or perhaps Egyptian artists considered the physical movements too
undignified to show in a representation of divinity. There is, however, an inscription telling of the
amazing boating exploits of the Eighteenth Dynasty monarch Amenophis II, who was said to have
steered his "falcon ship" for three itrw (about 18.6 miles), when others gave up in exhaustion after a
mere half itrw. And according to Egyptian legend, the gods Horus and Seth, both of whom claimed
the right to rule the universe, agreed to settle their dispute with a diving contest.

If the quantity of visual evidence is any indication, wrestling was among the most popular Egyptian
sports. Murals discovered in the eleventh-century tombs at Beni Hasan depict nearly every hold
known to modem wrestlers. Although the sport has a religious character in many cultures, including
those of Africa south of the Sahara, for the ancient Egyptians it seems to have been a purely secular
contest. A pharaoh thrown roughly to the ground would have been a terrifying portent of disaster.
The pharaohs most celebrated for their athletic achievements were the martial monarchs of the
Eighteenth Dynasty, especially Tuthmosis III, Amenophis II, Tuthmosis IV, and Amenophis III.
These were the immediate successors of the Hyksos, a semi-nomadic people whose warriors swept
from the northeast into the valley of the Nile about 1650 B.C. Their war chariots spread terror among
the Egyptians of the time, for whom this was an unknown weapon. For more than a century, the
Hyksos usurpers ruled Egypt; once they were expelled, more emphasis than ever was placed on the
pharaoh's physical prowess. Even Queen Hatshepsut, an Eighteenth Dynasty monarch who ruled as
if she were a man, had to prove her fitness with the time-honored ceremonial run. A relief discovered
at Karnak depicts her in the middle of the ceremony, accompanied by the bull-god Apis. The great
exception was the pacific Amenophis IV (who ruled as Akheneten), best remembered for his
heretical monotheistic religious views.

The Hyksos were expelled; the chariot remained. It was used for hunting as well as for waging war,
and pharaohs were often portrayed wielding spears or drawing bows from the basket of a chariot.
Chariot races as such were not part of ancient Egyptian culture, despite the suitability of the terrain.
But later, during the Hellenistic age (fourth to first centuries B.C.), when Alexander the Great and
his successors spread Greek culture throughout the eastern Mediterranean, chariot races became
immensely popular in Alexandria and elsewhere in Egypt.

The Egyptians seem never to have been as passionate about horses as were the Hyksos, the Hittites
(of what is now central Turkey), the Assyrians of Mesopotamia (modem Iraq), and other peoples of
the Near East, who devoted enormous amounts of time and energy to their care and breeding. An
obscure fourteenth-century Hittite named Kikkuli has left us a detailed account of these matters in
writings sometimes referred to as The Book of Horses. The later Persian empire, which came close
to overwhelming Greek civilization in 490 B.C., had similar roots. As Xenophon and other Greek
historians made clear, equestrianism was an essential aspect of the education of a Persian prince,
whose skill as a rider and hunter was a warranty of fitness to rule.

We know little about the role of sports in the great Minoan civilization, which reached its height on
the island of Crete between 2200 and 1400 B.C. The written language remains mostly a mystery.
But few frescoes have engendered more speculation than the one excavated at the Palace of Minos in
Knossos, which shows adolescents, a boy and two girls, seizing the horns of a charging bull and
somersaulting over its back. Ever since Arthur Evans discovered the image in 1900, scholars have
wondered whether people really performed this dangerous stunt and, if so, what it signified. Was it a
contest in which youths competed against each other, like modem gymnasts, or was the bull their
adversary, as in a Spanish corrida de toros? Another fresco from Knossos, now at the National
Museum in Athens, depicts a group of male and female spectators arranged on terraces, or tiers.
Whether the audience consists of assembled worshipers or sports enthusiasts is not clear, but some
scholars believe they are attending a bull-vaulting performance.
Vases, statuettes, coins, and other remains of Minoan culture attest to the popularity of hunting,
boxing, and wrestling. Among the most tantalizing discoveries is a fresco from the island of Thera, a
Minoan outpost, that shows two boys wearing some kind of boxing gloves, squaring off as if in a
modem ring. The guides in Thera call them the "boxing princes," but whether they really were
princes proving their fitness for rule or merely two boys at play remains the artist's secret.
The Etruscans, whose civilization flourished during the seventh century B.C. in the region north and
west of Rome, were enthusiastic about sports, perhaps as a result of Greek influence. The murals
inside the so-called Tomb of the Monkey and other burial sites feature Etruscan wrestling and
boxing, while chariots race across the walls of the Tomb of the Olympics, Tomb of the Two-Horse
Chariots, and others. The murals of the chariot races include the spectators and perhaps the officials,
at least one of whom seems to have been female. Jean-Paul Thuillier, the leading authority on
Etruscan sports, argues that these types of murals represented funeral games, traditionally held to
honor the dead. This is plausible for many sports, but one wonders about the scenes in the Tomb of
Hunting and Fishing, which include a fine picture of a man diving.

A mysterious Etruscan sport appears in the Tomb of the Augurs and Tomb of the Olympics. Known
as the Phersu combat, from a word inscribed in the latter tomb, it pitted a masked man against a dog
held on a leash by a second man. It may have inspired the later Roman combats of men and animals
(venationes).

Scholars once believed that the Etruscans also gave the Romans the idea for their munera, combats
between pairs of armed gladiators. An origin in Campania, south of Rome, or Samnia, east of Rome,
now seems more likely. The precedent may have been a deadly funeral contest that had evolved from
a still earlier ritual of human sacrifice. Such sacrifices would have been made to provide dead heroes
with an entourage and appease the gods of the underworld. Eventually, death in combat might have
been deemed a better offering than the less thrilling sacrifice of a passive victim. The Romans took
the ultimate step of making a fight to the death a gruesome form of entertainment. (The religious
trappings of Rome's pagan games, incidentally, were what horrified Christian theologians like
Tertullian, who deplored idolatry more than the martyrdom of his fellow believers.)

Funeral games may also have been the chief precursors of the Greek Olympics. Our best early
source is not visual art or archeology but literature: Homer's Iliad, a ninth-century account of the
Trojan War, which probably occurred in the thirteenth century B.C. In Book XXIII, the Greeks, who
have not yet captured the city of Troy, celebrate funeral games for Patroklos, who has been slain by
the Trojan hero Hektor. Lavish prizes are offered by the great Achilles, Patroklos's bosom friend.
The first event of the games is a chariot race, for which Achilles offers five prizes, chief of which is
"a woman skilled in fair handiwork." Although Greece was not the ideal place to breed horses,
chariot races were apparently common in Attica, Thessaly, and other places where the terrain was not
too forbidding. The plain before "the topless towers of Ilium" provides a suitable course, but the race
is a rough one, with the goddess Athene intervening to assure victory for her favorite, Diomedes.
(Fair play, which requires that everyone compete under the same rules, is as much a nineteenth-
century concept as the nearly defunct amateur rule of the modern Olympics.)

The chariot race is followed by the boxing and wrestling contests. The first is won by Epeius, who
fells his opponent with a mighty blow to the cheek. The second is declared a draw when neither
Odysseus nor Ajax can throw the other. Then comes the footrace, in which Athene again intervenes,
this time to favor Odysseus, whose limbs she lightens. The oafish Ajax she causes to slip and fall on
offal left from the ritual slaughter of oxen. When Ajax recovers, he is matched against Diomedes in
potentially deadly armed combat, but the spectators stop the fight when Diomedes thrusts fiercely at
Ajax's throat. Ajax has apparently suffered enough for a single day. The games conclude with the
hurtling of the discus and with an archery contest in which the target is a dove tethered to a ship's
mast. (The javelin contest, which was supposed to end the games, is canceled when Achilles,
deciding that Agamemnon is certain to win anyway, gives him the prize.)

In Homer's dramatization, we can see that the games were a form of religious ritual, an appropriate
way to worship the gods and to honor a fallen warrior. The contests also emphasized the skills and
accomplishments of warriors. Both themes were eventually incorporated in the Greek Olympics,
although the nature of the contestants changed somewhat. At first they were aristocratic warriors, but
later, ordinary Greek men also competed and the role of the full-time athlete grew. Pelops, a local
hero said to be buried at Olympia, may have been honored by funeral games, and subsequent com-
memorative contests may explain why the site was chosen when the official games were instituted
about 600 B.C. Originally, the Olympics probably consisted of a number of events, foremost of
which was the short-distance race, or stade, from one end of the field to the other (a stadium for the
footrace built later at Olympia may still be visited). The other events may have included a chariot
race and the pentathlon or its constituents-a footrace, the discus, long jump, javelin, and wrestling.
Other contests added over the years included longer footraces, a race in armor, and boys' events.
Neither the Iliad's archery contest nor its armed combat were a part of the Olympic Games. Nor,
despite the location of most Greek cities on the shores of the Aegean or on the banks of a river, were
there swimming events at Olympia or any of the other sacred games. This was true even of the
Isthmian Games, held at Corinth in honor of Poseidon, god of the sea.

Although the Greek athletic festivals were not the only, or even the earliest, ritualized sports of
antiquity, they, more than any others, characterized an entire culture and embodied many of its peo-
ple's highest aspirations. When, nearly a century ago, Pierre de Coubertin championed ancient
Greece as an inspiration for modern games, he chose his model wisely. Amenophis II proved his
divinity by his superhuman (and probably imaginary) athletic performance. Olympic victors, true
exemplars of human physical excellence, won their immortality the hard way.