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The recent revival of the Olympic games is a striking testimony to the influence which ancient Greece still exercises over the modern world, and to the important place which athletics occupied in the life of the Greeks. Other nations may have given equal attention to the physical education of the young; other nations may have been equally fond of sport; other nations may have produced individual athletes, individual performances equal or superior to those of the Greeks, but nowhere can we find any parallel to the athletic ideal expressed in the art and literature of Greece, or to the extraordinary vitality of her athletic festivals. The growth of this ideal, and the history of the athletic festivals, are the subject of the following chapters.

The athletic ideal of Greece is largely due to the practical character of Greek athletics. Every Greek had to be ready to take the field at a moment’s notice in defence of hearth and home, and under the conditions of ancient warfare his life and liberty depended on his physical fitness. This is especially true of the earlier portion of Greek history, but is more or less true of the whole period with which we are concerned. Greece was never free from war—wars of faction, wars of state against state, wars against foreign invaders—and ancient warfare made no distinction between combatants and non-combatants. Every citizen was a soldier, physical fitness was a necessity to him, and his athletic exercises were admirably calculated to produce this fitness. Running and jumping made him active and sound of wind; throwing the diskos and the spear trained hand and eye for the use of weapons; wrestling and boxing taught him to defend himself in hand-to-hand warfare.

The practical value of these exercises explains their importance in Greek education. They constituted what the Greeks described as “gymnastic,” the term “athletics” being properly confined to competitions. Gymnastic trained the body as music trained the mind. There was no artificial separation, no antagonism between the two such as has disfigured much of our modern education. The one was the complement of the other: together they comprised the whole of Greek education. An ill-trained body was as much a sign of an ill-educated man as ignorance of letters, and the training of the body by athletic exercises distinguished the Greek from the barbarian. The training began often as early as seven, but it did not end at the age when boys leave school. The Greek did not consider his education finished at the age of sixteen or seventeen, and he continued the training of body and mind till middle age or later, daily resorting to the gymnasium for exercise and recreation.

Music and gymnastic reacted on one another. The tone and manly vigour which athletic exercises gave saved the Greek from the effeminacy and sensuality to which the artistic temperament is prone. At the same time the refining influence of music saved him from the opposite faults of brutality and Philistinism. The Greek carried the artist’s love of beauty into his sports. Mere strength and bulk appealed to him no more in the human body than they did in art. Many of his exercises were performed to music, and he paid as much attention to the style in which he performed as to the result of his performance. This love of form refined even his competitions. Hence, in spite of his love of competition, the Greek was no record-breaker. In this we have one of the principal differences which distinguished Greek from modern athletics, in which the passion for records is becoming more and more prevalent.

The Greek did not care for records, and he kept no records. It is futile, therefore, to try to compare the performances of Greek athletes and of modern. But of the effect which athletic training produced on the national physique in the fifth century, we can judge from the art which it inspired. The sculptors of this period portrayed the most perfect types of physical development, of strength combined with grace, that the world has ever seen. The athletic art of Greece is the noblest tribute to the results of Greek education at its best.

A further difference between modern and Greek athletics results from the practical character of the latter. The Greek regarded athletics as an essential part of his education and life; we usually regard them as recreation or play, and it is only of late years that their educational value has been realized. Consequently in England athletic games have to a large extent superseded athletics proper. In some respect games have a decided advantage; their interest is more varied, there is more scope for combination, and they are undoubtedly superior as a training of character. On the other hand, they do not produce the same all-round development as an athletic system like that of the Greeks produced. In many cases the benefit derived from them is confined to the skilled players. They tend to become too scientific, and when this is the case require an expenditure of time and an amount of organization which put them beyond the reach of most men when they have left school.

The interest which is somewhat wanting in pure athletics was provided in Greece by innumerable competitions. The love of competition was characteristic of the Greek. In whatever he did, he sought to excel his fellows, and the rivalry between cities was as keen as that between individuals. On the table on which the prizes were placed at Olympia, the figure of Agon or Competition was represented side by side with that of Ares. There were competitions in music, poetry, drama, recitation. At some places there were beauty competitions for men, or boys, or women. We hear of competitions in drinking and in keeping awake. Strangest of all was a competition in kissing, which took place at the Dioclea at Megara. But no competitions were so numerous or so popular as athletic and equestrian competitions. The Greek was always competing or watching competitions; yet, strange to say, among all the evils produced by over-competition, betting was not found.

Competitions were from an early time associated with religious Festivals. And it is to this association with religion that Greek athletics owed their wonderful vitality. The connexion between sport and religion dates from the early custom of celebrating a chieftain’s funeral with a feast and games. Sometimes the chieftain’s tomb became a religious and political centre for the neighbouring tribes, where a festival was held in his honour at stated periods. Some of these festivals retained their local character, others gradually extended their influence till they became national meeting-places for the whole Greek race.

These Panhellenic festivals played an important part in the politics of Greece. They appealed to those two opposite principles which determine the whole history of Greece, the love of autonomy and the pride of Hellenism. The independent city states felt that they were competing in the persons of their citizens, whose fortunes they identified with their own. At the same time, the gathering of citizens from every part of the Greek world quickened the consciousness of common brotherhood, and kept them true to those traditions of religion and education which distinguished Greek from barbarian.

Enough has been said to show the importance of athletics in the whole life of the Greeks, and their intimate connexion with their education, their art, their religion, and their politics. It is by virtue of this many-sided interest that the subject deserves the attention of all who are interested in the life and thought of Greece.

At the same time, it must be borne in mind that the athletic ideal which we have described was only realized during a short period of the fifth century, under the purifying influence of the enthusiasm evoked by the war with Persia. Even then, perhaps, it was only partially realized. We must not close our eyes to the element of exaggeration inherent in all such ideals. Before the close of the fifth century the excessive prominence given to bodily excellence and athletic success had produced specialization and professionalism. From this time sport, over-developed and over-specialized, became more and more the monopoly of a class, and consequently ceased to invigorate the national life. The old games, in which all competed in friendly and honourable rivalry, gave place to professional displays, in which victory was too often bought and sold, where an unathletic crowd could enjoy the excitement of sport by proxy. Yet in spite of specialization, professionalism, corruption, in spite of all the vicissitudes through which Greece passed, the athletic festivals survived. The athletic ideal, often and long obscured, but never wholly lost, reappeared from time to time in different parts of the Greek world, till, under the patronage of the Antonines, the Panhellenic festivals recovered some semblance at least of their olden glory.

The extraordinary vitality of those festivals gives interest to the attempt to trace their history. This history extends over some 1200 years. We are apt to limit our conceptions of Greek history to the few centuries comprised in the curricula of our universities and schools, and to forget that Greek history does not end with the death of Alexander, or even with the loss of Greek independence, but that, under the rule of Rome, the life of Greece, its institutions and festivals, went on, to a great extent, unchanged, acquiring more and more hold over her conquerors, till the whole Roman world was Hellenized, and with the founding of Constantinople the centre of the empire itself was transferred to Greek soil. To such a narrow conception of history it is a wholesome corrective to trace the story of one branch of Greek activity from beginning to end. And nowhere can the continuity of Greek life be traced more clearly than in the history of her athletic festivals. That we are able to do so is chiefly due to the excavations conducted at Olympia under the auspices of the German government, which are still being continued by Dr. Dörpfeld. It is for this reason that in the following chapters the history of Olympia forms the basis of the history of Greek athletics.

The story of Greek athletics has a peculiarly practical interest in the present day in view of the development of athletics which has taken place in the last fifty years, and of the revival of the Olympic games. There are striking resemblances between the history of modern athletics and of Greek. The movement began in the sports of our public schools and universities, spread rapidly through all English-speaking lands, and is now extending to the Continent. Athletics are as popular among us as they were in Greece, and for us, as for the Greeks, they have been a great instrument of good. Unfortunately the signs of excess are no less manifest to-day than they were in the times of Xenophanes and Euripides. History repeats itself strangely. We have seen the same growth of competition, the same hero-worship of the athlete, the same publicity and prominence given to sport out of all proportion to its deserts, the same tendency to specialization and professionalism. Sport has too often become an end in itself. The hero-worship of the athlete tempts men to devote to selfish amusement the best years of their lives, and to neglect the true interests of themselves and of their country. The evil is worse with us, because our games have not the practical value as a military training which Greek sports had. Still more grievous than this waste of time and energy is the absorbing interest taken by the general public in the athletic performances of others. The crowds which watch a professional football match, the still larger crowds of those who think and read of little else, the columns of the daily press devoted to accounts of such matches, are no proof of an athletic nation, but rather of the reverse. They are merely a sign of an unhealthy love of excitement and amusement, and of the absence of all other interests. Of the evils of professionalism this is no place to speak. They are well known to any one who has followed the history of boxing, wrestling, or football. The history of football during the last two years is ominous. On the one hand we see the leading amateur clubs revolting from the tyranny of a Football Association conducted in the interests of various joint-stock companies masquerading as Football Clubs; on the other hand we see the professional players forming a trades-union to protect themselves against the tyranny of this same commercialism. The Rugby Union has struggled manfully to uphold the purity of the game, and has often received but scanty encouragement for its efforts. Fortunately there are signs that public opinion is changing, and is beginning to appreciate the efforts of the amateur bodies controlling various sports. The very existence of these bodies proves how real the danger is. Under these circumstances the history of the decline of Greek athletics is an object-lesson full of instruction.

What has been said above explains perhaps why the revival of the Olympic games has not been received in England with any great amount of enthusiasm. The promoters of these games were inspired by the ideal of ancient Greece, and wished to establish a great international athletic meeting which would be for the nations of the world what Olympia was for Greece. We must all sympathize with their aspirations. Unfortunately they do not seem to have realized the full lesson of Greek athletics, nor did they realize the dangers of competition on so vast a scale under the more complicated conditions of modern life. In England, where athletics have already developed to an extent unknown on the Continent, we have begun to realize the dangers of over-competition. The experience of recent years has taught us that international competitions do not always make for amity, and do not always promote amateur sport. The events of the last Olympic games, and the subsequent performances of some of the victors of these games, particularly of the fêted heroes of the so-called Marathon race, have gone far to justify the forebodings of those who feared that one of the chief results of such a competition would be an increase in professionalism.