Читать книгу The Hellenistic World - F. Walbank W. - Страница 22

The central role of the gymnasium in Greek communities went with a long-standing passion for athletics and athletes of all ages also travelled around the Greek world bringing fame to their cities and themselves if they carried off prizes at international festivals. An example is provided by a late-second-century inscription found on the site of Cedreae, a small city lying under what is now Şehir Ada in the Ceramic Gulf in south-western Turkey, which at that time belonged to Rhodes.

The Confederation (or Guild) of the peoples of the Chersonese salutes Onasiteles the son of Onesistratus, victor in the furlong-race three times in the boys’ category at the Isthmia, in the beardless category at the Nemea and at the Asclepieia in Cos, in the men’s category at the Dorieia at Cnidus, at the Dioscureia and at the Heracleia, in the boys’ and ephebes’ category at the Tlapolemeia, victory in the furlong-race and the two-furlong-race in the boys’ category at the Dorieia in Cnidus, in the ephebes’ category at the Poseidania, in the furlong-race and the race in armour at the Heracleia and in the long race in the men’s category twice, in the torch-race ‘from the first point’ (?) in the men’s category at the great Halieia and twice in the small Halieia, twice at the Dioscureia, twice at the Poseidania, in the furlong-race and race in armour in the men’s category (Syll., 1067).

This record could be reproduced again and again, for victors in athletics contests, especially in the festivals adjudged ‘equal to the Olympic games’ (isolympia), were highly honoured for the prestige which they brought to their native cities.

Among professional men whose careers took them to many cities and even more to the royal courts, where the hope of employment was higher, were engineers, architects and teachers at all levels. Musicians and poets (and poetesses) too might wander from place to place in the expectation of patronage, adapting their verses to suit the place of performance. Thus a Tean envoy, Menecles, seeking concessions for his city in Crete is praised at Cnossus for giving frequent performances, during his stay there, on the cithara (a stringed instrument), singing the songs of Timotheus and Polyidus and other ancient poets ‘in a manner befitting an educated man’ and at Priansus in addition he performed a ‘Cretan cycle’ about the gods and heroes of the island, collected from many poets and historians. The Priansians accorded him special praise for his regard for culture (SGDI