Читать книгу Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art - Walter Woodburn Hyde - Страница 14

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Since the victor was deemed the representative of the state, he often received a more substantial reward than a statue erected at the cost of his fellow citizens. The herald, in proclaiming his victory, proclaimed also the name of his town, which thus shared in his success. At Athens it was customary for a victor at the great games to receive a reward of money. To encourage an interest in athletics there, Solon established money prizes for victorious athletes. We have already said that 100 drachmæ were given to a victor at the Isthmus, while 500 were allotted to one at Olympia. Solon further ordained that victors should eat at the Prytaneion at the public expense.315 Probably other Greek states followed the Athenian custom. We know from an inscription that the Panathenaic victors in the stade-race received 50 amphoræ of oil, the pancratiast 40, and others 30.316 Later, in Rome, victors had special privileges granted them, including maintenance at the public expense, a privilege which Mæcenas advised the emperor Augustus to limit to victors at Olympia, Delphi, and Rome.317 Augustus in other ways enlarged the privileges of athletes.318 When we consider the intimate connection between religion and athletics and the Panhellenic fame of a victor at the great games, we can easily understand the indignation of the native town when its athletes did anything dishonorable. Sometimes a victor was bribed to appear as the citizen of some other state. Thus Astylos of Kroton, who won in running races in Ols. 73–76 ( = 488–476 B.C.), had himself proclaimed in his last two contests a Syracusan to please King Hiero. The citizens of his native town burned his house and pulled down his statue, which had been placed there in the temple of Hera.319 The Cretan Sotades, who won the long running race in Ol. 99 ( = 384 B.C.), was bribed at the next Olympiad by the city of Ephesos to proclaim himself an Ephesian, and was in consequence exiled.320 Dikon, a victor in running races at the beginning of the fourth century B.C., proclaimed himself first a citizen of Kaulonia, but later, “for a sum of money,” entered the men’s contest as a Syracusan.321 Sometimes such attempts at bribery proved unsuccessful. Thus the father of the boy boxer Antipatros of Miletos, who won in Ol. 98 ( = 388 B.C.), accepted a bribe from some Syracusans, who were bringing an offering to Olympia from Dionysios, to let the boy be proclaimed a Syracusan. But the boy himself refused the bribe and had inscribed on his statue by the younger Polykleitos that he was a Milesian, the first Ionian to dedicate a statue at Olympia.322 The Spartan chariot victor Lichas has already been mentioned as having entered his chariot in the name of Thebes. The reason was that at the time the Spartans were excluded from entering the games at Olympia. He won, and in his excitement tied a ribbon on his charioteer with his own hands, thereby showing that the horses belonged to him and not to Thebes. For this infraction of the rules he, though an aged man, was punished by the umpires by scourging.323 A more disgraceful act was selling out, of which we have two examples at Olympia. The Thessalian Eupolos bribed his three adversaries in boxing to let him win. All four were fined and from the money six bronze statues of Zeus, known as Zanes, were erected at the entrance to the stadion, inscribed with elegiac verses which warned future athletes against repeating such attempts.324 More than fifty years later Kallippos, a pentathlete of Athens, bribed his opponents and, being detected, all were fined and from the money, finally collected from the recalcitrant Athenians through the influence of the oracle at Delphi, six more Zanes were erected.325 Straton (or Stratonikos), of Alexandria, won in wrestling and the pankration on the same day in Ol. 178 ( = 68 B.C.). In the wrestling match he had two adversaries, Eudelos and Philostratos of Rhodes. The latter had bribed Eudelos to sell out and, being detected, had to pay a fine. Out of this money another Zan was set up and still another at the cost of the Rhodians.326 In Ol. 192 ( = 12 B.C.) and in Ol. 226 ( = 125 A.D.), we hear of fines for such corruption out of which additional Zanes were erected.327 In Ol. 201 ( = 25 A.D.) Sarapion, a pancratiast from Alexandria, became so afraid of his antagonist that he fled the day before the contest and was fined—the only case recorded of an athlete being fined for cowardice at Olympia.328 In Ol. 218 ( = 93 A.D.) another Alexandrine, named Apollonios, was fined for arriving too late for the games at Olympia. His excuse of being detained by winds was found to be false, and it was discovered that he had been making money on the games in Ionia.329

Cases of bribery were known at other games. A third-century B.C. inscription from Epidauros records how three athletes were fined one thousand staters each διὰ τὸ φθείρειν τοὺς ἀγῶνας.330 The venality of Isthmian victors is shown by the account of a competitor who promised a rival three thousand drachmæ to let him win and then, on winning on his merits, refused to pay, though the defeated contestant swore on the altar of Poseidon that he had been promised the amount.331 The emperor Nero, in order to win in singing at the Isthmus, had to resort to force. A certain Epeirote singer refused to withdraw unless he received ten talents. Nero, to save himself from defeat, sent a band of men who pummelled his antagonist so that he could not sing.332

Often the home-coming of a victor at one of the national games was the occasion for a public celebration. Sometimes the whole city turned out to meet the hero.333 The victory was recorded on pillars, and poets composed songs in its honor which were sung by choruses of girls and boys. Sometimes a statue was set up in the agora or on the Akropolis. In the cities of Magna Græcia and Sicily such adulation of Olympic victors became at times very extravagant. Thus Exainetos of Akragas, who won the stade-race in Ols. 91 and 92 ( = 416–412 B.C.), was brought into the city in a four-horse chariot drawn by his fellow-citizens, and was escorted by 300 men in two-horse chariots drawn by white horses.334 It is also in the West that we first hear of victors being worshipped as heroes or gods, though the custom soon took root in Greece. It was but natural to account for the great strength of famous athletes by assigning to them divine origin and by worshipping them after death.335 Philippos of Kroton, who won in an unknown contest about Ol. 65 ( = 520 B.C.), had a heroön erected in his honor by the people of Egesta in Sicily on account of his beauty, in which he surpassed all his contemporaries, and he was worshipped after his death as a hero.336 The famous boxer Euthymos of Lokroi Epizephyrioi, who won in Ols. 74, 76, 77 ( = 484, 476, 472 B.C.), was worshipped even before his death and was looked upon as the son of no earthly father, but of the river-god Kaikinos.337 Fabulous feats were ascribed to him, e. g., the expulsion of the Black Spirit from Temessa.338 During and after his lifetime sacrifices were offered in his honor.339 The equally famed boxer and pancratiast Theagenes of Thasos, the opponent of Euthymos, who won in Ols. 75 and 76 ( = 480 and 476 B.C.), was heroized after his death.340 The Thasians maintained that his father was Herakles.341 The boxer Kleomedes of Astypalaia, who won in Ol. 71 ( = 496 B.C.), was honored as a hero after death.342 Having killed Ikkos, his opponent, he became crazed with grief. Pausanias recounts his curious death.343 The worship of such athletes was supposed to bestow physical strength on their adorers and consequently statues were erected to them in many places and were thought to be able to cure illnesses.344 The life of a successful athlete was looked upon as especially happy. In Aristophanes’ Plutus, Hermes deserts the gods and serves Plutus “the presider over contests,” thinking no service more profitable to the god of wealth than holding contests in music and athletics.345 Plato thought an Olympic victor’s life was the most blessed of all from a material point of view.346 In the myth of Er the soul of Atalanta chooses the body of an athlete, on seeing “the great rewards bestowed on an athlete.”347 The great Rhodian pancratiast Dorieus, who won in Ols. 87, 88, 89 ( = 432–424 B.C.), was taken prisoner by Athens during the Peloponnesian war, but was freed because of his exploits at Olympia.348 The honor in which a victor was held may also be judged by the story of the Spartan ephor Cheilon, who died of joy while embracing his victorious son Damagetos.349 To quote from Ernest Gardner: “The extraordinary, almost superhuman honours paid to the victors at the great national contests made them a theme for the sculptor hardly less noble than gods and heroes, and more adapted for the display of his skill, as trained by the observation of those exercises which led to the victory.”350 Some of the greatest artists were employed, and great poets from Simonides of Keos down, including such names as Bacchylides and Pindar, were employed in singing their praises. Although it must be confessed that the majority of the artists of victor statues at Olympia are little known or wholly unknown masters, Pausanias mentions among them such renowned names as Hagelaïdas, Pythagoras, Kalamis, Myron, Polykleitos, Lysippos, and possibly Pheidias. Certain other great names, however, are absent from his lists, e. g., Euphranor, Kresilas, Praxiteles, and Skopas. Such extravagant reverence of Olympic and other victors as we have outlined met, of course, with violent protests all through Greek history, just as the excessive popularity of athletics has in our time. The philosopher Xenophanes of Kolophon, who died 480 B.C., was scandalized at the offering of divine honors to athletes.351 While he denounced the popularity of athletics, Euripides later denounced the professionalism which had begun to creep in after the middle of the fifth century B.C.352 Plato, though a strong advocate of practical physical training for war, was opposed to the vain spirit of competition in the athletics of his day. He complained that professional athletes paid excessive attention to diet, slept their lives away, and were in danger of becoming brutalized.353 The last attack on professional athletics in point of time was made in the second century A.D. by Galen, in his Exhortation to the Arts.354 In this essay the eminent physician contended that the athlete was a benefit neither to himself nor to the state. When we study the brutal portraits of prize-fighters on the contemporary mosaics of the Baths of Caracalla at Rome, we can see to what depths the old athletic ideal had sunk, and the justness of his rebuke.355