Material for Workshop #2

All material posted for this workshop is posted here for educational purposes only. Do not copy or re-distribute for any reason.

I. Inscriptions or Other References to Olympic victors:

1. Plutarch, Quaest. conv. 2.5.2: In Lakedaimon, there was a special place in the ranks for victors at the crown games (e.g., Olympia, Delphi, Nemea and Isthmis), stationed to fight around the king himself.

2. Plutarch, Quaest. conv. 2.5.3: And the fact that, for the re-entry of athletic victors, they bid them cast down a part fo the city wall has such an intent: that there is no great benefit of walls for a city which has men able to fight and to win.

3. Suetonius, Nero: Returning from Greece to Naples (because he had exhibited his skill there first), he entered with white horses where a part of the wall had been cast down, as is the custom for victors at the holy games; in a similar way [he entered] Rome also in that chariot in which Augustus had once celebrated a triumph, and in a purple garment and a cloak decorated with gold stars, wearing on his head his Olympic crown, carrying his Pythian crown in his right hand, with a parade proceeding with the titles of all the rest [of the contests], where and whom he had beaten, by what song or plot of stories....

4. Diod. Sic. 12.9.5-6: With Milo the athlete commanding and, on account of the superabundance of his bodily force, first having turned those stationed against him. For this man, a six-time Olympic victor and having the courage to go with his bodily nature, is said to have entered into battle crowned with his six Olympic crowns and wearing the garb of Herakles with lion skin and club. And [it is said] that he was marvelled at by his fellow citizens as being the cause of victory.

5. Anth. Pal. 16.2: Come to know Theognetos looking upon him the boy Olympic victor, skilled charioteer of the wrestling, most beautiful to see, but in competing no worse than his form, who crowned the city of good fathers.

6. Anth. Pal. 13.15: I am Dikon son of Kallimbrotos, and I was victorious four times at Nemea, twice at Olympia, five times at Pytho, and three times at the Isthmus. And I crown the city of the Syracusans.

7. Olympia 225: Accordingly, I bestow kudos upon my father Eirenaios and my homeland Ephesos by means of immortal crowns.

8. Milet III 164: The Telephidai crowned you from the contests of Herakles, and Miletus received the kudos of your wrestling.

9. Timotheos fr. 26 / 802 PMG: Blessed were you, TImotheos, when the herald said "Timotheos the Milesian beats the soft Ionian-singing son of Kamon."

10. Pausanias 6.10.6-9: After Iccus stands Pantarces the Elean, beloved of Pheidias, who beat the boys at wrestling. Next to Pantarces is the chariot of Cleosthenes, a man of Epidamnus. This is the work of Ageladas, and it stands behind the Zeus dedicated by the Greeks from the spoil of the battle of Plataea. Cleosthenes' victory occurred at the sixty-sixth Festival, and together with the statues of his horses he dedicated a statue of himself and one of his charioteer. [7] There are inscribed the names of the horses, Phoenix and Corax, and on either side are the horses by the yoke, on the right Cnacias, on the left Samus. This inscription in elegiac verse is on the chariot : "Cleosthenes, son of Pontis, a native of / Epidamnus, dedicated me / After winning with his horses a victory in the glorious games of Zeus." This Cleosthenes was the first of those who bred horses in Greece to dedicate his statue at Olympia. For the offering of Evagoras the Laconian consists of the chariot without a figure of Evagoras himself; the offerings of Miltiades the Athenian, which he dedicated at Olympia, I will describe in another part of my story (see 6.19.6). The Epidamnians occupy the same territory to-day as they did at first, but the modern city is not the ancient one, being at a short distance from it. The modern city is called Dyrrhachium from its founder.

11. Pausanias 6.13.9:-10: The mare of the Corinthian Pheidolas was called, the Corinthians relate, Aura (breeze ), and at the beginning of the race she chanced to throw her rider. But nevertheless she went on running properly, turned round the post, and, when she heard the trumpet, quickened her pace, reached the umpires first, realized that she had won and stopped running. The Eleans proclaimed Pheidolas the winner and allowed him to dedicate a statue of this mare. The sons also of Pheidolas were winners in the horse-race, and the horse is represented on a slab with this inscription : "The swift Lycus by one victory at the Isthmus and two here / Crowned the house of the sons of Pheidolas." But the inscription is at variance with the Elean records of Olympic victors. These records give a victory to the sons of Pheidolas at the sixty-eighth Festival but at no other. You may take my statements as accurate.

12. Pausanias 7.17.4-1: But nobody is likely to be led into a fallacy by the inscription on the statue of Oebotas at Olympia. Oebotas was a man of Dyme, who won the foot-race at the sixth Festival (756 BCE) and was honored, because of a Delphic oracle, with a statue erected in the eightieth Olympiad (460 BCE). On it is an inscription which says: "This Oebotas, an Achaean, the son of Oenias, by winning the foot-race, / Added to the renown of his fatherland Paleia." This inscription should mislead nobody, although it calls the city Paleia and not Dyme. For it is the custom of Greek poets to use ancient names instead of more modern ones, just as they surname Amphiaraus and Adrastus Phoronids, and Theseus an Erechthid. . . . [13]In the territory of Dyme is also the grave of Oebotas the runner. Although this Oebotas was the first Achaean to win an Olympic victory, he yet received from them no special prize. Wherefore Oebotas pronounced a curse that no Achaean in future should win an Olympic victory. There must have been some god who was careful that the curse of Oebotas should be fulfilled, but the Achaeans by sending to Delphi at last learned why it was that they had been failing to win the Olympic crown. So they dedicated the statue of Oebotas at Olympia and honored him in other ways, and then Sostratus of Pellene won the footrace for boys. It is still today a custom for the Achaeans who are going to compete at Olympia to sacrifice to Oebotas as to a hero, and, if they are successful, to place fillets on the statue of Oebotas at Olympia.

13. CEG 849: Stand and bestow kudos upon the achievement of the feet of this one. For twice he won the contest in the grove of Olympian Zeus, leaning his arm under a bronze shielf, and first of the Cretans he beat all at Nemea and in [the festival] of Pallas Athena he was crowned. And twice he bears glory from under Parnassos, taking first place both in the diaulos and in the hoplitodromos. And not in vain, did he wash the dust from his feet in the divine water of Kastalia.

14. CEG 399: Euthymos of Lokris, son of Astykles, I won the Olympic games three times. And he set up this image for mortals to look upon.

15. IG. V.i.564a: Kings of Sparta are my father and brothers. / Kyniska, conquering with a chariot of fleet-footed steeds, / Set up this statue. And I declare myself the only woman / In all Hellas to have gained this crown.

16. Xenophon, Agesilaos 9.6: Surely, too, he did what was seemly and dignified when he adorned his own estate with works and possessions worthy of a man, keeping hounds and war horses, but persuaded his sister Kyniska to breed chariot horses, and showed by her victory that such a stud is a mark not of manliness but of wealth. How clearly his true nobility comes out in his opinion that a victory in the chariot race over private citizens would add not a whit to his renown.

17. Pausanias 6.4.6-7: Chilon, an Achaean of Patrae, won two prizes for men wrestlers at Olympia, one at Delphi, four at the Isthmus and three at the Nemean games. He was buried at the public expense by the Achaeans, and his fate it was to lose his life on the field of battle. My statement is borne out by the inscription at Olympia: "In wrestling only I alone conquered twice the men at Olympia and at Pytho, / Thrice at Nemea, and four times at the Isthmus near the sea; / Chilon of Patrae, son of Chilon, whom the Achaean folk / Buried for my valour when I died in battle." Thus much is plain from the inscription. But the date of Lysippus, who made the statue, leads me to infer about the war . . . .

18. Milet 1238: Those who guyide straight with their ordinances the Olympic Festival, glorious to all the Greeks, crowned -- and the immortals who reverence the memorials of victory [are] witnesses -- Kleonikos winning the boys' wrestling without a fall. But I ...eidas, set up this memorial for my brother, and the polished coloumn is fixed upon his tomb announcing his skill. But all Greece holds remembrance.

19. CEG 827: Standing thus, the Pelasgian boxer once upon the Alpheios showed forth the ordinance of Polydeukes with his hands, when he was heralded victor. But, Father Zeus, also again bestow noble glory on Arcadia, and honor Philippos, who here leaned on four boys from the islands with straight battle.

20. Pindar, Pythian 12.1, 5-6: I ask you, shining one, most beautiful of mortal cities . . . receive this crown from Pytho for glorious Midas, and receive [the man] himself, who has beaten Greece in his craft.

21. CEG 855.1-2: The city crowned me winning with this image.

22. Pindar, Ol. 4.8-12: Receive this Olympic victory komos by the grace of the Charites, the longest-lasting light of achievements broad in strength. For it comes from the chariots of Psaumis who, crowned with olive from Pisa, haste to rouse kudos for Kamarina.

23. Bacchylides 10.15-18: however many times by the grace of Victory having bound your blond head with flowers you established kudos for broad Athens and glory for the Oineidai.

24. Pindar, Olympian 5.1-8: Daughter of Ocean, receive with laughing heart the sweet peak of highest achievements and crowns from Olympia, the gits of the untiring-footed chariot and of Psaumis. Exalting your city which nurtures the people, O Kamarina, he honored the twelve altars at the greatest festivals of the gods with sacrifices and the five-day competitions of contests, with horses and mules and single-horse racing. And having won he dedicated to you luxurious kudos, and he heralded his father Akron and his new-founded seat.

25. Pausanias 6.6.1-2: Beside the statue of Pulydamas at Olympia stand two Arcadians and one Attic athlete. The statue of the Mantinean, Protolaus the son of Dialces, who won the boxing-match for boys, was made by Pythagoras of Rhegium; that of Narycidas, son of Damaretus, a wrestler from Phigalia, was made by Daedalus of Sicyon; that of the Athenian Callias, a pancratiast, is by the Athenian painter Micon. Nicodamus the Maenalian made the statue of the Maenalian pancratiast Androsthenes, the son of Lochaeus, who won two victories among the men. By these is set up a statue of Eucles, son of Callianax, a native of Rhodes and of the family of the Diagoridae. For he was the son of the daughter of Diagoras, and won an Olympic victory in the boxing-match for men. His statue is by Naucydes. Polycleitus of Argos, not the artist who made the image of Hera, but a pupil of Naucydes, made the statue of a boy wrestler, Agenor of Thebes. The statue was dedicated by the Phocian Commonwealth, for Theopompus, the father of Agenor, was a state friend (proxenos) of their nation.

26. Pausanias 6.6.3: Nicodamus, the sculptor from Maenalus, made the statue of the boxer Damoxenidas of Maenalus. There stands also the statue of the Elean boy Lastratidas, who won the crown for wrestling. He won a victory at Nemea also among the boys, and another among the beardless striplings. Paraballon, the father of Lastratidas, was first in the double foot-race, and he left to those coming after an object of ambition, by writing up in the gymnasium at Olympia the names of those who won Olympic victories.

27. Pausanias 6.6.4-6: So much for these. But it would not be right for me to pass over the boxer Euthymus, his victories and his other glories. Euthymus was by birth one of the Italian Locrians, who dwell in the region near the headland called the West Point, and he was called son of Astycles. Local legend, however, makes him the son, not of this man, but of the river Caecinus, which divides Locris from the land of Rhegium and produces the marvel of the grasshoppers. For the grasshoppers within Locris as far as the Caecinus sing just like others, but across the Caecinus in the territory of Rhegium they do not utter a sound. This river then, according to tradition, was the father of Euthymus, who, though he won the prize for boxing at the seventy-fourth Olympic Festival (484 BCE), was not to be so successful at the next. For Theagenes of Thasos, wishing to win the prizes for boxing and for the pancratium at the same Festival, overcame Euthymus at boxing, though he had not the strength to gain the wild olive in the pancratium, because he was already exhausted in his fight with Euthymus. Thereupon the umpires fined Theagenes a talent, to be sacred to the god, and a talent for the harm done to Euthymus, holding that it was merely to spite him that he entered for the boxing competition. For this reason they condemned him to pay an extra fine privately to Euthymus. At the seventy-sixth Festival Theagenes paid in full the money owed to the god, . . . and as compensation to Euthymus did not enter for the boxing-match. At this Festival, and also at the next following, Euthymus won the crown for boxing. His statue is the handiwork of Pythagoras, and is very well worth seeing.

28. Pausanias 6.6.7-11: On his return to Italy Euthymus fought against the Hero, the story about whom is as follows. Odysseus, so they say, in his wanderings after the capture of Troy was carried down by gales to various cities of Italy and Sicily, and among them he came with his ships to Temesa. Here one of his sailors got drunk and violated a maiden, for which offence he was stoned to death by the natives. [8] Now Odysseus, it is said, cared nothing about his loss and sailed away. But the ghost of the stoned man never ceased killing without distinction the people of Temesa, attacking both old and young, until, when the inhabitants had resolved to flee from Italy for good, the Pythian priestess forbad them to leave Temesa, and ordered them to propitiate the Hero, setting him a sanctuary apart and building a temple, and to give him every year as wife the fairest maiden in Temesa. [9] So they performed the commands of the god and suffered no more terrors from the ghost. But Euthymus happened to come to Temesa just at the time when the ghost was being propitiated in the usual way; learning what was going on he had a strong desire to enter the temple, and not only to enter it but also to look at the maiden. When he saw her he first felt pity and afterwards love for her. The girl swore to marry him if he saved her, and so Euthymus with his armour on awaited the onslaught of the ghost. [10] He won the fight, and the Hero was driven out of the land and disappeared, sinking into the depth of the sea. Euthymus had a distinguished wedding, and the inhabitants were freed from the ghost for ever. I heard another story also about Euthymus, how that he reached extreme old age, and escaping again from death departed from among men in another way. Temesa is still inhabited, as I heard from a man who sailed there as a merchant. [11] This I heard, and I also saw by chance a picture dealing with the subject. It was a copy of an ancient picture. There were a stripling, Sybaris, a river, Calabrus, and a spring, Lyca. Besides, there were a hero-shrine and the city of Temesa, and in the midst was the ghost that Euthymus cast out. Horribly black in color, and exceedingly dreadful in all his appearance, he had a wolf's skin thrown round him as a garment. The letters on the picture gave his name as Lycas.

29. Pausanias 6.11.7-9: But in course of time, when the earth yielded no crop to the Thasians, they sent envoys to Delphi, and the god instructed them to receive back the exiles. At this command they received them back, but their restoration brought no remedy of the famine. So for the second time they went to the Pythian priestess, saying that although they had obeyed her instructions the wrath of the gods still abode with them. Whereupon the Pythian priestess replied to them : "But you have forgotten your great Theagenes." And when they could not think of a contrivance to recover the statue of Theagenes, fishermen, they say, after putting out to sea for a catch of fish caught the statue in their net and brought it back to land. The Thasians set it up in its original position, and are wont to sacrifice to him as to a god. [9] There are many other places that I know of, both among Greeks and among barbarians, where images of Theagenes have been set up, who cures diseases and receives honors from the natives. The statue of Theagenes is in the Altis, being the work of Glaucias of Aegina.

30. Pausanias 6.18.7: The first athletes to have their statues dedicated at Olympia were Praxidamas of Aegina, victorious at boxing at the fifty-ninth Festival (544 BCE), and Rexibius the Opuntian, a successful pancratiast at the sixty-first Festival (536 BCE). These statues stand near the pillar of Oenomaus, and are made of wood, Rexibius of figwood and the Aeginetan of cypress, and his statue is less decayed than the other.

31. Pausanias 8.40.1 : The Phigalians have on their market-place a statue of the pancratiast Arrhachion; it is archaic, especially in its posture. The feet are close together, and the arms hang down by the side as far as the hips. The statue is made of stone, and it is said that an inscription was written upon it. This has disappeared with time, but Arrhachion won two Olympic victories at Festivals before the fifty-fourth, while at this Festival1 he won one due partly to the fairness of the Umpires and partly to his own manhood.

II. Visual Documents

Click on the thumbnails below for larger views as you prepare for the workshop discussion. None of these images are from Olympia but they offer a general idea of what statues of athletes may have looked like.

	Reconstruction of the sanctuary at Olympia.
	Another reconstruction of the sanctuary at Olympia.
	Doryphoros "spear carrier" of Polykleios. Mid-fifth century BCE. Commonly referred to as the Canon.
	Discobolos ("discus thrower") of Myron, ca. 460 BCE. Myron chose a moment of rest between two periods of movement for this statue; the backward swing of the discus has reached its furthest point and the unwinding of the body has not commenced.
	Diadoumenos("fillet binder") by Polykleitos, ca. 430 BCE. Polykleitos chose to represent in this statue the moment the athlete binds his head with a fillet, over which the judges will place the victor's laurel wreath.
	Apoxyomenos "scraper" of Lysippos. ca. 340-30 BCE. Lysippos chose to represent the athlete as he was scraping himself down before bathing.
	Herald announcing the victor in the horse race as a youth approaches with tripod and crown. Black figure amphora of Panathenaic shape, ca. 570 BCE. Now in British Museum.

III. Olympic Victors

Browse the material about Olympic victors posted at http://www.fhw.gr/olympics/ancient/en/200.html. Note: this site is very slow to download.

IV. Pausanias' Description of Olympia

Browse through Pausanias' description of the sanctuary at Olympia, books 6 and 7 of his Description of Greece. Consult any translation, or access it on line at http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160&layout=&loc=1.1.1.

V. Other Material

You may also want to review the PowerPoint slides from the Olympia lecture as you prepare for the workshop.