Chariot Racing

The Chariot race is a very old thing. Pottery evidence shows the Mycenaeans at it, and the first literary reference to it is at Patroclus' funeral in The Iliad - i.e. in the first work of literature bar none. In 680BC both 2 and 4 horse racing was made part of the Olympics.

For the Romans, the legendary origins were in the story of Romulus and the Sabines: in the year 753BC, he invited them to view chariot racing, and made off with their womenfolk while they were distracted. In most likelihood, however, they pinched it from the Etruscans, who in turn took it from the Greeks. Some evidence for this exists in the Monteleone Chariot, c. 530BC, discovered in an Etruscan chariot burial.

In Archaic Rome, the "ludi circenses", or chariot race, was linked to the gods - in particular Murcia, Consus and Sol - or festivals - the Consualia, Equirria, Equus October and Ludi Romani. It was introduced to the official festival calender in 194BC for the Ludi Megalenses, in honour of Cybele.

Like the gladiatorial games I'll be posting on next, chariot racing was adopted by Republican generals for triumphs. To put on chariot races would be seen as a demonstration of your wealth and power, and in turn Rome's dominance.

Then my notes are interrupted by a series of Watchmen sketches, of which only Rorschach is very sucessful. Dave Gibbons, artist, once claimed that "if you can draw a hat, you can draw Rorschach", and he's 100% correct. Ozymandius is getting there. There's also an adorable doodle of "Dusty" Miller from Guns of Navarone. That film makes me want to fic, or at any rate draw cute chibis of the characters....

But I;m sure I have more info on this somehwere...


Athletics and Olympics in Greece and Rome

I've discovered the next set of notes written upside down in a different notebook entirely - although its occaionally interrupted by a rant about why Oasis by Amanda Palmer should be played on the radio. Oh, it is a terrible thing to be distractable! Speaking of distraction, what I must not do is engage in any potentially upsetting fiction for the next five days - books, films, episodes, graphic novels. And as fiction tends to want to be dramatic and moving, this translates as: no fiction full stop. I don't want anything like that throwing me off!

The first Olympic games were supposedly held in 776BC. It was one of the four "panhellenic games", and these together made up the Olympiad cycle:

> the Olympics, the most important, held as today every four years for Zeus (at Elis)
> the Pythian Games - every four years, in honour of Apollo (at Delphi)
> the Nemean Games - every two years, for Zeus again (at Nemea)
> The Isthmian Games - every two years for Poseidon (at Corinth)

At the Pythian games, victors would recieve a crown of laurel, at the Olympics an olive branch, at the Isthmian a crown of pine, and at the Nemean, a crown of wild celery. I bet the deligates from the Praxis Range were pleased. All four were "stephanetic", which is to say winners would win the glory but no money. They tended to recieve a triumphal procession on returning home. People would come from all over the Greek world, although they tended to be rather wealthy. Nero bent the rule by competing himself.

Those were the biggies. There were smaller local festivals, such as the Panathaneia, which also took place every four years. It was begun in 566BC and modelled after the Olympics, but unlike the panhellenic games, these were all about the prizes - typically, success would be rewarded with an amphorae of olive oil. The winner of the chariot race would win 140 of the damn things - what on earth was he meant to do with it? How would he carry it? Most of the events were the same, but there were some for Athenians alone: the torch run, a beauty contest, mock cavalry battles and other odd stuff.

All this athletics was an important part of Greek identity. It was tied to the gods, and brought strong civic honour. The larger festivals separated Greek from the Other*, with its monumental architecture and the alien* idea of competing for honour. They were an important part of a good education, providing an outlet for aggression and preparation for war, and the gymnasium was a noted gathering place for intellectuals.

*i.e. barbarians, women, slaves, non-Greeks. Not the third mythic founder of Timelord society, along with Rassilon and Omega. I'm pretty sure at least...
** in the sense of "strange, weird, hard to understand", not "from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous". Just to clear that one up...

Like much of Greek culture, when the Romans saw what was going on they went wow and decided they wanted some too. I'm gonna pinch a quote from the New Number Two now, because it defines the relationship between Greece and Rome excellenl:

Greece and Rome. I always think of England and the USA. Much that the
Romans admire came out of Greece (architecture, theatre, etc) and posh Romans
accentuated their learning with Greek stuff. You often see token Greeks crop up
in Roman history (the Hugh Grant effect). As I recall Greeks were also regarded
as a bit effete and old-fashioned compared to the Robust, practical Romans. The
Romans oddly combined a stiff public morality with some quite beastly immorality
and a brutal approach to warfare (Bush Administration, anyone?). The Greeks had
an aloofness from the upstarts but were ultimately dominated by them (51st
State). Indeed the Romans did bigger, better, more technologically advanced than the Greeks. The Romans would have loved Disneyland (especially if more killing was
involved).

Roman participation in the games started in 228BC at the Isthmian games, but Augustus soon wanted his own, starting the Actian Games in 30/28BC and the Sebasta in 2BC/2AD. Nero adored Greece and took part in the '67 Olympic games as a singer and charioteer, did badly, but won lots of crowns anyway. He also set up the Quinquennial Neronia, which only ever happened twice, for singing, gymnastics and riding. Domitian set up the Agon Capitolinus also after the model of the Olympics, once every four years and with musical and athletic contests, and built a stadium and odeon on the campus martius for them.

Enough of the details, what went on at these things? Chief of all was the running:

• the stade, a 192m sprint
• the dioulos, a double-stade
• the dolichos, which was 20 or 24 stades long.
• the hoplitodromos , for which you had to wear armor
• the hippios, a mere 4 stades to run

After that came the wrestling, the first non-running event added in 708BC. This was known as the pale, and it was followed in 688BC by boxing (pyx or pygmachia). For this, they would wear hymantes, leather straps which would protect your fists, but really sting if you got hit by one.. The Romans used the cestus - same principle - except studded with glass or metal. Frankly, the only nice thing about all this brutality is that boxing and wrestling would be taking place naked...and then there was the pankration (648BC) for people who really didn't want to take prisoners. Faintly equivalent to modern mixed martial arts, it combined wrestling and boxing, and almost anything goes - except eye-gouging and biting. That's nice to know. For a moment I was worried. It was bloody and vicious, and I'm amused to see that when the Olympics were revived, the Cardinal of Lyon stated "we reinstate all events - except the pankration".

Pausanias - Greek travel-writer and forerunner of Michael Palin - described an incident at the Nemian Games. Brace yourselves. Damoxenos of Syracuse thumps Creugas under the rib cage, penetrates the intestinal cavity then yanks out his intestines, at which point Creugas died on the spot. Ah, but there's a happy ending: Damoxenos was disqualified, and a statue raised to Creugas as rightful victor. Thank goodness for that! For a moment, I was worried!

Then there was the chariot racing, as disussed above a bit, and the Pentathlon as today. Prizes were soley glory, and carved victory wreaths have been found on sculpture and reliefs. Single women were allowed to watch, but not take part, except for the chariot racing. The award for a winning chariot went to the owner of the horses, not the actual rider, and a Spartan princess once won in this manner. The Heraia was a female series of games held at Olympia, although it's hard to get information about exactly how that worked. Nice girls were not encouraged to be athletic, while Spartan women were all for it.

Athletics spread out in the Roman empire, although not always enthusiastically. They were seen as unacceptable all over the place, on the grounds of the nudity, or the unpatriotic Greekness of it all. But we have evidence that it did spread from material cultures, from the authors Philostratus and Pausanias, and athletes such as Oxhyrnchus. Some places even created their own festivals - i.e. the Isolympic and Isopythion in Ephesus.

It always had greater popularity in the east than west - partly due to the "second sophistic", a boom of writers celebrating Greek identity, and partly due to the sheer joy of eurgetism.