File:Greek athletic sports and festivals (1910) (14583472650).jpg

Identifier: greekathleticspo00gard (find matches)
Title: Greek athletic sports and festivals
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Gardiner, E. Norman (Edward Norman), 1864-1930
Subjects: Athletics Sports Olympics Fasts and feasts
Publisher: London : Macmillan and Co.
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
religion, it owed its developmentin the fifth century to two causes, firstly, to the growth ofathletic art and poetry, secondly, to the intense feeling ofPanhellenic unity produced by the struggle with Persia, Itwas this ideal that checked the growth of those evils whichinevitably result from the excessive popularity of athletics,and maintained their purity till the short-lived unity of Greecewas shattered by the Peloponnesian war. To understand thisideal we must briefly trace the history of athletic art and litera-ture, and then note how the national feeling found expressionin the Panhellenic and especially in the Olympic games. W^hout_^thletics^^^ Professor Furtwangler,^ Greek art cannot be conceived. The skill of the Greek artistin representing the forms of the naked body is due in the firstinstance to the habit of complete nudity in athletic exercises,a habit which, even if it were, as Thucydides says, not^ A. Furtwiingler, Die Bedeutung der Gymnastik in der griechischen Kunst. 86
Text Appearing After Image:
Fig, 7.—Apollo, found at Tenea. Munich.(Greek Scidptlire, Fig. 20.) 87 88 GREEK ATHLETIC SPORTS AND FESTIVALS ch. v introduced into all athletic competitions at Olympia till shortlybefore his own time, must certainly, if we may judge from theevidence of the black-figured vases, have been almost universalin the palaestra of the sixth century. Besides the unrivalledopportunities that this habit afforded the sculptor of studyingthe naked body in every position of activity, it must haveserved as a valuable incentive to the youths of Greece to keepthemselves in good condition. The Greek, with his keen eyefor physical beauty, regarded flabbiness, want of condition,imperfect development as a disgrace, a sign of neglectededucation, and the ill-trained youth was the laughing-stock ofhis companions. Hence every Greek learnt to take a pride inhis physical fitness and beauty. This love of physical beautyis strikingly illustrated in one of the war-songs of Tj^rtaeus : ^ It is a shame, he says, f

Note About Images