Wrestling In Ancient Greece

Wrestling is one of the oldest sports, and it has a lot of historical background. Wrestling was established in the 15th and 16th century, but it was not a competitive sport at the time. There have been cave drawings of wrestling found from 3000 B.C., which shows that either the sport or at least ideas about the sport have been around for a long time (Olympic). It was during the pioneer days that wrestling’s popularity began to grow. In Canada, there was a wrestling champion from each of the small villages and settlements. After the champions were crowned, they would all compete against each other and whoever won was the best of the best (Wrestling). A wide variety of people were involved in wrestling, even some presidents, including Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. Washington was good enough to win a tournament, and at one point in history, there was a style of wrestling named after him. That style, however, is no longer used in today’s sport.

Stephen G. Miller, the author of Ancient Greek Athletics and many other academic writings lived a very astounding life. Miller spent a great portion of his life traveling between the United States and Greece. He went to school to become an archaeologist and afterwards became a professor at Berkeley and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Miller was driven by Plato’s love for his work; however, he faced a minor setback when he realized Plato’s language was beyond what he could understand. He then decided to change his studies to archaeology because of his new-found love for amazing indoor and outdoor work. Miller had a unique perspective on ancient Olympic games because he directed excavations for multiple years at one of the Panhellenic sanctuary sites. He has written dozens of academic books along with children’s books, therefore I was excited to read this authors rendition of the earliest Olympic Games.

First stop will be to learn the history of wrestling. As stated “Early Egyptian and Babylonian reliefs show moves still used today” (http://www.athleticscholarships.net/history-of-wrestling.htm). Wrestling was used by the Ancient greeks for soldier combat training. Due to Greeks worry over the sports history,

Ancient Greece became a very influential civilization. Founded by the Minoans who first moved to the island of Crete in around 2000 B.C and lasted to about 1400 B.C. The Minoans developed an advanced civilization and expressed their culture in their constructed palaces. Great monuments were reached at Greece’s Golden Age from around 500 B.C to 300 B.C. They created long lasting contributions in subjects such as Philosophy, Military, Health, and Government.

Wrestling is one of the oldest sports known to man. It was also the first sport to be brought into the olympics in Ancient Greece. To cut out the oldest sport known to man out of the olympics is unthinkable. Most importantly, wrestling teaches self respect, self control, self confidence, self defense, self esteem, and most of all, how to work as a

-DBQ document POV: Moving up in Greek society was possible and everyone could help out

There are many greek sports that reflect our american culture today. One of the ancient sports that reflects our culture today is greek wrestling. Greek wrestling was a game where two opponents tried to throw each other out of a ring, and the man who was thrown from the ring first lost. This game was a fair game based on strength and strategy. There are many sports in america today that have those same virtues to win. Wrestling shows the physicality that a lot of sports in america possess today. This game also had a fair set of rules like almost all american sports. This was a great sport for strength training and it was very popular like it is today.

“The Olympic games satisfied the Greek ideal-- that a healthy body was necessary for a well balanced mind.” ( Quinnell, 156)All over Greece every boy practice the five parts of the pentathlon, ( running, jumping, discus, javelin throwing, and wrestling) hoping that one day they would be able to represent their city in the event. Competitors trained year around to get ready for the games. Greece was known to be one of the most powerful civilization during this era. If a war was to ever break out in Greece they had the advantage because of how fit most of the men already were. The Olympics brought the greek world a unique power against other

The origins of wrestling go back to 15,000 years ago Wrestling is one of the oldest sport played. The Greeks feared the true history of the sport would be lost therefore Greco-Roman wrestling was born from that one type of wrestling many forms were elaborated. The first real traces of the development of wrestling date back to the times of the Sumerians which is 5000 years ago. Drawings , as well as many other vestiges, witness the existence of corporations of wrestlers in Ancient Egypt, wrestling rules and refereeing codes. Fights were similar to those of freestyle wrestling, as shown by drawings and inscriptions from that time. The most famous of all wrestlers was Milon of Croton, six times Olympic champion, ten times winner of the

As running was the most popular of the events of the games, in 724 BC a second running event was added, the diaulos foot-race, which ran two lengths of the stadium. Gradually, as the games gained popularity, other events were added also, including wrestling, boxing, equestrian events, discus and jumping. Over time, development in Greek society constructed different variations of many of the basis games, expanding the event and gaining popularity. The Pankration, a combination of wrestling and boxing, was added and quickly became the one of the most challenging sports played. The Pentathlon event was also added in 708 BC and incorporated 5 separate games; Discus, Javelin, Jump, Running and Wrestling. As the games developed and events were added, the duration of them became longer. By 5th century BC, the games had extended to a 3-day event, and again to cover 5 days. They were held every 4 years, and were always played at the site of Olympia. With the consistent expansion of games came the development of prizes for worthy victors of the each competition. These became more extravagant and desirable as the games gained

According to Nigel Binns, in his book “Nuba Wrestling, the original art” he speaks of the Greecian art of wrestling boxing called Pankration, which was originally an art form from Africa (It is similar to Nuba Wrestling mixed with Hausa Boxing) and that the Greeks adopted it as their own. Nigel noted, their style of wrestling called Pankration is said to derive its name from two ancient Egyptian gods; Ra and Aton. Therefore Pan-Ra-Aton/ or Pankration meaning all-powerful God, or spirit.

In the image of a black figure vase, we can see a clear distinction between the different characters involved during the games. We can see the umpire on the right of the vase, naked and with a whip in his hand, ready to punish any athletes who cheated. The lower bodied athlete signals submission to the umpire, who then forwards the submission to the hellanodikai. The hellanodikai, on the left of the vase, wears a robe, which would have been purple, and a crown to signify his more honourable roll. The five days of the Olympics each had their own special event; the first included the athletes and hellanodikai swearing an oath of honesty and sportsmanship before the statue of Zeus, an unbreakable promise. The second day hosted the horse races and the pentathlon, consisting of discus, the long jump, javelin, running and wrestling, all went on in one afternoon. The third day saw a more religious side to the Olympics; rites for the hero Pelops were given, a procession of all participants, hellanodikai and ambassadors of the different cities took place, and a sacrifice of a hundred cows was given to Zeus. The fourth day was for the running and combat sports, including wrestling, boxing and pankration, which was a sport that combined both the rules of wrestling and boxing. In contrast to the Pythian Games at Delphi, musical events were never added to the Olympic Games. Victors in any of the contests received a crown of leaves as a symbolic prize for their achievements, and

Stephen G. Miller, an expert Yale professor in the field of Ancient Greek athletics states that the Olympics were held “in honor of Zeus in the city of Olympia” (Miller). “The element of religion is evident in this historical event. Many people have heard of the concepts of the Greek Gods, but this level of religious involvement is interesting. These games were held “for four days every fourth summer”, a tradition that partially continues to this day (Miller). “Many festivals in ancient Greece were dedicated to the Gods” (Miller). In addition to the Olympic Games, there were also other athletic festivals which included the Pythian Games at Delphi, the Isthmian at Corinth, and the Nemean at Argos (Miller). However, the Olympics at Olympia were “the oldest and most prestigious of the four great ancient Greek athletic festivals.

One exceptionally significant custom of the Greeks still observed today is the Olympics. These ancient games incorporated a concept of free athletic competition without bloodshed. If the Greeks

Following Poliakoff’s introduction to the ancient combat sports, he proceeds to provide a basic outline to the world of ancient combat sports in a series of sections within the chapter, including: The definition of a ‘combat sport’ and its relation to recreation and training; similarities amongst combat sports, training methods and common practise; the premise of athletic festivals, and the organization of said competition.