![]() Despite these difficulties and the apparent fluidity of the epic media, the broader heroic ethos incorporated in eighth to sixth century Greek culture was a crucial and arguably essential catalyst for establishment of the Olympics and the other Panhellenic games. The two epics do not, moreover, explicitly mention the Olympics, nor do the Olympics foundation stories in turn evidence explicit connections with heroic narratives of the eighth or seventh centuries B.C. In sum, then, the traditional Olympic founding date of 776 which I favor antedates the possession of an authoritative and canonical text of the Homeric epics. The text as we have it is the product of centuries of fluidity, with some orthodoxy of general episodes during the Panathenaic performances, standardizing from the late fourth to mid-second century B.C., then relative rigidity from that point on. I follow in general Nagy’s evolutionary model for the formative stage of diffusion in the second half of the eighth century and a more definitive stage in the middle of the sixth, when Panathenaic recitations began under the regime of the Peisistratids. ![]() Undoubtedly parts of the Iliad and Odyssey retain passages which reflect historical Bronze Age society and poetry, and oral versions with some greater poetic synthesis of extant myths existed since at least the eighth century. Again, with Homer’s texts, the dates of inception are disputed. Aside from Peiser’s unacceptably low, sixth-century date, the consensus view of scholars is an Olympic foundation date sometime between 776 and 704, that is, just before, during or after the traditional dates of 750 to 725 for the composition of the two great Homeric epics. ![]() Here I accept that the games likely began in or about 776 B.C., for the following reasons in brief: 1) archaeological evidence shows that the games definitely began by the late eighth century, and 2) a one-event program which gradually evolved from the simplest running events is more likely than a fully developed festival with chariot races and athletic sports right from the start. Modern archeologists and historians have either held to the canonical 776 foundation, downdated a beginning to 704 (Mallwitz), less convincingly suggested a start in the early sixth century with the other Panhellenic games (Peiser), or simply left the question open (Morgan Golden). Eratosthenes and his followers adhered to a foundation in 884, while Callimachus took it to have begun in 828. The 776 foundation has long been disputed. The first Olympics were traditionally founded in 776 B.C., the date given in the Olympic victor list of Hippias of Elis composed about 400 B.C. While drama, poetry, and other traditional performances make explicit intertextual allusions along the way, sports connect to the past through continuities of style of play, rules, costume, and even traditional iconography of the sports venue.ĭid Homeric and heroic poetry in some sense create the ancient Olympics? Chronology appears to pose a problem for this proposition. Thus the activity of the stadium in a sense constitutes a dialogue between a contemporary culture and the mythic time of its referent. Each athlete sees him- or herself as the latest participant in the tradition of the greatest from years past. The actions of sports, like analogous performances, often describe a complex interplay of tensions from which the audience can derive implicit or explicit messages from texts of their collective past to apply to their present lives. In their public and physical displays before spectators or an audience, sporting competitions are comparable to religious rituals, to the recitation or singing of stories, and to performances of drama in ancient, traditional, and even modern cultures. Sports involve public performance, carried out by the bodies of participants. ![]() Sports are by definition public events, events of the stadium, and thus events which in some ways serve as a mirror for activity in the public sphere of society outside the circumscribed space of the competition. ![]()
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