jsh3603i

LUNT: THE HEROIC ATHLETE IN ANCIENT GREECE

Fall 2009 375

The Heroic Athlete inAncient Greece

DAVID J. LUNT†

Departments of History and Classics and Ancient Mediterranean StudiesThe Pennsylvania State University

In ancient Greece, powerful and successful athletes sought after and displayedmight and arete (excellence) in the hope of attaining a final component of di-vinity—immortality. These athletes looked to the heroes of Greek myth as mod-els for their own quests for glory and immortality. The most attractive heroicmodel for a powerful athlete was Herakles. Milo of Croton, a famed wrestlerfrom antiquity, styled himself after Herakles and imitated him in battle. Inaddition, three athletes from the fifth century B.C., Theagenes, Euthymos, andKleomedes, made the transition, in Greek minds, from athlete to hero. Thepower, might, and arete of their athletic victories provided the justification fortheir subsequent heroization. The stories of these athletes shed light on howhistorical athletes sought to imitate their mythic predecessors and how ancientGreeks were willing to bestow heroic honors, such as religious cults, on powerfulvictorious athletes.

THE ANCIENT BIOGRAPHER PLUTARCH WROTE that three characteristics distinguisheddivinity, and those who sought it—power or might, excellence (arete), and immortality.1

In ancient Greece, those who sought divinity, especially successful athletes, strove to display

†Correspondence to [email protected]. A shorter version of this paper won the North American Societyfor Sport History Graduate Student Essay Award in 2008. The author would like to thank Mark Dyreson,Bettina Kratzmüller, Donald Kyle, Mark Munn and the JSH editorial team for their critical suggestionsand thoughtful assistance.

JOURNAL OF SPORT HISTORY

376 Volume 36, Number 3

might and arete in the hope of attaining the final component of divinity—immortality.By means of their athletic prowess and victories, athletes sought and displayed arete, acomplicated Greek word that referred to virtue, excellence, and general superiority. Whilecomplete equality with the awesome gods of Olympus was beyond their reach, ancientGreek athletes looked to the race of the mythic heroes as models for their own quests forglory and immortality.

Around 700 B.C., during Greece’s Archaic Period, the poet Hesiod, in recounting thevarious ages of existence, described an age of heroes or “demi-gods,” where a “divine raceof heroic men” had fought great wars and earned a blessed afterlife.2 Plutarch, in his Lifeof Thesesus, speculated that Theseus’ era had produced a race of beings that far surpassednormal human athletic abilities such as bodily strength and swiftness of foot.3 Some ofthe members of this race of heroes demonstrated such a degree of might and virtue throughtheir exploits, adventures, and achievements that they somehow achieved a measure ofimmortality, meriting the establishment of religious cults after their deaths and continu-ing to exert some type of influence on earth. To the ancient Greeks, the mythic heroes,such as Theseus, Herakles (“Hercules” in the Latinized form), Pelops, and Achilles reallylived and died. As noted myth scholar Paul Veyne explained, the mythic heroes werehuman beings who possessed supernatural and superhuman traits. There was no room forthe ancient Greeks to doubt the reality of the lives of the great mythic heroes since humanbeings still existed and perhaps had always existed.4 Thus, by imitating the lives andadventures of these mythic heroes, successful and powerful athletes in ancient Greececould aspire to achieve a like measure of heroic honors after death.

Modern scholarship has fueled a considerable amount of debate concerning the na-ture of these ancient Greek athlete-heroes. Pausanias and Plutarch, two of the principalancient sources for these fifth-century B.C. athletes, wrote much later, in the second cen-tury A.D. While these writers’ chronological distance does not disqualify them as reliablesources, it is a task for the modern scholar to determine how soon after the athlete’s deaththe ancient Greeks instituted heroic honors. In addition, mythic tropes and folkloricthemes pepper the stories associated with these athletes, making it difficult to assess whichcomponents of these stories are historical and which are mythic. Finally, some scholarshave conjectured that the athletic nature of these figures was not the primary reason fortheir heroization.

Despite these debates and difficulties, the stories of these mortal athletes-turned-he-roes provide valuable information for understanding the importance of athletic achieve-ment in ancient Greece. In 1968, the American scholar Joseph Fontenrose compiled aseries of athlete-hero stories from ancient Greece and boiled them down to their essentialelements, focusing especially on the mythic similarities among them. By examining thecommon themes and elements in these accounts, Fontenrose arrives at a type or model forthe ancient Greek athletic hero. Fontenrose identifies fourteen themes in the variousversions of common athlete-hero stories and, with considerable effort, links them to oneanother and to the general Greek mythic tradition. While Fontenrose’s compilation rep-resented an important step in collecting and analyzing these stories of historical athletes-turned-heroes, his numerous connections to mythic tropes belied an assumption that thelegends of folklore posthumously “attached” themselves to the historical athletes.5 This


Fall 2009 377

assumption, however, did not allow for the possibility that the historical athletes had con-sciously attempted to imitate the actions and adventures of the mythic heroes in order toclaim a similar heroic status. If this were the case, the athletes themselves would be, tosome extent, responsible for the parallels between their lives and those of the heroes. Inaddition, as classicist Leslie Kurke notes, Fontenrose proposes no explanation for whythese athletes assumed or received heroic honors.6

In a 1979 publication, François Bohringer revisits the issue of the hero-athlete, andseeks to explain why certain victorious athletes achieved heroic cult and others did not.Bohringer appropriately notes that many of these mortals-turned-heroes were importantmilitary and political figures in their communities independently of their athletic suc-cesses, and that ancient Greek communities honored these important citizens as heroes inorder to obscure periods of political or social weakness and division.7 Nevertheless,Bohringer’s explanation for why some athletes received heroic honors and others (appar-ently) did not is too simplistic. He contends that those who received no heroic cult livedin cities that experienced no duress during or shortly after the athlete’s lifetime.8 Althoughhe hints that some athletes may have expressly identified themselves with heroic figures inleading their cities, and that cultic honors seem to have been instituted quite early forsome athletes, Bohringer focuses on the role of the cities in exalting individual athletes inorder to smooth over collective weaknesses and crises.9 While Bohringer’s conclusionsmight have explained why some athletes received posthumous heroic honors and othersdid not, they do not address whether the athletes actively sought to participate in thisprocess; nor does he account for the athlete who imitated the heroes, but never receivedposthumous honors.10

Recently, Oxford classicist Bruno Currie has examined how ancient literary sourcessituated many of these heroized athletes in the fifth century B.C., and the archaeologicalevidence, although slightly later in date, nevertheless indicates cult activity for some ath-lete-heroes in the fourth century B.C. This relative proximity between the institutions ofcult to their lifetimes implies that these athletes understood heroization to be a possibility,and that their athletic successes might provide an avenue to heroization.11 Just as athleticprowess was an important component of heroic identity in ancient Greece, so too washeroic action an important prerequisite for an athlete who sought heroic immortality.From all these treatments, there emerges a type of rough blueprint whereby a successfulathlete might achieve heroic recognition. This process, established by the stories of themythic heroes and neatly encapsulated by Plutarch’s observation concerning divinity andits seekers, requires victory in contests—athletic and otherwise—and the public com-memoration of these victories. These victories must demonstrate exceptional arete andprowess in order for the athlete to lay any claim to the immortality afforded by heroichonors.

Kurke has argued that victory, especially prominent victory in a major festival orcontest, brought kudos to the victor. This word, often translated as “praise” or “renown,”carried additional meaning for the ancient Greeks. As understood traditionally, the pos-sessor of kudos enjoyed “special power bestowed by a god that makes a hero invincible.”12

A victorious athlete claimed kudos from his victory and possessed a substantial amount ofthis special heroic power. Understandably, athletic champions transferred the power of



their heroic kudos from the athletic field to other endeavors, such as colonization andwar.13 Accordingly, the appropriation of kudos to athletic champions equated their achieve-ments with the accomplishments of the heroes, and the Greeks regarded these kudos-charged athletes with both reverence and suspicion. The kudos of victory elevated humanathletes to a liminal status between mortals and gods, a status similar to that of the immor-tal heroes. In some cases, these super-humans, loaded with the kudos of their athleticvictories, claimed the powers of the mythic heroes and sought to imitate their deeds.

Scene on a terracotta bobbin attributed to the Penthesilea Painter (c.450 B.C.). Victory (Nikê) offers aribbon to a victorious athlete, who wears a crown and holds a victory palm. Victory brought immenseprestige and kudos to an ancient Greek athlete. A few athletes who amassed massive amounts of victoriesreceived posthumous heroic honors. COURTESY OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, FLETCHER FUND,1928 (28.167). IMAGE © THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART. REPRODUCTION OF ANY KIND IS PROHIBITED WITH-OUT EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION IN ADVANCE FROM THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART.


Fall 2009 379

The most attractive heroic model for a powerful athlete was Herakles. Triumphant inall sorts of contests, athletic and otherwise, in Greek mythology this demi-god achievedimmortality and was welcomed to Mount Olympus upon his death. Herakles providedthe ideal and ultimate example for a mortal athlete seeking immortality. Despite Bohringer’scontention that the heroization of mortals had little to do with athletic success, the linebetween victory in sport and victory in other endeavors was not well defined in ancientGreece. Herakles achieved immortality due to his victories in many types of contests—sporting, military, and hunting. It was victory in these endeavors, according to the ancientGreek conception of competition and triumph, which brought heroic status and eventualimmortality.14

Herakles drew his heroic identity from his many victories in both sporting and non-sporting contexts. Athletically, he was among the greatest of Greek champions. Oneprominent tradition credited Herakles with re-founding the Olympic games and intro-ducing the olive crown as a prize.15 In addition, several mythic episodes recount Herakles’prowess in wrestling. In many cases, the violence of Herakles’ throws killed or severelyinjured those who challenged the great hero.16 This characterization of Herakles as apowerful and accomplished wrestler held great cultural significance for the ancient Greeks.He demonstrated his prowess and excellence through athletic competition, chiefly wres-tling, and ancient Greek athletes sought to do the same. Herakles enjoyed victory inathletic contexts, and his heroic identity, in part, stemmed from his success in these en-deavors. Ancient Greek myths closely associated Herakles with the site, contests, andprize for victory at Olympia, and his victories in wrestling further established his claim toimmortal heroic status. Herakles’ victories represented an integral component of his su-pernatural status and subsequent immortalization.

Notwithstanding these achievements in what moderns would consider “sport,” theancient Greeks conceived of Herakles as an “athlete” on a more fundamental level ofcompetition, and his successes in these contests were an important part of the process bywhich he achieved immortality. This process reveals the important relationship betweenathletic contests and heroic adventures. In addition to his “sportive” athletic endeavors,Herakles and his adventures represented a broader conception of athleticism, based onancient Greek notions of contests, “labors,” and prizes. Underscoring this close relation-ship, ancient Greek literary sources often used athletic terminology to describe Herakles’exploits.17 Isocrates, a fourth-century B.C. Athenian rhetorician, described Herakles’ lifeas full of agones or contests—precisely the same terminology used to denote athletic com-petitions. Many ancient writers called the best known of Herakles’ adventures, the so-called “twelve labors,” athla, the root of the English word “athlete.” This word denotedcompetitive struggle but literally referred to prizes or the contests for prizes. The athla or“labors” of Herakles characterized him as an “athlete” who struggled for his “prize”—inthis case, the “prize” of immortality. Thus, Herakles the athlete strove to complete hislabors, such as killing the Nemean lion, cleaning the stables of Augeas, and fetching theapples of the Hesperides.18

Ancient writers often connected the immortality of Herakles with the completion ofhis “labors.” The poet Hesiod noted that Herakles ascended to Olympus once “he hadcompleted his wretched labors.” The ancient poets and writers Pindar, Apollonius of Rhodes,Diodorus Siculus, and Apollodorus all made a similar assertion, that Herakles achieved



immortality by means of the completion of a series of designated tasks and contests.19

Consequently, mortal athletes in ancient Greece who completed their own athla, or “la-bors,” could lay claim to heroic honors.

There seems to have been a considerable number of mortals who achieved some typeof heroic status in ancient Greece. Although mortal imitation of heroic figures was notlimited to athletic figures, victory in athletic contests provided one avenue to heroic status.With respect to the majority of athletic champions who received some type of heroicstatus after death, few details have survived. Most attestations are passing or fragmentaryreferences. Moreover, many of the sources for these athletes are much later in date, mak-ing precise dating of the beginnings of heroic cult problematic. Nevertheless, there existssufficient literary, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence to place some of these cults inthe fifth and fourth centuries B.C., suggesting that the attainment of heroic immortalitythrough athletic victories was indeed a viable goal for prominent ancient Greek athletes ofthe sixth, fifth, and fourth centuries B.C.20

The fifth-century B.C. historian Herodotus related that the people of Egesta on theisland of Sicily honored a colonist named Philippos as a hero. This colonist was an Olym-pic champion, but Herodotus explained that Philippos was heroized because he was ex-traordinarily good looking.21 According to an ancient commentator on the Hellenisticpoet Callimachus, the statue of an Olympic victor named Euthycles was worshiped atLocri “equally to the statue of Zeus.” A much later source added that the people of Locriwrongfully imprisoned the pentathlete and disgraced his statues after he died. This unjustbehavior sparked a crippling famine, and the people of Locri instituted a cult for Euthyclesin order to save their city. 22 Even the second-century writer Pausanias was confused bythe conflicting dates for the runner Oibotas of Dyme. Supposedly, Oibotas won at theOlympic games during the eighth century B.C., yet some sources claimed that he hadfought against the Persians at the Battle of Plataea in 479 B.C. At any rate, the people ofDyme later remembered the athlete with sacrifices and garlands.23 The ancient Spartansworshipped Hipposthenes, a wrestler who won six Olympic crowns in the seventh centuryB.C., in conjunction with the god Poseidon.24 In addition to these examples, modernscholars have suggested other prominent and successful athletes who probably meritedheroic commemoration due to their athletic victories but have no association with heroiccult in the surviving sources.25 These poorly attested examples do little more than demon-strate that the ancient Greeks heroized their athletes on occasion, but more substantiveaccounts are necessary to identify and analyze any impulses by athletes to imitate heroicactions. Fortunately, a few such accounts have survived. The earliest of these athleticimitators of the mythic heroes was Milo of Croton.

In the late sixth century B.C. Milo, one of the greatest athletes of ancient Greece, wonsix Olympic crowns in wrestling, a remarkable feat. Convinced of his own power and inimitation of Herakles, Milo led the soldiers of Croton, a Greek city in Italy, in a battleagainst the neighboring community of Sybaris while crowned with his six Olympic wreaths,wearing a lion skin, and carrying a club. The olive wreaths, the lion skins, and the club allfeatured prominently in the myths concerning Herakles. Representing himself as Herakles,Milo led his countrymen to victory. The ancient historian Diodorus reported that thepeople marveled that Milo was personally the “cause” of Croton’s victory.26 Thus Milo, aremarkable and victorious athlete, sought to imitate the military might of the mythic


Fall 2009 381

Herakles. His athletic successes had endowed him with what he considered to be super-natural power, and he used this power to win military victory for his city and heroic statusfor himself.

Nearly two hundred years later, during the fourth-century B.C. campaigns of Alexanderof Macedon, an Athenian athlete named Dioxippos defeated a fully armed Macedoniansoldier in single combat. The Macedonian, named Koragos, must have had a little toomuch to drink at the raucous banquet where he challenged Dioxippos, a renowned athleteand a boxing champion in one of the Crown Games.27 On the day of the duel, Koragosarrived decked out in fine armor and weapons. Dioxippos, on the other hand, camenaked, his body oiled, wearing a garland, and carrying only a club. Appearing as a victo-rious athlete and armed as Herakles, Dioxippos easily defeated the well-armed Macedonian.The Olympic champion relied on his athleticism, avoiding Koragos’ javelin throw, shat-tering his lance with a blow from the club, and wrestling him to the ground as theMacedonian reached for his sword. In accordance with the myths surrounding Heraklesand his manifold duels and contests, Dioxippos treated this encounter as a contest inwhich he, the Heraklean athlete, vanquished the better armed (and not entirely Greek)enemy.28 Clearly, Milo and Dioxippos considered themselves imitators of and successorsto the mythic Herakles.

Both Milo and Dioxippos imitated Herakles in battle and in sport. Both wore crownsthat proclaimed their athletic victories, and Dioxippos competed in the nude as an athlete.Applying Plutarch’s three-fold formula for divinity, both demonstrated might and aretethrough their athletic and military successes, in direct imitation of Herakles. The sources,however, are silent as to whether Milo ever received any measure of cultic worship after hisdeath. Modern scholars certainly consider him a candidate for such honors.29 Dioxippos,however, received no such honors: he later committed suicide after being framed for theft.30

The story of Polydamas of Skotoussa, however, provides an example of a successful athletewho imitated Herakles and who received religious cult after his death.

Polydamas, a pankratiast, won a crown at the Olympic games of 408 B.C. His ex-ploits, surely exaggerated, reportedly included pulling the hoof from a struggling bull andstopping a moving chariot by grabbing on and digging his heels into the ground. Further-more, in some sort of agonistic duel, he simultaneously fought and defeated three mem-bers of the elite bodyguard of the Persian King in the court of Darius II. Without exagger-ating the connections to mythic precedent, this one-against-three battle certainly evokesechoes of Herakles’ combat with the triple-bodied Geryon. Both the Persians and themonstrous Geryon represented fantastic, non-Greek forces, and the triplicate enemy sug-gests a convenient parallel.

Besides this thematic similarity, Polydamas openly imitated the great Herakles in otherendeavors. As Pausanias reported, out of an expressed desire to emulate the mythic hero,Polydamas went to Mount Olympus and killed a large lion with his bare hands. A surviv-ing portion of Polydamas’ fourth-century B.C. statue base at Olympia shows the greatathlete fighting a lion, linking this story more closely to the athlete’s lifetime.31 Theseheroic actions brought Polydamas some type of heroic status among the Greeks since, afterhis death, his statue was said to heal the sick.32 Polydamas’ athletic and heroic might andarete afforded his memory a degree of supernatural or superhuman power. Like his modelHerakles, Polydamas achieved a measure of immortality and continued to exert influence



on earth after his death, at least in the minds of the ancient Greeks. These examplesdemonstrate the strong impetus of ancient Greek athletes to imitate Herakles. As theseathletes challenged the boundaries between the mortal and immortal realms, they becamemore associated with the heroic tradition. In addition to the imitations of Milo andDioxippos, and the supernatural powers attributed to the statue of Polydamas, three ath-letes from the early fifth century B.C.—Euthymos, Theagenes, and Kleomedes—madethe transition, in Greek minds, from athlete to hero.33

Euthymos of Locri, in Italy, was the Olympic boxing champion in 484, 476, and 472B.C. In imitation of Herakles, Euthymos’s adventures associated him with supernaturalevents, indicative of his super-mortal status. According to the story, Euthymos fought ademon called “the Hero” at Temesa, Italy. The “Hero” was supposed to be the ghost ofPolites, one of Odysseus’ comrades who had been stoned to death after raping a local girl.The sailor’s ghost continued to torment the people of Temesa, requiring a virgin sacrificeeach year. By chance, Euthymos happened along as the townspeople were shutting thatyear’s unfortunate girl into the ghost’s precinct. The great athlete entered the temple,fought the spirit, and drove it under the sea.34 Very similar in action and theme to thestory of Herakles and Hesione at Troy, Euthymos the neo-hero defeated the monster andrescued the girl.35 Accordingly, Euthymos accumulated other vestiges of ancient Greekheroism as exemplified by Herakles, principally a supernatural genealogy and an escapefrom the finality of death. Euthymos did not die as ordinary mortals perish. Instead, hedisappeared into the river Caecinus, which was supposedly his father.36

As in the other examples, this athlete, through his Heraklean escapades, acquiredheroic status, perhaps in his own lifetime. The fifth-century B.C. inscription on thepedestal of Euthymos’ victory statue at Olympia informs the reader that Euthymos him-self set up the statue for mortals to behold.37 The Roman Pliny, citing the Hellenistic poetCallimachus, claimed that after lightning struck the statues of Euthymos at Olympia andat Western Locri on the same day, the oracle of Delphi gave instructions for the still-livingEuthymos to be deified.38 At Locri, archaeologists have discovered five herms dedicatedto the great athlete. The image on the herms depicts a bull with the head of a man, and theinscriptions indicate that this represented Euthymos. Epigraphists have dated these in-scriptions to the late fourth century B.C. Bruno Currie concluded that the image of aman-headed bull on the herms represented “an actual free-standing statue, perhaps inbronze, which stood somewhere in the region and declared itself ‘sacred to Euthymos.’”39

Thus the people of Locri heroized Euthymos, a remarkable athlete, for his heroic achieve-ments. These heroic honors, sparked by the lightning strikes, dated to Euthymos’ ownlifetime, according to Pliny, and lasted at least into the next century.

Theagenes of Thasos, a contemporary of Euthymos who competed against him, wasanother heavy-event athlete who achieved heroic status. An accomplished boxer andpankratiast, Theagenes won both events at the same Olympic games in the early fifthcentury B.C., in addition to nine Nemean and ten Isthmian championships. Like Polydamasand Euthymos, the stories of Theagenes’ life have accumulated a good deal of mythicexaggeration. For instance, the epigram that adorned his statue reportedly claimed thatTheagenes once ate an entire ox, and as a boy he is supposed to have carried a large bronzestatue he admired home from the city’s marketplace. Like the other athletic would-beheroes, Theagenes is reported to have consciously sought association with his mythic pre-


Fall 2009 383

decessors. Out of “ambitious envy of Achilles,” reputedly the swiftest of the Greek heroes,he abandoned combat sports for running and won a long-distance race in the hometownof Achilles.40 Other sources asserted that the Thasians associated their athletic championwith Herakles, claiming that Theagenes was really the son of the immortal hero instead ofthe mortal man who raised him, although his victory inscriptions listed Timoxenos as hisfather. After Theagenes’ death, one of his enemies went to the athlete’s statue every nightand flogged it out of hatred for the dead man. When, one night, the statue fell on theenemy and killed him, the man’s sons prosecuted the statue for murder and the people ofThasos threw it into the sea. Later, in order to dispel a famine, the Thasians fished up thestatue, re-dedicated it, and offered sacrifices to it as a divinity. Jean Pouilloux, one of theexcavators of Theagenes’ shrine, suggested that the statue’s “trial” took place in the fifthcentury B.C., between 440 and 420, within a generation or so of Theagenes’ athleticvictories in the early to mid fifth century. In addition, Pausanias claimed to know ofstatues of Theagenes in many other locations that possessed the ability to cure diseases.41

Theagenes’ impressive exploits as an athlete and a heroic imitator brought his memorydivine recognition and heroic status after his death. As with Euthymos, part of Theagenes’heroization came from his revised ancestry and his direct imitation of the heroes, in thiscase both Herakles and Achilles.

In 1939, French archaeologists unearthed a small stone treasury or deposit-box forofferings to Theagenes in the foundations of the hero’s shrine in the ancient agora onThasos.42 Seventy-three centimeters in height, the cylinder displayed two inscriptions,dated by its stratigraphic location and epigraphic features to the end of the first centuryB.C. The earlier of these inscriptions regulated monetary offerings to the heroic athlete.It required those coming to sacrifice to Theagenes to make a small offering by inserting anobol coin through the opening in the top of the stone treasury. The second inscription,somewhat fragmentary, much briefer, and inscribed later, probably during the first cen-tury A.D., promised good fortune to the donor and the donor’s family. In addition,archaeologists have uncovered inscriptions that list Theagenes’ many panhellenic victoriesin his hero shrine at Thasos, and copies have also been found at Delphi and Olympia. Theopening lines of the version from Delphi, the most complete of the three, highlights theseparation between the mighty Theagenes and ordinary mortals:

You, son of Timoxenos [. . .]For never at Olympia has the same man been crownedfor victory in boxing and in pankration.But you, of your three victories in the Pythian Games, won one unopposed,a feat which no other mortal man has accomplished.In nine Isthmian Games, you won ten times. For twicethe herald proclaimed your victories to the ring of mortal onlookersin boxing and pankration on the very same day.Nine times, Theogenes [sic], you won at the Nemean Games.And you won thirteen hundred victories in the lesser contests.Nobody, I declare, defeated you in boxing for twenty-two years.Theagenes, son of Timoxenos, from Thasos, won these events:

[Thereafter follows a list of Theagenes’ Olympic, Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean victo-ries, as well as a victory in the long-distance dolichos footrace at Argos.] 43



Like the inscription of Euthymos, this monumental commemoration both proclaimsthe achievements of the great Theagenes while also distinguishing him from other mor-tals. The fifth surviving line reminds the reader (listener) that Theagenes accomplishedvictories that “no other mortal” has ever managed. Furthermore, the herald proclaimsTheagenes’ victories to a crowd “of mortals,” as the Greek word (epichthoniôn) literallymeans “those on earth,” and again draws a sharp distinction between the awe-struck on-lookers and the mighty victorious athlete. The heroization of Theagenes, made possiblethrough his manifold victories, elevated him above the status of “those on earth.”

Although Theagenes won his victories in the early fifth century B.C., c.490-470, thecultic veneration of the accomplished athlete seems to date to about a hundred years laterin the early fourth century B.C. The inscriptions from Delphi and Thasos, as well as thestatue base in the city’s agora have all been assigned to this time, but the murderous statuepresumably dated to Theagenes’ own lifetime.44 The institution of an elaborate cult in thecity’s center for the great athlete within a century of his death, most likely a space of onlytwo or three generations, demonstrates the significance of Theagenes’ victories. His memoryremained powerful enough to merit an expanded cult in the Hellenistic and Roman peri-ods that lasted for hundreds of years. His great victories, including his imitation of thehero Achilles, brought him heroic honors on Thasos and in many other places amongboth Greeks and barbarians.45 These athletes, following the heroic paradigm of athleticexcellence, demonstrated through victory, achieved heroic honors in their own right. Thepuzzling case of Kleomedes, however, represents a departure from this model in somerespects.

One of the most perplexing examples of the athlete-hero is the boxer Kleomedes ofAstypalaea, most notorious for his manically violent behavior. An Olympic boxer,Kleomedes defeated his opponent in 492 B.C., Ikkos of Epidauros, by beating him todeath. The Olympic judges, however, disqualified Kleomedes for his excessive brutality.46

Stripped of his victory, he returned to Astypalaea where he pulled a supporting pillar froma school, causing the roof to collapse and kill sixty boys. Fleeing the angry townspeople,Kleomedes hid inside a chest in the sanctuary of Athena. When pursuers broke the chestopen, Kleomedes had disappeared. An inquiry to the Delphic oracle elicited a responsethat the people of Astypalaea should worship Kleomedes as “the last of the heroes.”47

While his disqualification at Olympia was considered the cause of his madness, Kleomedesnevertheless did not quite fit precisely into the model of athletic champions seeking heroicstatus. His actions, killing young boys, hardly compare with the feats of Polydamas orEuthymos, despite the folkloric elements of the collapsing roof.48 The stories of Herakles,however, do provide a parallel example. The myths relate that the goddess Hera caused afit of insanity to come upon Herakles, causing him to kill his own children.49 In addition,the myths claim that Herakles murdered his lyre teacher, Linos, for hitting him during amusic lesson, and he treacherously killed Iphitus, who was searching for his lost mares.50

Clearly, some of the stories concerning Herakles contained irrational, manic, and murder-ous violence. Perhaps the people of Astypalaea connected Kleomedes’ manic violencewith the insanity of Herakles. A connection to the immortal Herakles would help explainan otherwise confusing sequence of events that led to Kleomedes’ heroization by the peopleof Astypalaea.


Fall 2009 385

Kurke has proposed that the people of Astypalaea heroized Kleomedes because he didnot receive his deserved attention or acknowledgment for the kudos he acquired at Olym-pia.51 With the suspension of the normal ritual for reintegrating a kudos-charged indi-vidual into the community, Kleomedes’ wrathful power punished the city’s residents. Theinstitution of a heroic cult allowed the city to tame and participate in the athlete’s power.While Kurke’s argument is persuasive, a comparison of Kleomedes to Herakles adds to thisexplanation for the heroization of Kleomedes by providing a paradigm for understandingthe potential violence of a dangerous hero.

These anecdotal examples indicate the dynamics of heroizing successful human ath-letes from the late sixth, fifth, and fourth centuries B.C. While the sources suggest thatthese athletes on occasion imitated the exploits and achievements of the mythic heroes,the willingness of the community, often encouraged by a pronouncement from the Del-phic oracle, played a key role in the awarding of heroic honors. Nevertheless, in additionto the community’s role, the active striving for heroic honors during an athlete’s lifetime, aphenomenon which Bruno Currie called the “subjective aspect of hero cult,” allowed ahistorical athlete who successfully completed contests, duels, and challenges to claim theultimate prize of heroic immortality.52 The athlete’s efforts, however, provided only partof the formula for heroization. For the ancient Greeks, heroic immortality consisted oftwo components, glory and fame (kleos) and cultic honors (timê).53 The most importantfeature was to be remembered in some way after death, either by reputation or throughreligious ritual. The posthumous heroic honors afforded to victorious athletes impliedmore than simple commemoration, however. Ancient Greek religion required sacrificeand ritual to appease and supplicate supernatural forces for some measure of earthly ben-efit.54 The living honored the heroes because they continued to exert influence on earth.The ancient Greeks remembered and commemorated the deceased heroes with the under-standing that they would employ their supernatural powers on the suppliants’ behalf.Thus, the Thasians retrieved the statue of Theagenes to end a famine, the statue of Polydamashealed the sick, and the Achaians sacrificed to Oibotas to dispel his curse that had pre-vented them from winning Olympic victories. Although a mortal athlete could personallydo little to guarantee the observation of rites after his death, a victorious athlete could, inaccordance with heroic models, seek to amass fame and receive honors in his own lifetime.

The quest for kleos (fame and glory) is an important component of heroic immortal-ity. Most likely, the world kleos is etymologically related to the ancient Greek word thatmeant “to hear.” Thus, kleos depended upon a listening audience that would add to thevictor’s fame.55 The commemoration of athletic victors in verse represented an importantcomponent of an athlete’s kleos and helped connect mortal athletes with the mythic he-roes. The public performance of victory, or epinikian odes proclaimed the kleos of thevictors, and elevated their status in the minds of the audience. Even the inscriptions thatadorned a victor’s statue provided a means of continual kleos long after the victor haddeparted. Many of these inscriptions were composed in order to re-enact and retell the keyelements of the victor’s experience, such as name, patronymic, homeland, and event. Aninterested tourist who read the inscription aloud would, in effect, imitate the herald whohad originally announced the victory.56 Thus, the erection of a statue with an inscriptionprovided a vehicle for nearly perpetual kleos, as long as those who passed by stopped to



look at the statue and read the inscription. In addition to the inscriptions that adornedtheir statues many important victors enjoyed commemoration in verse.

Hellanicus of Lesbos, for instance, a historian and mythographer from the fifth cen-tury B.C., recorded a list of victors in Sparta’s Karneian festival in both poetry and prose.57

Although no fragments of Hellanicus’ Karneonikai have survived, ancient testimonies clearlystated that Hellanicus used metered verse to record the victors’ names. In many respects,the use of poetic meter represented the language of the gods. The Greeks delivered divinecommunications, such as pronouncements from the Delphic oracle, in dactylic hexam-eter. According to Plato, the Muses spoke to poets in verse, and the poets acted merely asvehicles for conveying the divine words.58 Thus, when Hellanicus recited his metrical listof Karneian victors, he would have evoked images in his audience of divine communica-tions and the heroic age. The effect must have been akin to the second book of the Iliad,where Homer’s “catalog of ships” names and describes the epic poem’s Greek heroes andtheir homelands. In compiling a list of historical athletic victors and arranging them intoverse, Hellanicus implicitly connected these men and their achievements with the immor-tal Homeric heroes.

In addition to Hellanicus’ list, the performance of epinikian praise poetry in honor ofthe victors at prestigious athletic contests added heroic kleos to the athletes’ reputations.Pindar, a poet who lived during the late sixth and early fifth centuries B.C. is the bestknown of the epinikian poets. In his poetry Pindar alluded to the propensity for powerfuland successful mortal athletes to seek a status above regular humans, often juxtaposing thefeats of a victorious mortal athlete with the achievements of a mythic hero.59 For example,Pindar’s First Olympian Ode, composed to commemorate the Sicilian tyrant Hiero’s vic-tory in a chariot race at Olympia in 476 B.C., described the story of a chariot race frommythic time. Here, Pindar re-tells a well-known story about the hero Pelops, who won adramatic chariot-racing victory over the ruthless Lord of Pisa and came away with his life,a bride, and a kingdom. Fittingly, the Greeks honored Pelops at Olympia with a shrineand sacrifices in the sacred Altis.60 By juxtaposing the victory of Pelops with the victory ofHiero, Pindar’s Ode connects the mortal realm with the immortal, and Pindar’s poetryprovides several additional examples of this phenomenon.61 Pindar was well aware of theambiguous status of the mortal athletic champion. Despite his close associations of mor-tal champions with mythic heroes, the poet on numerous occasions reminded his patronsand listeners that a victor’s status among the heroes, while greater than any mortal, was stillless than the status of the gods.62 Thus Pindar recognized the special status of both theheroes and his victorious subjects, while cautioning them against hubristically claiming tobe equal to the gods.

Yet another commemoration in verse equated victorious athletes with the immortalheroes. Victorious Olympic champions enjoyed identification with Herakles by means ofa victory song, or kallinikos. Those accompanying or welcoming an Olympic victor sangthis hymn to Herakles in honor of the victorious athlete.63 Originally composed by thepoet Archilochus in the seventh century B.C., only a small fragment has survived in theopening lines of Pindar’s Olympian 9 and the explanatory note of an ancient commenta-tor. The hymn’s repeated refrain proclaimed, “Hail glorious victor! Greetings lordHerakles!”64 This hymn to Herakles, performed in honor of the victorious athlete, con-nected the mortal victor to the immortal hero. Although ostensibly addressed to Herakles,


Fall 2009 387

the context of the hymn’s performance allowed the victorious athlete to appropriate thispraise for himself. By implicitly calling the athlete Herakles, the singer connected theathlete’s accomplishment with those of the hero. Like Herakles, the mortal athlete couldlay claim to super-mortal status. Like Herakles, these mortal athletes aspired to the prizeof immortality.

Detail of an ancient Greek krater bowl (c.360 B.C.). In the image,Herakles (far right), clothed in the skin of the Nemean lion and carry-ing his club, admires his victory statue as a worker applies paint. WingedVictory (Nikê) hovers above. Victorious athletes often erected statuesin sacred precincts, such as Olympia or Delphi, in honor of the godsand in commemoration of their accomplishments. A victory statueprovided a vehicle for nearly perpetual kleos. This scene stresses theimportance of victory in Herakles “athletic” endeavors and under-scores the connections between the honors paid to athletes and heroesin ancient Greece. COURTESY OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART,ROGERS FUND, 1950 (50.11.4). IMAGE © THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF

ART. REPRODUCTION OF ANY KIND IS PROHIBITED WITHOUT EXPRESS WRITTEN

PERMISSION IN ADVANCE FROM THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART.



The potential prize of immortality through heroic cult was an appealing quest forprominent athletes in ancient Greece. While athletic prowess, both in sporting and morethematic “struggles” or contests comprised an important part of heroic identity, thosehumans who achieved great victory in sporting contexts sought to extend their fame andglory by connecting themselves to the mythic heroes. Like Herakles, who successfullyovercame all obstacles and completed his labors or athla, victorious athletes sought theirown heroic adventures in their quests for immortal status and heroic honors after death.Charged with kudos and hungry for kleos, these powerful champions claimed a heroic,superhuman status that enabled them to lead their cities to victory in battle or to continueto exert influence over earthly affairs after their deaths. In addition to heroic imitation,successful athletes enjoyed associations with immortal heroes through verse, as the poetsextolled and commemorated the victors in the same fashion as the great heroes of Homer.The power, might, and arete of their athletic victories provided the justification for theirheroization.

The connections between the mythic heroes and historical athletes from the sixth,fifth, and fourth centuries B.C. provide a considerable amount of information for evaluat-ing the role of the heroes in both ancient Greek athletics and religion. While the athlete’scommunity played an important part in awarding, reviving, or augmenting heroic cult fora notable athlete, the process of heroization surely varied over time and place in the an-cient Greek world. Nevertheless, the sources suggest that, in some cases, great athletessought to imitate the heroes of myth, intending to secure for themselves the same degreeof glory and recognition. While many of the literary sources date from the Roman period,epigraphic and archaeological evidence, such as the statue base of Polydamas and the cultsto Euthymos and Theagenes, fixes heroic imitation and the institution of heroic honorsmuch closer to the athletes’ lifetimes. In addition, Pindar’s admonitions and comparisons,composed in the late sixth and early fifth centuries B.C., suggest a tendency for powerfuland successful athletes to seek superhuman status at this time. Pindar warned such victorsto avoid the hubris of claiming the status and power of the gods but allowed for humans toachieve heroic status. After all, the heroes of myth had been humans themselves who hadmanaged to secure commemoration and cult, as well as continued influence on earth. Forprominent athletic champions from the sixth, fifth, and fourth centuries B.C., athleticachievements provided access to the same honors.

1Plutarch, Life of Aristides 6: ¢fqars…a kaˆ dun£mei kaˆ ¢ret».....2Hesiod, Works and Days 159-160: ¢ndr«n ¹rèwn qe›on gšnoj, o‰ kalšontai, ¹m…qeoi.3Plut., Life of Theseus 6.4Paul Veyne, Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths?, trans. Paula Wissing (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1988), 42.5Joseph Fontenrose, “The Hero as Athlete,” California Studies in Classical Antiquity (later Classical

Antiquity) 1 (1968): 87-88.6Leslie Kurke, “The Economy of Kudos,” in Cultural Poetics in Archaic Greece, eds. Carol Dougherty

and Leslie Kurke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 149. François Bohringer, “Cultes d’Athlètesen Grèce Classique,” Révue des Études Anciennes 81 (1979): 9 commends Fontenrose’s “beau schema” butfound it “quasiment dépourvu de signification.”


Fall 2009 389

7Bohringer, “Cultes d’Athlètes en Grèce Classique,” 5-18.8Bohringer, “Cultes d’Athlètes en Grèce Classique,” 14, for instance, notes that Milo of Croton

inaugurated a time of great prestige and prosperity for his city and subsequently received no cultic hon-ors.

9Bohringer, “Cultes d’Athlètes en Grèce Classique,” 11 suggests that Theagenes of Thasos inter-vened directly in a reformation of the city’s rites to Herakles in order to claim descent from the great hero.Euthymos and Theagenes seem to have received cultic honors as early as the fourth century B.C. (Bohringer,“Cultes d’Athlètes en Grèce Classique,” 15).

10Bohringer’s treatment of Milo of Croton, for instance, glosses over the similarities between the lifeand adventures of the great wrestler and Herakles, since Milo received no posthumous cult. (Bohringer,“Cultes d’Athlètes en Grèce Classique,” 14).

11Bruno Currie, Pindar and the Cult of Heroes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 120-157.12Kurke, “The Economy of Kudos,” 132. However, cf. Poulheria Kyriakou, “Epidoxon Kydos:

Crown Victory and Its Rewards,” Classica et Mediaevalia 58 (2007): 119-158. Kyriakou challenges thisnarrow definition of kudos, citing usage in Homer, Pindar, and Bacchylides. Despite Kyriakou’s dismissalof any type of athletic talismanic power or magic, her assertion that victory in the Crown Games waslucrative only because of its “political potential” as a “display of skill and affluence in a truly Panhellenicvenue” dismisses the deeply ritualistic nature of victory in the sacred games (p. 149).

13Spartan kings, for instance, were accompanied in battle by victors in the crown games. (Plut. Lifeof Lycurgus 22; Quaestiones Convivales 2.5.2). Plutarch cites Duris of Samos in relating a story thatAlcibiades returned in triumph to Athens accompanied by a Pythian champion flute player. Plutarch,however, notes that the extravagant details in Duris are absent from the accounts of Theopompus, Ephorus,and Xenophon, and seems inclined to disbelieve the story (Plut. Life of Alcibiades 32). Kurke, “TheEconomy of Kudos,” 133-137, suggests that colonist leaders (called “oikists”), such as Miltiades, the sonof Cypselus who led colonists to the Chersonese, were chosen because of their victories in the crowngames. After his death, the people of the Chersonese instituted games in Miltiades’ honor, includingchariot-racing and gymnastic competitions (Herodotus 6.36-38). This Miltiades was the uncle andnamesake of the general who led the Athenians to victory at Marathon in 490 B.C. However, cf. Kyriakou,“Epidoxon Kydos,” 144-145, who downplays the connection.

14Mark Golden, Sport and Society in Ancient Greece (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998),146-157, associates the Herakles myths with sport through the lens of aristocracy and wage labor. Ulti-mately, Golden concludes that Herakles and the ancient Greek aristocratic ideal of sport proved superiorto the undertaking of menial tasks for money.

15Pindar, Olympian 3.20-25; 6.67-70; Diodorus Siculus 4.14.1, 5.64.6; Pausanias 5.7.9, 5.8.3. Asingle (late) source claims that Herakles himself won Olympic victories in wrestling and pankration(Paus. 5.8.4).

16According to Apollodorus, Herakles killed Polygonus and Telegonus, both grandsons of Poseidon,in a wrestling match (Bibliotheca 2.5.9). When the Sicilian hero Eryx challenged Herakles to a wrestlingbout for one of Geryon’s cattle that had escaped and joined his herd, Herakles killed him on his thirdthrow (Apollod, Bibl. 2.5.10; Paus. 3.16.4-5; Diod. Sic. 4.23.2). When Herakles came across Antaeus, ason of Poseidon who killed strangers by wrestling them to death, the great hero killed him in a wrestlingmatch by preventing Antaeus from touching the ground, from which he drew his strength (Apollod.Bibl. 2.5.11; Pind., Isthmian 4.52-55). Herakles even wrestled in the underworld, breaking the ribs ofMenoetes, who tended Hades’ cattle and objected to Herakles’ slaughter of one to provide blood for theshades of the dead. (Apollod. Bibl. 2.5.12.).

17For example, Homer, Iliad 8.362; Odyssey 11.622; Hes., Theogony 951; and Acusilaus, fragment29 (Fowler). Diod. Sic. 4.11.3 uses îqla exclusively to refer to the works done for Eurystheus. Apollod.Bibl. 2.4.12; Paus. 8.18.3. Pind. Nemean 1.70 is an exception, referring to Herakles’ labors as “great toils”[kam£twn meg£lwn].

18Isocrates, Helen 17: Herakles’ glory came “from wars and contests”; Golden, 150 for “athla” and“athlete.” The canon of twelve labors for Herakles does not seem to have been fixed until the mid fifth



century B.C., when the metopes depicting the hero’s feats were carved for the great temple of Zeus atOlympia. Although there is some variation in early accounts of Herakles’ labors, the temple’s metopesindicated that the other nine labors were killing the Lernaean Hydra, fetching the Kerynitian Deer,capturing the Erymanthian Boar, driving off (or killing) the Stymphalian Birds, capturing the CretanBull, stealing Diomedes’ Horses, bringing back the belt of the Amazon queen, obtaining Geryon’s Cattle,finding and acquiring the apples of the Hesperides, and bringing the many-headed Kerberos up from theunderworld. See Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press,1993), 381-416, for general discussion of the labors. See Wendy J. Raschke, “Images of Victory” in TheArchaeology of the Olympics, ed. Wendy J. Raschke (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), 42-45, for a brief discussion of Herakles, his labors, the metopes, and immortality in an agonistic context.

19Hes. Theog. 951: telšsaj stonÒentaj ¢šqlouj. Pind. Nem. 1.70 describes Herakles’ rest on Olympusas his reward for his “great toils.” Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 1.1318-1319; Diod. Sic. 4.8.1 and4.10.7; Apollod, Bibl. 2.4.12. See also Theocritus 24.82-83, who calls the labors dèdek£ . . . mÒcqouj.Compare the myth of Psyche, the mortal woman who falls in love with the immortal Cupid as told inApuleius, Metamorphoses 4.28–6.24. Venus (Aphrodite), Cupid’s difficult mother, lays out many seem-ingly impossible domestic tasks for her son’s would-be bride. After completing them through miraculousmeans, Venus offers the girl a cup of ambrosia to make her immortal.

20The Spartan king Agesilaus’ imitation of Agamemnon is one example of non-athletic heroic imita-tion. Xenophon, Hellenica 3.4.3-4; Plut., Life of Agesilaus 6, 9. See Currie, Pindar and the Cult of Heroes,120-123, for a complete list of the heroized athletes.

21Hdt. 5.47.22Diegesis (ii.5) to Callimachus, Aeita 3.84-85 (Pfeiffer); Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica 5.34.23Paus. 6.3.8; 7.17.6. Concerning this story, Pausanias mused, “I am bound to tell the stories that

are told by the Greeks, but I am not bound to believe them all.”24Paus. 3.13.9; 3.15.7. Stephen Hodkinson, “An Agonistic Culture? Athletic Competition in Ar-

chaic and Classical Spartan Society” in Sparta: New Perspectives, eds. Stephen Hodkinson and AntonPowell (London: Duckworth, 1999), 165-167, argues for a fifth-century B.C. institution of cult forHipposthenes and follows Bohringer in suggesting a connection between the heroization and naturaldisaster and civil unrest at Sparta.

25See Currie, Pindar and the Cult of Heroes, 120-123, for these athletes and their circumstances.26Diod. Sic. 12.9.5-6 (a‡tion); Paus. 6.14.5-9; Strabo 6.1.12. Cf. Nikostratus’ Heraklean equip-

ment in battle: Diod. Sic. 16.44.3.27Diod. Sic. 17.100-101; Quintus Curtius Rufus 9.7.16-26. Diodorus compares the combat to a

contest between Ares (Koragos) and Herakles (Dioxippos).28Hesiod’s Shield, however, describes Herakles arming himself as a hoplite soldier to fight Kyknos.

Nevertheless, Herakles in art was overwhelmingly portrayed without conventional military weaponry.He fought with brute strength and his club. See also Pind. Ol. 10.15-16; Apollod., Bibl. 2.5.7, 11;Hyginus, Fabula 31; Paus. 3.18.10; Euripides, Hercules Furens 389-393 for the duel between Heraklesand Kyknos.

29Fontenrose, “The Hero as Athlete,” 88-89. See also Currie’s discussion, Pindar and the Cult ofHeroes, 155-157.

30Diod. Sic. 17.100-101; Curtius 9.7.25. Curtius’ account of Dioxippos certainly presents thewronged athlete as a tragic, heroic figure who perhaps imitates the mythic Ajax in preferring suicide overdisgrace. However, there is no indication of subsequent heroization.

31Anna Maranti, Olympia & Olympic Games (Athens: Toubis, 1999), 102-103.32See Diod. Sic. 9.14.2; Paus. 6.5.1, 4-9 for Polydamas’ exploits; and Lucian, Parliament of the Gods

12 for the healing power of the statue.33For general discussion, see Fontenrose, “The Hero as Athlete,” 73-104; Bohringer, “Cultes d’Athlètes

en Grèce Classique,” 5-18; Kurke, “The Economy of Kudos,” 149-152; and Currie, Pindar and the Cultof Heroes, 120-124.


Fall 2009 391

34Paus. 6.6.4-10; Callimachus, Aetia fr. 98-99 (Pfeiffer); Pliny, Natural History 7.152; Aelian, Vari-ous Histories 8.18.

35For Herakles, the sea monster, Hesione, and her father Laomedon, see Hom. Il. 5.628-51; Diod.Sic. 4.42; Apollod. Bibl. 2.5.9; Hyginus, Fab. 89; Pind. Nemean 1.94-95; and Eur., H.F. 400-402. BrunoCurrie, “Euthymos of Locri: A Case Study in Heroization in the Classical Period,” Journal of HellenicStudies 122 (2002): 35-37, sees Euthymos as imitating Herakles’ fight with Achelöos, a river deity.

36Paus. 6.6.10; Aelian, Various Histories 8.18.37EÜqumoj LokrÕj ’Astuklšoj trˆj ’OlÚmpi’™n…kwn œsthsen t»nde broto›j ™sorçn; italics are author’s.

Wilhelm Dittenberger, Die Inschriften von Olympia (Berlin: Asher, 1896) §144; Luigi Moretti, InscrizioniAgonistiche Greche (IAG) (Rome: Angelo Signorelli, 1953) §13; Joachim Ebert, Griechische EpigrammeAuf Sieger an Gymnischen Und Hippischen Agonen, Band 63, Heft 2, Sächsische Akademie Der WissenschaftenZu Leipzig. Philologisch-Historische Klasse (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1972), §16; Stephen Miller, Arete:Greek Sports from Ancient Sources, 3rd ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004) §166b. Somedifficulties exist for understanding the dedication, since the stone shows evidence that the inscription wasmodified in antiquity. In the Greek text, the portion that reads “t»nde broto›j ™sorçn” (for mortals tobehold) does not align with the line above, the poetic meter changes abruptly, and the characters arerecessed on the stone, making it quite clear that the original text was chiseled out and replaced with thisphrase. In addition, two more lines were added below this inscription, identifying Euthymos (in thethird person) as the dedicator and Pythagoras of Samos as the sculptor. Judging from letter forms, thetwo parts of the inscription, including the revision to the first, are quite close in date, and both JoachimEbert and Luigi Moretti dated the inscription to c.470 B.C., shortly after Euthymos’ Olympic victories.Moreover, Moretti is inclined to believe that Euthymos himself ordered the correction and the additionafter circumstances at Locri, perhaps such as the death of his father or financial difficulties in the city,forced Euthymos to pay for the statue himself. Whatever the story behind the alteration and addition tothe dedicatory text, the fifth-century B.C. date of the inscription situates it in or close to Euthymos’lifetime.

38Callim., Aet. fr. 99 (Pfeiffer); Pliny, Natural History 7.152. See Currie, “Euthymos of Locri,” 40-44, for explanation and analysis of Euthymos’ cult at Locri.

39Currie, “Euthymos of Locri,” 29-30. In ancient Greek art, a bull-headed man was a standardrepresentation of Acheloös, a powerful river deity who fought against Heracles in myth. (see Gantz, 28-29, 432-433). This artistic representation underscored the divinity of the powerful athlete by depictinghim as a river god, in this case likening him to Caecinus, his divine “father.”

40Paus. 6.11.5: ∑n dš oƒ prÕj ’Acillša ™moˆ doke›n tÕ filot…mhma.41Athenaeus 10.412 d-f; Dio Chrysostom 31.95-97; Lucian, Parliament of the Gods 12; Paus. 6.6.5-

6, 6.11.2-9; Plutarch, Moralia 811d-e. Jean Pouilloux, Récherches sur l’Histoire et les Cultes de Thasos, 2vols. (Paris: École Française d’Athènes, 1954), 1: 102-103, dated Theagenes and his cult according toThasos’ relationship with Persia, Athens, and Athenian law during the fifth century B.C., as demon-strated through the details of the statue’s “trial.” Bohringer, “Cultes d’Athlètes en Grèce Classique,” 15,found this date plausible. See Paus. 6.11.9 for the other statues of Theagenes.

42R. Martin, “Un Nouveau Règlement de Culte Thasien,” Bulletin de Correspondence Hellénique 44-45 (1940-1941): 163-200.

43W. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum, 3rd ed. (Syll3) (Hildesheim, Ger.: Georg Olms,1960), §36; Moretti, IAG §21; Desmond Schmidt, “An Unusual Victory List from Keos: IG XII, 5, 608and the Dating of Bakchylides,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 119 (1999): 76-77; Elizabeth Pierce Blegen etal., “Archaeological News,” American Journal of Archaeology 53 (1949): 368. See Pouilloux, Récherches surl’Histoire et les Cultes de Thasos, 78-82, for textual criticism.

44Martin, “Un Nouveau Règlement de Culte Thasien,” 197; François Salviat, “Le Monument deThéogénès sur l’Agora de Thasos,” Bulletin de Correspondence Hellénique 80 (1956): 159-160; Schmidt,“An Unusual Victory List from Keos,” 76; Susan C. Jones, “Statues That Kill and the Gods Who LoveThem” in STEFANOS: Studies in Honor of Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway, eds. Kim J. Hartswick and MaryC. Sturgeon (Philadelphia: The University Museum at the University of Pennsylvania, 1998), 141. Jean



Pouilloux, “Théogénès De Thasos . . . Quarante Ans Après,” Bulletin de Correspondence Hellénique 118(1994): 206, suggests a period of “one or two centuries” (un ou deux siècles) between Theagenes’ death andthe recognition of the athlete as a divine healer.

45Paus. 6.11.9.46Paus. 6.9.6-8; Plut., Life of Romulus 28.47Paus. 6.9.8: Ûstatoj ¹rèwn Kleom»dhj ’AstupalaieÚj.48Fontenrose, “The Hero as Athlete,” 88, points out that the collapsing roof was a common element

in folklore concerning powerful men. The death of the Biblical Samson, told in Judges 16, is one of thebest known of these stories.

49Apollod., Bibl. 2.4.12.50Apollod., Bibl. 2.4.9, Paus. 9.29.3, Diod. Sic. 3.67.2 for Linos; Homer, Od. 21.22-30, Apollod.,

Bibl. 2.6.1-2 for Iphitus.51Kurke, “The Economy of Kudos,” 151-152.52Currie, Pindar and the Cult of Heroes, 7-9, 127.53Currie, Pindar and the Cult of Heroes, 72.54Walter Burkert, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual (Berkeley: University of Cali-

fornia Press, 1969), 54.55Leslie Kurke, The Traffic in Praise (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991), 17.56Kurke, “The Economy of Kudos,” 142.57Literally, “meter and catalog.” Felix Jacoby, Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker (Berlin:

Weidmann, 1923), §4, fr. 886; Athenaeus 14.635e: æj ‘Ell£nikoj ƒstore› œn te to›j ™mmštroij Karneon…kaijk¢n to›j katalog£dhn.

58Plato, Ion 534a-536d.59See Kurke, The Traffic in Praise, 163-194, for commentary on how Pindar’s odes contributed to a

victor’s symbolic and financial benefactions to his polis; Kurke’s conclusion (257-262) details how theepinikian poem “negotiate[d] with the community” to defuse the dangerous status the victor’s kudos hadbrought and to facilitate his return to the community. Thus, Pindar’s poetry is intrinsically aware of thesuperhuman status of athletic champions.

60Pind., Ol. 1.90-96; Paus. 5.13.1-3; 6.22.1.61For example, Pind., Ol. 10, re-tells how Herakles founded the Olympic games and the mythic

athletes who won those initial events. Pyth. 10 associates the mortal victor Hippocleas with the heroPerseus. Nem. 5 and Isth. 5 and 6 compare the brothers Pytheas and Phylakidas, two brothers fromAegina, with Peleus and Ajax, two mythic brothers from the same island. Ol. 6 compares Hagesias ofSyracuse to the hero Amphiaraos.

62Pind., Ol. 5.24; Isth. 5.14; Pyth. 3.61-62. Pindar also reminds his listeners that they are but mor-tals (Nem. 11.13-16) and that only the praise of bards survives mortal life (Pyth. 1.92-94). See also MarkMunn, The Mother of the Gods (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 22-23, esp. n30. Nemean6.1-5 emphasizes the separation between the races of gods and men but allows for humans to approachthe immortals. David Young, “‘Something Like the Gods’: A Pindaric Theme and the Myth of Nemean10,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 34 (1993): 126-127, considers these phrases not serious warn-ings but “highly complimentary statements.”

63Lillian Lawler, “Orchesis Kallinikos,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 79 (1948),254-255.

64Archilochus, fr. 324 (West): t»nella kall…nike ca›re ¥nax ‘Hr£kleij/aÙtÒj te kaˆ ’IÒlaoj, a„cmht¦dÚo/t»nella kall…nike ca›re ¥nax ‘Hr£kleij; Scholiast to Pind., Ol. 9.1-3 (Teubner).

jsh3603i

Documents

successful athletes

race of heroes

ancientgreek athletes

howhistorical athletes

arete excellence

excellence arete

heroes of greek myth

ancient greecefall