Organizing the Olympics:

1
Organizing the Olympics Nudity and the Olympic
Program
Class 05
2
Where did naked athletics come from?
3
Nudity was not an ancient practice. But these
pots arent good evidence.
Pots like this were all made for export to the
Etruscans. And they all show older men.
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Strong evidence for naked athletics

• Thucydides, late 5th c.
• Plato, mid 4th c.
• Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman, late 1st c. BC
• Isidore of Seville, 7th c. AD

5
Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, I.6.5 Arete sec.
5.
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Plato, Republic(not in Arete)
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Dionysius, History 7.72.3
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Pausanias 1.44.1 Arete sec. 3
Orsippos . . . won the stadion at Olympia in 720
BC. While other athletes wore loincloths in
accordance with the ancient practice, he ran
naked. I think that his loincloth slipped off
deliberately at Olympia, for he recognized that a
nude man can run more easily than one who is
wearing a wrapped loincloth.
9
Isidore of Seville Dictionary,18.17.2(not in
Arete)
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Not just nakedInfibulated
Infibulation was tying up the penis by tying up
the the foreskin with string or by piercing it
with a pin, or, as here, tying it in a
knot. This is sometimes said to be a form of
protection. What do you think?