Sport and Recreation in the Ancient World CLAS 2206

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Sport and Recreation in the Ancient WorldCLAS
2206

• Dr. Ilse Mueller
• H 328
• Office Hours Tue and Thu 1130 1220
• And by appointment

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Lecture Summary

• Modern and Ancient sport universal aspects
  modern and ancient definitions
• Chronology
• Our Sources
• Origins of Sport Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Near
  East
• Ritualized performances
• Hunting

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Why Study Ancient Sport?

• Sport is fundamental to our humanity
• In the ancient world as well as contemporary
  cultures
• Sport and Spectacle are pervasive features of
  both Greek and Roman civilization

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Modern Definitions

• Sport n. game or competitive activity usually
  involving physical exertion pl. meeting for
  competition in athletics amusement, fun. OED
• Etymology from the French, disporter, and the
  Latin deportare to carry away

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Ancient Definitions (Greek)

• agon assembly meeting-place place of combat,
  arena prize-combat, contest lawsuit exertion,
  labor, struggle, danger.
• athlos contest, combat labor, toil.
• athleuo to contend (for a prize) to struggle
  to suffer.
• paizo to sport, play, jest invent in playful
  spirit.
• gymnazo to train, exercise, accustom.
• diatribai a waste of time delay, stay
  pastime, employment, study, conversation

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Ancient Definitions (Latin)

• certamen a contest, a struggle.
• ludere to play, to sport to play at or with
  to imitate, banter, deceive, delude.
• ludus play, game, sport, pastime.
• lusus playing, game, sport dalliance
• munus an office, function, duty a charge,
  tax a service, favor, gift, present a public
  show esp. of gladiators a public building

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Reasons for competing and watching competitions

• The desires to compete , excel, and win are
  universal to humanity
• To alleviate aggression repressed as a condition
  of socialization
• To establish or communicate identities
• Play
• Important While these features are universal
  to humanity, their specific manifestations are
  unique to specific cultures at specific times.
  Sport also has different role/function in
  different cultures

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The Importance of Ancient and Modern Sport(The
Audience) Modern Ancient

• Entertainment
• National, local, civic pride
• National, local, civic identity
• Personal pride and identity
• Outlet for repressed aggression
• Admiration of human physical, emotional, and
  mental ideals

• Entertainment
• National, local, civic pride
• National, local, civic identity
• Personal pride and identity
• Outlet for repressed aggression
• Admiration of human physical, emotional, and
  mental ideals
• Honor gods, heroes, ancestors

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The Importance of Ancient and Modern Sport (The
Participants)Modern
Ancient

• Wealth
• Fame and Glory
• The desire to compete and win
• Personal, local, civic, national pride
• Fitness
• Entertainment
• Socialization

• Wealth
• Fame and Glory
• The desire to compete and win
• Personal, local, civic, national pride
• Fitness
• Training for war
• Establishing social status
• Honoring the gods

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Types of Competition in Ancient Greece and Rome

• Greece Athletics (Running, Wrestling, Jumping,
  Throwing, Boxing), Equestrian, Gymnastic, Dance,
  Music, Poetry, Drama
• Rome Greek Athletics, Equestrian, Venatio (Wild
  Beast Hunts), Munus (Gladiatorial Games), Naval
  Competitions

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Spectacle

• Historians traditionally separate sport from
  spectacle
• But the audience is an integral part of any
  competition in both ancient and modern contexts
• The separation is therefore a false dichotomy

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Types of Sources

• Textual sources written elite males for men of
  their class often praise or blame often written
  many years after an event
• Art (Requires interpretation context is not
  always clear)
• Architecture (Not always intact requires
  interpretation difficult to interpret without
  written material multiple uses)
• Epigraphy (Often just lists of names, events
  etc. very few details)

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Methodological Problems

• Tendency to idealize Greek athletics
• Anachronism
• False dichotomy between the Greek and the Roman
  psychology and meaning of sport
• Sources are scattered, fragmentary, variegated,
  and vague

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Mesopotamia, Egypt, and The Near East
http//www.utexas.edu/courses/classicalarch/images
1/TiSaqqara2400.jpg

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Origins of Sport

• Frequently but incorrectly ascribed to the
  ancient Greeks
• Depends upon our definition of sport
• While the institutionalized and ritualistic
  display of physical prowess is universal to
  humanity it takes on different forms in different
  cultures

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Approaches To Sport

• Autoletic (as an end in itself)/Ludic (playful)
  i.e. playing a game just for fun
• Practical (i.e. sport/games as training for
  hunting, war etc.)
• Ritual/Symbolic (i.e. to establish status,
  commemorate an event, honor the dead/heroes/ gods
  etc. initiate youth into adult society)

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Autoletic/Ludic GamesEgyptian Senetimage ca.
2600 BCE
http//www.ancient-egypt-online.com/images/ancient
-egypt-games.jpg
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EgyptSenet Board
http//www.egyptmyway.com/images/photo/egmuseum/se
netgames_b530.jpg
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The Lydians and Games of LeisureHerodotus,
Histories 1.94

• According to native Lydian tradition, the games
  which both they and the Greeks at present have in
  common were invented by them. They claim that the
  invention of these games coincided with their
  colonization of Tyrrhenia, and here is what they
  say about it. During the reign of Atys the son of
  Manes there was a severe famine throughout Lydia.
  At first the Lydians patiently endured it, but as
  it went on and on they tried to find some ways to
  alleviate the situation, and a number of
  different ideas were proposed by different
  people. Anyway, according to them, that was how
  they came to invent all sorts of games, including
  dice, knuckle bones, and ball games. The only
  game the Lydians do not claim to have invented
  themselves is backgammon. Once they invented all
  these games, they say, their procedure with
  regard to the famine was as follows. They spent
  the whole of every alternate day playing games,
  so that they would not want food, and on the days
  in between they would stop playing and eat. (R.
  Waterfield, 1998)

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Physical Prowess and Social Status

• Sport emerged as a display of physical ability
• Outstanding physical ability was a prerequisite
  of leadership
• Kings and aristocrats were eager to display their
  skill at the hunt and the ability to wield
  violence

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The Epic of Gilgamesh(ca. 2700
BCE)http//www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotam
ian/gilgamesh/tab1.htm

• He walks around in the enclosure of Uruk,Like a
  wild bull he makes himself mighty, head raised
  (over others). There is no rival who can raise
  his weapon against him.
• Enkidu spoke to the harlot "Come, Shamhat, take
  me away with you to the sacred Holy Temple, the
  residence of Anu and Ishtar, the place of
  Gilgamesh, who is wise to perfection, but who
  struts his power over the people like a wild
  bull. I will challenge him ... Let me shout out
  in Uruk I am the mighty one! Lead me in and I
  will change the order of things he whose
  strength is mightiest is the one born in the
  wilderness!"

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Admiration of Physical PerfectionEpic of
Gilgamesh (ca. 2700 BCE)http//www.ancienttexts.o
rg/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/tab2.htm

• Shamhat pulled off her clothing, and clothed him
  with one piece while she clothed herself with a
  second. She took hold of him as the gods do' and
  brought him to the hut of the shepherds. The
  shepherds gathered all around about him, they
  marveled to themselves "How the youth resembles
  Gilgamesh-- tall in stature, towering up to the
  battlements over the wall! Surely he was born in
  the mountains his strength is as mighty as the
  meteorite(!) of Anu!. He took up his weapon and
  chased lions so that the shepherds could eat He
  routed the wolves, and chased the lions. With
  Enkidu as their guard, the herders could lie
  down. A wakeful man, a singular youth, he was
  twice as tall (?) as normal men

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The Contest of Gilgamesh and EnkiduEpic of
Gigameshhttp//www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesop
otamian/gilgamesh/tab2.htm

• He (Enkidu) walked down the street of
  Uruk-Haven, ... mighty... He blocked the way
  through Uruk the Sheepfold. The land of Uruk
  stood around him, the whole land assembled about
  him, the populace was thronging around him, the
  men were clustered about him, and kissed his feet
  as if he were a little baby(!). Suddenly a
  handsome young man ... For Ishara the bed of
  night(?)/marriage(?) is ready, for Gilgamesh as
  for a god a counterpart(!) is set up. Enkidu
  blocked the entry to the marital chamber, and
  would not allow Gilgamreh to be brought in. They
  grappled with each other at the entry to the
  marital chamber, in the street they attacked each
  other, the public square of the land. The
  doorposts trembled and the wall shook.

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Ritualized Displays of Prowess

• Displays of athletic ability, requisite for
  leadership, were also ritualized
• In ritual context conditions/outcome were
  controlled
• Ritual confirms physical superiority of community
  leaders

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Ritualized Displays of ProwessThe Ritual Run of
Shulgi, King of Ur(ca. 2094-2047 BCE)

• In trials of strength and athletics I am the
  foremost/In the great courtyard, as on the
  battlefield/Who can defeat me?/I am the one who
  is strongest and most skilled in athletics and
  trials of strength.I, the runner, rose in my
  strength, all set for the course from Nippur to
  Ur. (D. Kyle, 2007)

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Ritualized Displays of ProwessThe Martial Skills
of Amenhotep II(1427 1400 BCE)

• He strode upon the northern archery ground and
  found prepared for him four targets of Asian
  copper, a hands breadth thick.He seized the bow
  and grasped four arrows at once. He drove off and
  shot like Month in his battle dress, and his
  arrows penetrated the targets. The he attacked
  the next post. (G.G. Kyle, 2007)

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Athletics and Spectacle

• Ritualized displays of athletic prowess turn
  sport into spectacle
• The audience is to see and revere the power of
  the Athlete
• The display of prowess confers or legitimizes
  status and power

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Practical Athletic Contests

• Have evidence of practical athletics from the
  Nubian 25th dynasty in Egypt (ca. 625 BCE),
  complete with prizes for the winner
• Running Stella of Taharqu suggests running as
  training for war among Nubian soldiers
• Soldiers run the distance from Memphis to Fayum
  and back in c. 9 hours (c. 100 km)
• Winner is distinguished and invited to eat and
  drink with the royal bodyguard
• Those who were just behind him were rewarded
  with all manner of things

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Hunting From Practical Activity to Ritualized
Display

• Paleolithic people were universally
  hunter-gatherers
• Community depended largely on hunting as main
  source of animal protein
• Between ca. 10,000 BCE 8,000 BCE in Mesopotamia
  agriculture and pastoralism developed (Neolithic
  Revolution 6,000 BCE in Greece)

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Prehistoric hunters
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Hunting After the Neolithic Revolution

• In settled agricultural settings hunting skills
  still valued to pacify wild nature
• The hunter and the warrior usually one and the
  same
• Hunting activity of the leisured elite
• Hunting frequently, but not always, took place in
  controlled settings (i.e. Hunting parks or game
  reserves, in Persian Paradise)

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Enkidu, The Tamer of Wild NatureEpic of
Gilgameshhttp//www.ancienttexts.org/library/meso
potamian/gilgamesh/tab2.htm

• He took up his weapon and chased lions so that
  the shepherds could eat He routed the wolves, and
  chased the lions. With Enkidu as their guard, the
  herders could lie down.

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Hunting in Lydia king Croesus and His Son.
Herodotus, Histories 1.36-37

• Mysians My lord, they said an enormous
  monster of a boar has appeared in our land and is
  wreaking havoc on our farmlands. All our attempts
  to get him have failed.
• Croesus I will send you some of my elite
  troops, and you can have a whole pack of my
  hunting dogs, and I will give them strict
  instructions to do their very best to help you
  drive the beast out of your land.
• Atys Father, in times past I used to perform
  the most admirable and noble deeds I used to go
  to war or go out hunting, and win distinction
  there.
• (R. Waterfield, 1998)

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Royal lion hunt
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royal lion hunt (note the exaggerated size of the
lion to emphasize kings prowess)
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(No Transcript)
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Horseback riding Mesopotamia
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Egyptian and Near Eastern Sportconclusions

• There is little evidence of institutionalized
  contests between Athletes (Taharqa Stella
  excepted)
• Ritual display of the power of kings/nobles/warrio
  rs with controlled outcomes