[lit-ideas] Gumnasia -- from Akanthos to Orsippos and Back
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 13:00:19 EST
Thucydides said it was the Spartans who started practising sports in the
nude. Pausanias, to refute him, thinks it was the Megarian Orsippos.
Philostratos agrees rather with Thucydides and mentions one Acanthus, a
Lakedaimonian as
the first to strip off.
The problem with Pausanias is that he writes (1.44.1) that Orsippos _won_
the foot race, because "he realized that the testicle-cover was more of an
impediment than an enhancement to good running". However, the Scholia ad Iliad
--
online source, "The origin of nudity in Greek athletics" -- mentions that
Orsippos actually found his testicle-cover falling, he trippled, and died --
and
thus lost his race.
One problem with the Iliad scholia is that Pausanias said that Orsippos grew
to become a famous general. And how could he have done that if he died while
running a silly race at 15?
We are also considering the root of sport.
D. K. Helm thinks it's the hunting instinct, and war drive.
I would think it's the eroticisation of the male body: the pleasure you
derive by OILING it, and run about totally _naked_. For that you need:
(*) The Greek climate -- or "hellenic" weather, if R. Paul would prefer.
Thus, the Vikings, and the Angles, and the New Englanders for that
matter are famous
for 'bundling it up'. They cannot enjoy GYMNASIA in the open because
they live
in what the Greeks would call 'God-forsaken corners of the boreal
world'
(*) et Cetera.
-----
Then there's _Homo ludens_. This Huizinga thought was a primeval spirit of
_game_. As in Dionysiac but also Apollonian rites. The idea of 'game' for game
sake. That's why I was being careful in using the adjective 'religious' to
qualifies these activities.
One learns for example that the old Mexicans -- of all people -- did
practice some kind of 'baseball'; but while the rite originated as a 'secular'
one,
it was soon found to be good for the 'opium of the people', and acquired a
'religious meaning'. I would think that much of Greek bullshit has the same
origin.
Just because the witch of the tribe (in the tripartite Indo-European model:
warrior/witch/farmer) could not bear the sight of ephebes playing around in
the nude and the open, he had to think that they were doing it _for_ Apollo.
Blast Apollo if you ask me!
----
It's only in the new Masculinities studies that this side of Greek sport is
coming to light. The Romans for example, objected to "Hellenistic" practices
like the pallestra or the gymnasion in general, and the obsession of the
Greeks to do 'gymnasia' -- by definition naked -- as Pausanias first
recollects
the 'ephebe' who found his 'ball-coverer' otiose, and an impediment 'to run in
an easier way'.
Then in this Gymastica (Loeb Library) advice is given to Greek coaches as to
how to anoint the ephebe with 'yellow dust' -- which I dislike. "It makes a
nice body in good shape get a glisten, and it is like a soft down".
These quotes come from this book, "Arete", which is about the Greek male
nude, the gymnasia, and other matters. Pretty technical.
--- I don't object to the idea that training for war is important too. The
Romans objected to the Greek gymnasia _not_ involving _weapons training_. While
the javalin and the discus could be thought of as substitutes, I'm not sure
how much javalin throwing or discus throwing you can practice in a gymnasion
in the middle of downtown Athens -- or Sparta.
Short distance running and a few leaps and a good bath in the thermae seems
a better option. Then wrestling yes, provided you don't hit the beautiful
face.
(Pentathlon).
One should also analyse the etym. of 'athlete'. I'm sure that 'gymnastes'
leaves no doubt about it, but we would like to distinguish between
fit-gymnastes
and the non-fit 'gymnastes' (in the modern sense of 'nudist') whichis not an
athlete. The fact that in Greek a gymnastes is necessarily understood to be
an athlete is neither here nor there -- but in Attica.
----
Oddly, the "Argentine football" team I support is a local one which is
called "Club Atletico de Gimnasia y esgrima". This combination is popular in
various athetic clubs. The shirt is one dark blue over a white background.
---- No nonsense about it, like "The Lions", or "The Dolphins". Plain
"Gymnastics Club"! But then it was a Mussolini creation, almost!
----
We should also consider Greek games in their individualistic and competitive
aspects. In any of the agonias (or fights) in the pentathlon there is room
for a victory -- and it is indeed monothematic with Helm's discussion -- that
the word for 'victory' in war and game (and love?) is always 'nike'.
Modern gymnasts want to say, "It's the playing that matters, not the
winning" which is bullshit.
"Chariots of Fire" develops this idea, with the Presbyterean player not
wanting to play on the Sabbath -- and bringing a bit of conflict over the
Angles
and the Jews who could care less.
I would think that for the Greeks it was almost always an 'individualistic'
thing -- no such things as The Spartans vs. The Athenians. It was always
"Master Theophilos versus Master Pankreotikos", of Athens and Sparta
respectively.
There were no team sports -- other than perhaps 'rowing'?
---- Aristotle talks a lot about sport representations in his Physics. He
mentions Polykleitus as not a sculptor (R. Paul is right) but an 'andriopoios',
statue maker. Andrias being statue -- (even for Venus of Milo?), and the
material was bronze.
Polykleitus wrote a book which he called Doruphoros, and translates as
Spear-Bearer, a soldier, and not Javelin-Bearer. But Myron, some 100 years
earlier
obtained fame with his Discobolus -- no Grenade-Thrower.
I would think that while the Spear-Bearer is bearing a spear, there is no
reflection on his face of the tension that a war or battle would create. He
rather looks like a person about to compete in the javelin on the field -- just
before joining for the 4 remaining 'agonias' on track and field.
Cheers,
J. L. Speranza
Historian of Sports, etc.
Buenos Aires, Argentina
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