DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9184#0293
Chap, ix.] Olympia and the Festival. 271
to copy in a studio the limbs of a single unsatisfactory
model, but were able by comparison of form with form
daily to grow in knowledge of every part of the human
frame, and daily to raise their standard as to the possi-
bilities of human perfection. The shapes of men became
as familiar to sculptor and painter as those of the sheep
to a shepherd or those of horses to a groom. These
artists became intoxicated with the beauty of men, until
every force of nature presented itself to them under a
human aspect ; until all their decoration consisted in the
introduction of human forms; nay, even abstract qualities,
events, and places, seemed to clothe themselves with
flesh and blood.
There is another aspect in which we may regard
Greek athletic sports, that is as a training for war.
Some of the contests were of a distinctly warlike
character, such as running a race with a shield on one's
arm, and such as hurling the spear. And in days when
man clashed against man and a duel often ended in a
personal grapple, it was no mean advantage to be a
good wrestler. Plutarch attributes the victory of the
Thebans at Leuctra to their superiority in wrestling to
the Lacedaemonians, wrestling being a special art of
the Boeotians. Indeed, if we examine any one of the
numerous friezes from Greek temples which represent
groups of fighters, we may see at once how much the
victory depended on personal force and agility.
The most learned and laborious of the German writers
on the Greek games, Dr. Krause, concludes his work*
with a comparison between ancient and modern athletic
sports, resulting in the claim of immense superiority in
the Greeks over any moderns. But Dr. Krause's stan-
dard of modern proficiency was that of the German
Ttirnvereins of forty years ago. It is since that time that
* Die Gymnastik mid Agonistik der Hellenen.
to copy in a studio the limbs of a single unsatisfactory
model, but were able by comparison of form with form
daily to grow in knowledge of every part of the human
frame, and daily to raise their standard as to the possi-
bilities of human perfection. The shapes of men became
as familiar to sculptor and painter as those of the sheep
to a shepherd or those of horses to a groom. These
artists became intoxicated with the beauty of men, until
every force of nature presented itself to them under a
human aspect ; until all their decoration consisted in the
introduction of human forms; nay, even abstract qualities,
events, and places, seemed to clothe themselves with
flesh and blood.
There is another aspect in which we may regard
Greek athletic sports, that is as a training for war.
Some of the contests were of a distinctly warlike
character, such as running a race with a shield on one's
arm, and such as hurling the spear. And in days when
man clashed against man and a duel often ended in a
personal grapple, it was no mean advantage to be a
good wrestler. Plutarch attributes the victory of the
Thebans at Leuctra to their superiority in wrestling to
the Lacedaemonians, wrestling being a special art of
the Boeotians. Indeed, if we examine any one of the
numerous friezes from Greek temples which represent
groups of fighters, we may see at once how much the
victory depended on personal force and agility.
The most learned and laborious of the German writers
on the Greek games, Dr. Krause, concludes his work*
with a comparison between ancient and modern athletic
sports, resulting in the claim of immense superiority in
the Greeks over any moderns. But Dr. Krause's stan-
dard of modern proficiency was that of the German
Ttirnvereins of forty years ago. It is since that time that
* Die Gymnastik mid Agonistik der Hellenen.