DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9177#0096
76
PRINCIPLES OP GREEK ART
CHAP.
beauty were favoured by athletic competitions, combined with
the love of health and beauty, which made the Greeks believe
that these sports were pleasing to the Gods. It is more true
to say that athletic sports had great effects on the moulding
of the current ideas of the gods than that belief in the gods
produced the athletic festivals. Religion in modern days has
usually been confined to certain sides of human activity, the
spiritual side as contrasted with the material side. But Greek
religion, which in depth could not compare with Christianity,
as it has usually been received, covered a wider field; so that
every power and aptitude of man, and indeed every form of
activity and enjoyment, was regarded as pleasing to the Gods,
and was placed under their patronage.
Greek athletic sports differed from those of modern days
mainly in three respects. In the first place, they were far
more general. Those of our modern sports which are in most
general vogue among young men, such as cricket and foot-ball,
have very great social value, and are excellent for the promo-
tion of health, but they do not strongly tend towards a beauti-
ful and harmonious physical development. And track ath-
letics and gymnastics are in use among the few only. But in
Greece almost every young man who was not deformed in body
and who was of free birth, spent a considerable part of the
day in the gymnasium, in a variety of exercises which tended
directly not only to the cultivation of strength, but to thorough
development of every limb, and the elimination of weaknesses.
In the second place, whereas in modern athletics only results
are reckoned, and style is quite subordinated to effectiveness,
in Greece style was greatly considered. The exercises, as vases
prove, were commonly gone through to the sound of the flute,
and grace of action was as much admired as force. In the
third place, nudity and oil were regarded as essential to an
athletic training. We can easily understand that when young
men had to run and wrestle naked, they would be very desirous
PRINCIPLES OP GREEK ART
CHAP.
beauty were favoured by athletic competitions, combined with
the love of health and beauty, which made the Greeks believe
that these sports were pleasing to the Gods. It is more true
to say that athletic sports had great effects on the moulding
of the current ideas of the gods than that belief in the gods
produced the athletic festivals. Religion in modern days has
usually been confined to certain sides of human activity, the
spiritual side as contrasted with the material side. But Greek
religion, which in depth could not compare with Christianity,
as it has usually been received, covered a wider field; so that
every power and aptitude of man, and indeed every form of
activity and enjoyment, was regarded as pleasing to the Gods,
and was placed under their patronage.
Greek athletic sports differed from those of modern days
mainly in three respects. In the first place, they were far
more general. Those of our modern sports which are in most
general vogue among young men, such as cricket and foot-ball,
have very great social value, and are excellent for the promo-
tion of health, but they do not strongly tend towards a beauti-
ful and harmonious physical development. And track ath-
letics and gymnastics are in use among the few only. But in
Greece almost every young man who was not deformed in body
and who was of free birth, spent a considerable part of the
day in the gymnasium, in a variety of exercises which tended
directly not only to the cultivation of strength, but to thorough
development of every limb, and the elimination of weaknesses.
In the second place, whereas in modern athletics only results
are reckoned, and style is quite subordinated to effectiveness,
in Greece style was greatly considered. The exercises, as vases
prove, were commonly gone through to the sound of the flute,
and grace of action was as much admired as force. In the
third place, nudity and oil were regarded as essential to an
athletic training. We can easily understand that when young
men had to run and wrestle naked, they would be very desirous