The helmet and greaves would add another 3kg and the weight was not exactly conveniently distributed for running long distances in scorching summer heat. Shields weighed 7 kg alone (standard weight shields were kept at Olympia in the Temple of Hera to prevent cheating. The race made perfect sense to the ancient Greeks armies were made up of citizen soldiers who needed to be able to display speed and agility in heavy armour.
Sufficient velocity magna graecia full#
One race that is quite odd to modern spectators is the hoplitodromos race added in 520 BC at the 65th Olympic Games.Įach runner wore a helmet and greaves and carried a shield, elements of the full armour of a hoplite infantryman. #igersgreeceĪ post shared by 🏛 Alexandra 🏛 on at 11:01am PDT The ancient stadium at Olympia is 192 metres in length, a distance said to be set by Heracles. This race was not a sprint, lasting a whopping 20 stadia (10 full laps clocking in at 12,000 feet.) The diaulos was added at the 14th Olympic Games in 724 BC and simply doubled the length of the stadion requiring the athletes to turn at the far end and run back to the starting line.Īt the 15th Olympics four years later the dolichos race was added to the programme. Everyone in the Greek world knew that Coroebus of Elis was the first Olympic victor (776 BC.) If you were to ask an ancient Greek when the Battle of Thermopylae took place, he would tell you it was the year when Astyalus of Croton won the stadion race for the third time in a row at the 75th Olympiad (480 BC.) Even late into antiquity a Greek would think that dating everything by the birth of an obscure eastern preacher would be a bizarre idea. Stone seats were added by Herodes Atticus in the 2nd C ADĪ post shared by 🏛 Alexandra 🏛 on at 5:25am PDTĪt the Olympics the winner of the stadion gave his name to the entire Games and of that Olympiad period of four years. The word stadion not only referred to the track but as a standard of measurement for 600 feet. At Nemea the track is a more gentle 178 metres and competitors in the Pythian Games at Delphi had a mere 177 metres to run. The length was standard across all Greek games and was set at 600 feet (mythically determined by Heracles.) The length of a foot varied from region to region the tracks at Olympia and Isthmia are 192 modern metres long. It simply involved sprinting from one end of the track to the other. In fact, the first 13 Olympics consisted of a single foot race called the stadion. Races were the oldest events at the Olympic Games. Even in private situations like drinking parties, respectable men would be wearing their kynodesme, so seeing athletes wearing them during their events would not only have been unremarkable but expected. They were also worn by men of other professions whilst in public, such as actors. There may have been some practical aspects of wearing a kynodesme whilst competing but comfort seems to have been very much the secondary purpose. Regular use of a kynodesme possibly permanently stretched the akroposthion which would have pleased the wearer as a large akropisthion was considered highly desirable. That was an absolute taboo, only slaves and barbarians didn’t worry about flashing their glans accidentally. The idea was to prevent the foreskin riding up and exposing the glans of the penis. This consisted of a leather cord that was tied around the protruding tip of the foreskin (the akroposthion) and pulled up to be tied to a waistband or the base of the penis. No brightly coloured team shell suits or lycra shorts, but some athletes did wear a kynodesme (“dog leash”) to compete in. For a start, all athletes competed naked unless stated otherwise. That said, the ancient Greeks had a few events and customs that would seem equally utterly bizarre in Rio 2016. Racewalking and beach volleyball would have been a mystery. There were no aquatic events, ball games or team sports. The modern Olympics have a raft of events that would have had the ancient Greeks discombobulated.
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