Ancient Combat Sports
Combat at the ancient Olympics
Michael B. Poliakoff • 01/25/2018
One of the three ancient Greek combat sports, wrestling was celebrated for its complexity, as it required not only strength but precise skills and cunning. Wrestlers like those depicted on this fourth-century B.C.E. silver coin probably knew of the legendary exploits of Homer’s Odysseus, who uses his wits to wrestle the massive Ajax to a draw in Book 23 of the Iliad.
“You know that the Olympic crown is olive, yet many have honored it above life,†wrote the Greek orator Dio Chrysostom (c. 40-110 C.E.).1 Indeed, the occasional philosopher or doctor may have condemned the brutality and danger of ancient athletics, but the Greek public nevertheless accepted a good deal of hazard, injury and death.2
This is particularly true of the three Greek combat events—wrestling, boxing and pancratium (a combination of boxing and wrestling that allowed such tactics as kicking and strangling). Their history at ancient Olympia is long and eventful: Wrestling entered the program in 708 B.C.E., boxing in 688 B.C.E. and pancratium in 648 B.C.E. These grueling sports reveal much about the aspirations and values of ancient Greece, about what was deemed honorable, fair and beautiful, both in the eyes of those of who competed and those who traveled to Olympia to watch.
https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/daily-life-and-practice/ancient-combat-sports/
