The evolution of sport from military training in ancient Greece and Rome

Greek Sports

Sports in the ancient world evolved from the military traditions and are a reflection of the important elements of ancient life. When we consider the different elements of the ancient games, we see violence, beauty, the power of the gods and a social function, all of which are important factors in the ancient Greek games. This paper will explore the connection between sport, military and art in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds.

Sports & Military

Sporting tradition probably came from Greece, and Greek cities were surely the first to host massive sporting events on the scale of the Olympic Games. In this time, societies had strict rules with regards to the roles that people played in society. Wars and armed conflict were frequent, as a means gaining territory and power, as the Greek world was little more than a collection of loosely-tied city-states and small kingdoms. The constant warring demanded that any serious ruler should have a standing, professional or at least semi-professional army. Now, an army needs to be trained in order to beat other armies, so that is what they did.

The training exercises therefore became modern sports. This is because of the competitive nature of the young men who participated in these sports. For example, there were no completive sports to come from weaving the loom -- despite Penelope's apparent prowess -- nor were there any sports involving the speed at which one could plow a field. They used a wreath as a reward, not a yoke. No, the games came from military training because this is where groups of men would gather and these competitive men would eventually structure games to celebrate their skills and endeavors. These games were emerge as sports. Eventually, these sports became organized, with rules that allowed competitors from different parts of Greece to compete according to a common and understood set of rules. Thus, sports were born.

The sports included things that related to combat and military endeavor. Games of stamina turned into long-distance running, and games of speed into the short-distance running events. Throwing of weapons was a natural competition, as were wrestling and boxing. Chariot racing became a popular sports as well. For every sport in the ancient world, there is a combat connotation, until we get to Roman sports.

The Romans had a different aesthetic to the Greeks in the sporting world. Where the Greeks preferred sports as artistic expressions of violent military training, the Romans just went in for the blood-letting. Roman sports therefore featured gladiator fights, executions like an unarmed condemned man fighting a beast, and that sort of thing. If people didn't die, it wasn't a sport to the Romans. So the subtlety and nuance was replaced by gore for the Roman audiences.

Gods

What aspect of ancient culture could be discussed without talking about the gods. The gods were the rulers of all of ancient life, and people routinely assumed that their successes and failure were the work of unseen gods. As such, they expended considerable energy trying to win the favor of the gods. Homer wrote about sacrificing oxen 100 at a time -- the unstinting sacrifices -- and some of the major sporting events were a reflection of that. The gods were in assistance of some of the participants -- surely Hermes was involved in some capacity but other gods were too. Many game were dedicated to the gods, and took on a religious element to them in that way. Worship was part of the sporting production, though not an event unto itself. The god Zeus was key to the Olympic Games, which were held in his honor

Synthesis

From the Greeks onwards, sports were an important part of ancient society. It is interesting to note that after the Roman era went into decline and ancient facilities fell into disrepair, there was little in the way of major sporting spectacle and only in Victorian times did the idea re-emerge. Sport, then, is tied to leisure and the presence of a middle class to partake of such entertainment. The ideals that sport emphasized varied from society to society, but would reflect the religion of society, its tastes, and the needs of the people. You saw rich people and poor people socializing with their peers, taking an interest in the sporting events but also in the sideshow of social life that surrounded the games. Everyday life would all but shut down when there was a major sporting event, because these things were that popular.

It is important to bear in mind that while some elements of sports are familiar to us today, not all are. We do not take into account the same beautiful body ethic that the Greeks had, for example. Instead, we prefer to consider athletic achievement on its own merit. The Greeks did that, too, making famous their best athletes, but their admiration for the body as opposed to specific admiration for achievement led the to make sport so critically important to their society. What we can take from this is that the Greeks loved sport, made art from it, and they still were able to use those skills in war. But the separation of preparing the human body and the task for which it was being prepared began with the Greeks. Today, sport is a specialized thing to a degree that did not occur in Greece, but nevertheless we owe a lot to the Greeks for developing sport as we know it, and ensuring that we had lots of sports to choose from