Map 12.1 Key sites mentioned in this essay.
Starting in the middle of the eighth century, Greeks established a substantial number of new and independent settlements – poleis, or city-states – in Sicily and southern Italy (hereafter, the Greek West; see Map 12.1 for the locations of key sites mentioned in this essay).1 Indeed, in the closing decades of the eighth century BCE,2 Greeks founded a new colony in southern Italy or Sicily on average every other year (Osborne 2009: 122). Those colonies had an estimated total population of half a million or more by the fifth century, and many communities became quite wealthy (Morris 2004: 732–3). For example, Syracuse developed into one of the largest and most powerful poleis in the Greek world, and Sybaris became renowned for luxury and excess.3
Virtually from the outset the Greek West was a site of almost continual conflict, between Greeks and the indigenous populations of the region, and between the Greek cities themselves. Siris, for instance, was destroyed by the combined forces of Croton, Sybaris, and Metapontion sometime around 570, and in 510 Croton annihilated Sybaris. In addition, the Phoenicians were trading and settling in the western Mediterranean at the same time as the Greeks, and their foundation of Carthage and its expansion in the Archaic period (700–480) resulted in ongoing clashes between western Greeks and Carthaginians.
The Greek West entered a period of marked decline in the fourth century. There was a brief revival under Hieron II of Syracuse in the third century, but thereafter Rome was in charge. This essay, therefore, focuses on the 300 years between the early seventh and early fourth centuries, the period when the Greek communities of the West were at their most powerful and prosperous. Indeed, the earliest evidence for athletic activity by western Greeks dates to the seventh century, and western Greek participation, particularly at Olympia and Delphi, drops off after the early fourth century when conflict and destruction became acute in the region.
Map 12.1 Key sites mentioned in this essay.
The wealth and importance of western Greece notwithstanding, the evidence for sport in western Greece is perhaps less plentiful than for some other regions in the Greek world. For instance, relevant inscriptions do not survive in the sort of quantity found in places such as Asia Minor (see Chapters 6 and 24 in this volume). Moreover, archaeological excavations have not focused on uncovering sites of athletic competition and training in the Greek West (Lippolis 2004: 43, 46). On the other hand, we have the epinikia, odes written to celebrate athletic victories by poets such as Pindar and Bacchylides (on which see Chapter 4). It is noteworthy that 17 of the 45 surviving epinikia composed by Pindar were written for western Greeks (Antonaccio 2007: 265).
Even with these limitations, the body of evidence for western Greek sport is substantial, and it is impossible in the present context to survey all of it. Thus, this essay concentrates on sport at the sites of Croton and Taras, and the participation of the rulers and elites of Gela, Syracuse, and Akragas (the Deinomenids and Emmenids) in the equestrian competitions at Olympia and Delphi. It must be noted that this simplification of a very complex picture leaves out evidence for important victors from places such as Kamarina and Himera in Sicily and Lokroi Epizephyrioi, Kaulonia, and Rhegion in southern Italy.
The traditional list of Olympic victors records a victory by Daippos of Croton in boxing in 672. This early victory heralds the more plentiful evidence for western Greek sport in the early sixth century, which in all likelihood reflects a major upward shift in athletic activity that took place all over the Greek world (Christesen 2007).
The polis of Croton seems to have played a leading role in the development of sport in the Greek West.4 Between 588 and 488, 11 Crotoniate athletes are known to have won 19 Olympic victories, 11 in the short footrace called the stadion and 8 in wrestling.5 (On the events held at Greek athletic festivals, see Chapter 1). During that time period, sprinters from Croton won the Olympic stadion almost as often as all other Greek cities combined. The domination of Croton in the stadion at Olympia was such that at one Olympiad the first seven finishers in that race were reportedly all from Croton. This gave rise to a saying: “The last of the Crotoniates was the first of all other Greeks” (Strabo 6.1.12). The Greek historian Timaeus (c.350–c.260) wrote that the people of Croton set up an athletic festival intended to rival the Olympics; it was held at the same time and offered rich prizes in silver (F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker 566 F45, cited in Athenaeus 522c). (Other ancient authors claimed that this rival festival was staged not by Croton but by its neighbor and rival, Sybaris.)
Milo, perhaps the single most famous ancient Greek athlete, was a prominent resident of Croton. Milo won 6 Olympic victories in wrestling starting in 540, in addition to 7 victories at the Pythian Games, 10 at the Isthmian Games, and 9 at the Nemean Games. Stories, some more reliable than others, about Milo’s incredible feats of strength circulated widely in the ancient world (Poliakoff 1987: 117–19). Milo’s compatriot Phayllos won three victories at the Pythian Games (two in pentathlon, one in the stadion) and was renowned for his amazing performances in the jumping contest that formed part of the pentathlon (Golden 2004: 131–2).
Various explanations have been proposed for the remarkable florescence of sport in Croton in the century after 588. The Greek geographer and historian Strabo, writing in the first century, stated that there was a belief that “the place contains something that tends to health and bodily vigor . . . accordingly, it had a very large number of Olympic victors” (6.1.12, trans. H. Jones). Strabo also said that “the city is reputed to have cultivated warfare and athletics.” That statement has been developed in modern scholarship, most notably by David Young, who has argued that Croton’s athletic successes were the result of an official program that provided substantial subsidies to talented athletes and rewards for victories at major games (1984: 131–62). Croton was thus able to attract the ancient equivalent of free agent athletes from all over the Greek world. Young highlights the case of Astylos of Croton, who in 488 won two footraces, the stadion, and the diaulos, at Olympia. He repeated this feat in 484, this time, however, competing for Syracuse. In 480, Astylos, again competing as a Syracusan, won three footraces, the stadion, diaulos, and hoplitodromos, at a single Olympiad, something that did not happen again for three centuries. The Crotoniates responded to Astylos’s defection by tearing down a statue that had been erected in his honor and turning his house into a prison (Pausanias 6.13.1). Young sees this as a case of Croton being outdone at its own game, that is, being outbid for the services of a star athlete.
Young also points to evidence indicating that the Crotoniates would not have been alone in offering lavish incentives to elite athletes. An inscription dated to about 600 and found at Sybaris records the dedication of a tithe of a prize awarded to an Olympic victor (Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 35.1053, see Miller 2004a: 179–80 for an English translation). This strongly suggests that Sybaris was rewarding its Olympic victors with large sums of money, a practice that aroused the ire of the sixth-century poet Xenophanes (Fragment 2 West, see Chapter 21) and that was also associated with the sixth-century Athenian lawgiver Solon (see Chapter 10).
Croton was also famed for the skill of its doctors, and some modern-day scholars have argued that Crotoniate doctors were early and unusually effective practitioners of what is today called sports medicine. H. A. Harris noted that the doctor Demokedes of Croton, whose services were in great demand all over the Greek world, married Milo’s daughter and was adept at setting dislocated joints (1979: 112–13; cf. Young 1984: 145–6).
Another possibly relevant factor is the influence of the philosopher Pythagoras in Croton. Pythagoreans, who seem to have dominated the political life of Croton for much of the second half of the sixth century, were noted for their adherence to a strict dietary regimen. This interest and expertise in nutrition, it has been argued, might well have been adopted by Crotoniate athletes (Pleket 2001: 172). Enzo Lippolis (2004: 40–6) has suggested a connection between the Pythagoreans and a pattern in the events in which Crotoniate athletes competed at Olympia. Between 588 and 548 and between 508 and 488, all known Crotoniate Olympic victors were sprinters. Between 540 and 516, however, all known Crotoniate victors were wrestlers. Lippolis argues that this pattern is the result of the waxing and waning of aristocratic and Pythagorean influence in Croton. It is, however, important to note that the majority of the Crotoniate victories in wrestling between 540 and 516 were won by the extraordinary Milo, which makes it difficult to draw definitive conclusions from the patterning of Crotoniate Olympic victories. Moreover, Stephen Miller (2004b: 233) has credited Croton’s athletic successes to the existence there of a strong democratic political tradition from an early date. He points to the fact that there are no known Crotoniate Olympic victors in the equestrian events, which were closely associated with rich elites.
Croton’s athletic successes came to an abrupt end in 488, when Astylos won the stadion at Olympia. There are no known Crotoniate victors after that date in either the Olympics or any of the three other major athletic festivals in the Greek homeland. This sharp break should probably be traced to the gradual political and economic decline in Croton, which fared badly at the hands of hostile neighbors, both indigenous and Greek.
Croton may well have done much to raise the profile of sport in the Greek West, and there is evidence that sport became an important activity in other western Greek poleis in the second half of the sixth century. This is most evident in Taras (frequently known by the Latinate form of its name, Tarentum), where we are fortunate to have a considerable amount of archaeological evidence from hundreds of graves that have been carefully excavated and published.6 Tarentine burials take three forms: rectangular cists cut into the earth or bedrock (in some cases with a sarcophagus placed inside the cist); chamber tombs, consisting of built underground rooms typically furnished with funerary couches and sarcophagi; and urn burials, ceramic jars containing cremation remains and placed in pits dug into earth or rock (Maruggi 1994).
A considerable number of the tombs from Taras from the period between roughly 530 and 475 contain artifacts that reflect a strong interest in sport. (The number of such graves drops off sharply starting in the second quarter of the fifth century.) One of the earliest such tombs is a cist grave that contained more than forty ceramic vessels, including two vases showing boxing matches, one showing a horse race, and one showing a race in armor (hoplitodromos) (D’Amicis, Giboni, Lippolis, et al. 1997: 158–68). Other tombs contain various types of sport equipment; the earliest example is a cist grave dating to the last quarter of the sixth century with an iron discus placed inside the sarcophagus, along with numerous vases, some featuring sport scenes. Another cist grave, this one dating to the fifth century, contains a strigil (for scraping oil and dust off the skin after exercise), a javelin, and jumping weights (D’Amicis, Giboni, Lippolis, et al. 1997: 231–8, 230–1). The excavators have noted that vases with scenes showing chariot races are more common in the more expensive chamber tombs, reflecting the traditional strong connection between wealth and participation in equestrian competition (Lippolis 2004: 48–9). (Equestrian themes also featured prominently in Tarentine coinage (Evans 1889), but this imagery is shared by other poleis as well; I discuss Syracuse later in the chapter.)
Perhaps the single most well-known tomb from Taras relevant to this topic is a cist grave with a sarcophagus that dates to c.480. An alabastron, for scented oil, was found in the sarcophagus. Outside the sarcophagus, placed in the corners of the cist, were four Panathenaic amphorae, three of which are extant; one shows a jumper and a discus thrower, another shows a pair of boxers, a third shows a chariot race (D’Amicis, Giboni, Lippolis, et al. 1997: 314–16). (Other graves at Taras contain Panathenaic amphorae, though not so many nor so carefully arranged.) There has been considerable debate as to whether the occupant of this tomb won these vases in the Panathenaic Games, at which such vases, filled with olive oil, were given out as prizes. (On Panathenaic amphorae, see Chapter 5.) Some scholars (see, for example, Lo Porto 1967) have argued that the Tarentine individuals buried with Panathenaic vases must have won them in competition at Athens; others (see, for example, Bentz 1998: 97–9; Frel 1992) make the case that in at least some instances these amphorae were purchased, not won. The latter seems more likely, particularly insofar as one of the amphorae from the aforementioned grave has a trademark on its base indicating that it was put up for sale at some point before it was buried. Moreover, pseudo-Panathenaic amphorae (vases of the same shape as those given out at the Panathenaic Games) are found in some graves in Taras, indicating an interest in purchasing vessels that implied a connection to winning in athletic contests at Athens without actually having done so. Furthermore, Panathenaic amphorae and amphorae of Panathenaic type are found widely distributed in Greek and even non-Greek communities of Italy and Sicily.
However one interprets the presence of Panathenaic amphorae in Tarentine tombs, the decision to feature those amphorae in burials, together with assemblages of sport equipment, is strong evidence for the important role sport played in the lifestyle of citizen males in Taras. Similar finds at other sites make it clear that this was not unique to Taras. For example, excavations in the cemeteries at Metapontion produced 39 bronze strigils, most dating to the fifth century (Prohászka 1998: 797–804), and objects used in sport and vases with sport scenes were found in a number of tombs at Lokroi Epizephyrioi (Milanesio Macri 2004).
It is interesting to note that the date of the graves with sports equipment or vases featuring sport scenes found at Taras coincides with what is known about Tarentine Olympic victors (see the listing in Stampolidis and Tassoulas 2004: 289; for more details about individual victors, see the relevant entries in Moretti 1957). The earliest known Olympic victor from Taras, Anochos, won the stadion and diaulos in 520. The next two Tarentine victories at Olympia date to 472 and 468. Ikkos of Taras won the pentathlon at Olympia at some point in the fifth century before 440, though precisely when is unknown (Moretti 1957: 103). Ikkos was known for abstaining from sex during training, and, after his competitive career was over, he developed a reputation as the best athletic trainer in the Greek world (Golden 2004: 87). The only other known Olympic victories by Tarentine athletes date to the fourth century (in the years 380, 352, and 336).
The apparent decline in sport at Taras may have been linked to political and economic factors. In 473 Taras suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of a neighboring indigenous group, the Iapygians, after which a more democratic political system was instituted. This may have led to a changed attitude toward sport or toward the deposition of sport-related items in tombs, or both. It is, therefore, impossible to be certain whether sport became less important in Taras after the first quarter of the fifth century or whether there was simply change in burial customs.
Tyrants – individuals who usurped power and established one-man rule – first appeared in the Greek world starting in the seventh century. In modern usage, the word “tyrant” denotes a notably unjust, capricious, and often cruel ruler, but not all Greek tyrants fit this bill. In some cases they managed to pass power down to their descendants, but their dynasties tended to be short-lived.7
The first known tyrant in western Greece, Panaetios, seized control of the city of Leontini in Sicily at the end of the seventh century, but the great age of tyranny in western Greece was the first half of the fifth century. Two dynasties of tyrants, the Deinomenids and the Emmenids, attained immense power and influence in the cities of Gela, Syracuse, and Akragas (see Figure 12.1 for a family tree). In the early years of the fifth century a certain Hippocrates established himself as tyrant of the city of Gela and, with the help of an able commander named Gelon, son of Deinomenes, brought a considerable fraction of Sicily under his control. After Hippocrates’ death in c.490, Gelon took over his position and continued his expansionist policies. Around 485 Gelon seized control of Syracuse, the largest Greek city in Sicily, and established his seat of power there, while entrusting the rule of Gela to his brother Hieron. Gelon died in 478, and his position passed to Hieron, while control of Gela was given to yet another brother, Polyzalos. After Hieron’s death in 466, a fourth brother, Thrasyboulos, was left in charge, but was soon overthrown by a democratic uprising and forced into exile. (Polyzalos seems to have predeceased Hieron.) These four brothers are collectively known as the Deinomenids (literally, “the sons of Deinomenes”).8
Figure 12.1 Family tree of the Deinomenids and Emmenids.
The Sicilian city of Akragas fell under the control of a tyrant named Theron sometime around 485, and he held power until his death in 472. Upon Theron’s death, his son took over his position, but the latter was overthrown almost immediately. Theron’s brother Xenokrates predeceased him. Theron and Xenokrates were called the Emmenids, a designation that drew on the name of a distant and famous ancestor named Emmenes. The Deinomenids and Emmenids had a cooperative, though sometimes fraught, relationship that was reinforced through intermarriage.
The two Sicilian dynasties made good use of the vast resources at their disposal in projecting their power and status through sport. They spent lavishly on raising and racing horses and competing in the major athletic festivals in the Greek homeland (the Olympic, Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean Games). The Deinomenids twice won the four-horse chariot race at the Olympics, probably the most prestigious equestrian competition anywhere in the Greek world, as well as celebrated two victories in the Olympic horse race, and two victories in the four-horse chariot race and two victories in the horse race at the Pythian Games. The Emmenids won the four-horse chariot race at the Olympics once and the horse race there twice, as well as three victories in the four-horse chariot race and two victories in the horse race at the Pythian Games, three victories in the four-horse chariot race at the Isthmian Games, and two victories in the horse race at the Isthmian Games. All 21 of these victories were won between 490 and 468.9
The Deinomenids and Emmenids also spent heavily on commemorating their equestrian successes, at home and in the homeland. Pindar wrote four epinikia for Hieron (Olympian 1 and Pythian 1–3). A four-horse racing chariot appears regularly on the obverse of the coins of Gela and Syracuse during the period of Deinomenid domination. Some of the most famous coins issued in the ancient Greek world, the heavy silver coins minted by Syracuse in the second quarter of the fifth century and known as the Demarateion series, feature a four-horse racing chariot (Garraffo 2004). Numerous other Sicilian cities, influenced by the Syracusan examples, used the same device on their own coins.
Figure 12.2 (a)Bronze statue of a charioteer found at Delphi (the “Delphi Charioteer”), c.475BCE. Delphi Archaeological Museum Inv. Nos. 3484, 3520, 3540.Source: RaminusFalcon. Used with permission. (b) Marble statue of a charioteer found at Motya in Sicily (the “Motya Charioteer”), c.480–450BCE: Museo Joseph Whitaker, Motya, San Pantaleo, Italy.Source: Photograph by Carole King. Used with permission.
We hear that Hieron’s son Deinomenes erected a bronze statue group at Olympia to celebrate his father’s victory in the four-horse chariot race (Pausanias 6.12.1). Few such monuments from antiquity survive, but two that do are closely linked to the Deinomenids’ and Emmenids’ equestrian achievements. The Delphi Charioteer (Figure 12.2a), part of a monument that originally included a chariot, four horses, and groom (all of bronze) was probably erected by Polyzalos to celebrate a victory at the Pythian Games c.474 (though some uncertainty about dedicant and date exists; see Chamoux 1955; Rolley 1990; Smith 2007; and Adornato 2008). It is striking that the iconic Delphi Charioteer, one of the few large-scale bronzes from Classical Greece to survive, marks a high point of western Greek power and prestige. The marble Charioteer from Motya in western Sicily (Figure 12.2b) has been identified as a monument erected c.470 by the well-known charioteer Nikomachos, who won victories for the Emmenids Xenokrates and Theron. If so, the statue would have been carried off as booty to Motya by the Carthaginians following the destruction of Akragas in 405 (Bell 1995; cf. Di Vita 1998: 499–519 for doubts about this identification). In both cases, it must be remembered that the owner of the horses got the victory, and not the charioteer (and Nikomachos was an Athenian hired to drive for the Sicilians).
Before exploring the question of why the Deinomenids and Emmenids were so focused on equestrian competition in the Greek homeland, it is necessary to point out that there were no Panhellenic or even important regional athletic festivals in the Greek West. That is in itself an intriguing phenomenon that has attracted relatively little attention.
One must bear in mind that the communities of the Greek West were founded at a time when the basic institutions of Greek society of the Archaic (700–480) and Classical periods (480–323) were in formation, as was the infrastructure that expressed and enabled them. It has been argued that the western colonies played a key role in shaping many of the political, economic, and cultural innovations that transformed Greece during those periods. The transfer of the alphabet from Phoenicians to Greeks (along with its adaptation to Greek), city planning, monumental architecture, and some aspects of cult (hero cult for founders) may all have flowered first in the Greek West. It is now widely accepted that western Greece should not be regarded as a periphery; sheer distance is not as significant with respect to flows of information in antiquity as it would intuitively seem, especially as networks of trade and communication became more and more dense (Malkin 2011).
As independent city-states, western Greek cities founded their own sanctuaries and held athletic contests in their own territories. The foundation of new cities and new festivals continued into the fifth century. We have already mentioned a local contest established (ostensibly at least) by Croton, and we hear, for example, of the Aitnaia festival created by Hieron in connection with the establishment of the city of Aitna in 476 (Pindar Olympian 6.97; Luraghi 1994: 339–41). Athletic contests were held at Taormina (a city not founded until the mid-fourth century), and there was also an annual contest in honor of Zeus Eleutherios at Syracuse from the period after the fall of the Deinomenids (Diodorus Siculus 11.72.2). We have some evidence of games at Metapontion, Neapolis, Sybaris, and Taras (Lippolis 2004: 43; cf. Arnold 1960: 250–1).
Yet, no important regional or Panhellenic sanctuary ever developed in the Greek West, and, as a result, there were no major athletic festivals in this part of the Greek world. (Such festivals were typically held in sanctuaries; see Chapter 20.) If one recalls that the first western Greek settlements were founded just at the time that important regional sanctuaries (some of which, such as Olympia, later became Panhellenic) were coming into being in other parts of the Greek world, it is reasonable to wonder why the new western Greek communities did not also found a regional and Panhellenic sanctuary (or sanctuaries) of their own.
An answer comes in several parts. To begin with, the mainland sanctuaries that became famous for their athletic contests (Olympia, Delphi, Isthmia, Nemea) were only reaching prominence in the same period that the colonies were themselves being founded, and it is really not surprising that the Greeks who colonized the West invested so much effort in competing at those sanctuaries. The western Greeks would, as all Greek communities did, develop their own infrastructure – placing sanctuaries, cemeteries, houses, public space, and so on according to local conditions and guided by their founders. But they maintained vital connections with the metropoleis that founded them and the territories from which they originated. And although by the later fifth century the Sicilian Greeks would develop a sense of identity as “Sikeliotai” – a group with a shared territory and kinship – they did not have this framework in earlier periods. Rather, they were more defined by their rivalries, their attempts to secure their own territories, and their relations with the preexisting populations. Finally, though Sicily and southern Italy were woven into Greek myths through the tales of heroes such as Herakles and especially the homecomings of heroes who traveled the Mediterranean as they returned from the Trojan War, the kind of mythic and ritual landscape, to say nothing of the Bronze Age past, that conditioned Greek society “at home” in the ancestral territory, was not available to colonial Greeks in their new surroundings.
The presence of western Greeks is particularly evident at Olympia, the site about which we are best informed, and also at Delphi, source of the oracles that anchored many colonial founding narratives. Olympia has even been characterized as a Peloponnesian–West Greek sanctuary (Philipp 1994), a viewpoint that highlights the early and continuing interest western Greeks showed in Olympia. That may seem surprising in view of its distance from Sicily and southern Italy and the expense and difficulty of travel in the ancient world. However, Greeks did much of their long-distance traveling by sea, and both Olympia and Delphi were perhaps less difficult to access for westerners than for a distant inhabitant of the Peloponnese. The location of Delphi and Olympia on the sea routes leading from the Greek mainland to the Greek West is a part of this picture as well. Moreover, it now seems likely that individuals or groups from among the indigenous peoples of Italy were visiting Olympia and Delphi and making dedications, particularly jewelry and weapons, in the ninth and eighth centuries (Antonaccio 2007). The Greeks who founded colonies in southern Italy thus knew an already well-trodden path to the oldest and most prestigious Panhellenic sanctuaries.
Western Greek participation in mainland athletic competitions must be understood against this background. Less than a century after the founding of the first Greek settlements in Sicily and southern Italy, residents of those settlements were competing successfully at Olympia. As noted above, the first known western Greek to triumph at Olympia was Daippos of Croton, who won the boxing contest in 672. Lydgamis of Syracuse won the pankration at the Olympics of 648, Philytas of Sybaris the boys’ boxing in 616. In the sixth century both the absolute number of western Greek Olympic victors, and the percentage of known Olympic victors from western Greece, increased substantially.
A regular habit of coming together at Olympia had a number of advantages for western Greeks. The use by colonials of Olympia and other sanctuaries like it would have had the advantage of maintaining general links with the source of a colony’s Greek identity, while avoiding the kind of close connection with the mother city which might compromise its independence. At the same time, the absence of a shared sanctuary in the West itself also allowed the colonies to interact with each other, but outside colonial, and disputed, territories. Olympia was, in effect, neutral ground for all western Greeks.
Olympia may also have had a particular attraction because it had strong associations with military activity, a crucial part of the lifestyle of western Greeks, owing to the need to defend themselves against their non-Greek neighbors (to say nothing of each other) and to expand at their expense. Olympia, like Delphi, was an oracular site, and was a favored place to consult prior to military expeditions (Parke 1967: 164–93; Sinn 1991).10 In addition, Olympia was literally crammed with dedications of captured weapons and monuments commemorating military victories. It should come as no surprise then that a series of Sicilian and south Italian dedications of weapons, commemorating military victories, has been recovered from Olympia – dedications made both by poleis (e.g., Messana, Rhegion, Lokroi Epizephyrioi) and individuals (e.g., Gelon and Hieron; Scott 2010: 191–2). Military trophies also featured prominently at Delphi; Gelon and Hieron commemorated the victory over Carthage at the Battle of Himera with a dedication of golden tripods. This trophy stood in implicit competition with the bronze serpentine column supporting a golden tripod that was erected at Delphi by the coalition of Greek cities that defeated the Persians at the Battle of Plataia (Scott 2010: 75–110).
Competitors from western Greece played an important enough role at Olympia that they seem to have influenced the program of events there. Two equestrian events were added to the Olympic program in the early years of the fifth century, the kalpe and the apene. The kalpe was a race for mares in which jockeys dismounted at some point near the end of the race and finished by running alongside their horses; the apene was a race involving carts pulled by a pair of mules. Both of these events were particularly popular in the Greek West, and it is significant that three of the four known winners in the Olympic apene came from western Greece. These events, then, may well have been added to the Olympic program at the urging of western Greeks (Stampolidis and Tassoulas 2004: 26).11
Western Greeks also left their mark on the architecture of the sanctuary at Olympia. One of the more common types of building found at Greek sanctuaries is the treasury, typically a small structure paid for by a city-state and meant to house expensive, portable dedications. Constructing a treasury at a Panhellenic sanctuary was a way for a community to makes its presence felt to large numbers of visitors from all over the Greek world, and many treasuries were highly elaborate buildings that showcased the architectural and artistic traditions of the community that erected them. The treasuries at Olympia, most of which were built between 600 and 450, were constructed in a row on a terrace along the north side of the sanctuary. Of the eleven treasuries that were standing in 450, five were built by western Greek communities (Gela, Metapontion, Selinous, Sybaris, and Syracuse). The sanctuary at Delphi, too, was embellished with treasures constructed by communities all over the Greek world, and even by some non-Greek communities (e.g., the Etruscans). At Delphi, there were many more treasuries, roughly thirty in all, of which perhaps six were dedicated by colonies (Massalia, Sybaris, Syracuse, Cyrene, and Croton). Here again the western Greeks made their mark.12
The Deinomenids and Emmenids were passionate about competing in the major athletic festivals on the Greek mainland, then, in no small part because they were heirs to a long tradition of doing so. But the resources and power of these dynasts was unmatched in the Greek world of their time, the early fifth century. Olympia was the ideal place, for all the aforementioned reasons, to project their brilliant status. Such was the prestige reflected on cities and their victors in the Panhellenic contests that Astylos of Croton, whom we have encountered earlier, was persuaded by either Gelon or Hieron, presumably by means of generous financial incentives, to compete in running at Olympia as a Syracusan in the 480s. We have also seen that they promoted other events in which they excelled, including the apene, for inclusion in the games. Though they themselves did not win in these events, their close associates did; for example Hagesias, an Arcadian, who served Hieron and who won in the apene in 468. This victory was commemorated in Pindar’s Olympian 6, which was performed in Arcadia and also in Syracuse – both of Hagesias’s homes.
The statues, poems, and feasts both at home and at the sites of competition that celebrated victories all provided an impressive spectacle for those who attended the games and for residents of Gela, Syracuse, and Akragas. The emphasis on equestrian competition and the songs of Pindar and Bacchylides helped to reinforce the sense of these rulers as mythic or heroic beings, something that their foundations of new cities and cults also demonstrated.
Western Greeks’ success in high-level athletic competitions such as the Olympics rose and fell with their political and economic fortunes. The chronic warfare and dislocations of the later fifth and early fourth century – including the struggles with the Carthaginians – put an end to the prominence of western Greek athletes by the end of the fourth century. There were a few victors in the 220s, but after Syracuse fell to the Romans in 212, there was not a single independent city left in the Greek West. The last known Olympic victory by a western Greek was achieved by Orthon of Syracuse, in the stadion race in 148.
Nonetheless, the western Greek athletic tradition lingered on. Sport continued to be an important part of life in western Greece long after the Greek communities of Sicily and southern Italy produced their last Panhellenic victors. From written sources, we know of gymnasia in not less than 22 Sicilian cities in the Roman period. As Di Vita notes, the monumental gymnasion at Akragas was lavishly rebuilt in the reign of Augustus (2004: 75). Greek games influenced Roman ludi from an early period (see Chapters 25 and 36). Direct Roman contact with Greek sport was centered in the Greek communities of southern Italy, and thus it is no accident that Greek-style athletic contests, Italika Romaia Sebasta Isolympia, were founded in the western Greek community of Neapolis in 2 BCE, in honor of Augustus. These games claimed a status “equal to the Olympics,” marking a clear end to the independence of Greek sport and of western Greek participation in the ancient contests.
NOTES
1 The area of Greek settlement in southern Italy and Sicily is sometimes referred to as Magna Graecia, but that term technically refers only to Greek colonies in southern Italy. Greeks also founded settlements in places west of Sicily, such as Sardinia and southern France. Those settlements had their own unique history and are not discussed here.
2 All dates are BCE unless otherwise indicated.
3 On the historical development of the Greek West, see Antonaccio 2009 and Funke 2006.
4 On sport in Croton, see Lippolis 2004: 40–6 and Young 1984: 134–46.
5 Olympic victories won by western Greeks are listed in Stampolidis and Tassoulas 2004: 288–9 and are analyzed in detail in Giangiulio 1993 and Philipp 1994. There is some uncertainty as to the event in which Philip of Croton won an Olympic victory in 520; boxing is a reasonable supposition.
6 On sport in Taras, see D’Amicis, Giboni, Lippolis, et al. 1997 and Lippolis 2004: 46–60.
7 On Greek tyrants, see Stein-Hölkeskamp 2009.
8 For a detailed discussion of the history of Sicily in the sixth and fifth century, see the relevant chapters in volumes 4 and 5 of the latest edition of the Cambridge Ancient History. See also Luraghi 1994.
9 The details are as follows:
10 It is interesting to note that later stories of uncertain reliability suggest that seers from Olympia played an important role in the Greek colonization of Sicily and southern Italy (see Mora 1984).
11 Both events were dropped from the Olympic program in 444.
12 There are unresolved difficulties in identifying the function of some of the structures found in the area where the treasuries were built and in determining which treasuries were built by which communities. On the treasuries at both Delphi an Olympia, see Scott 2010.
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GUIDE TO FURTHER READING
For brief introductions to the history of the Greek West in the Archaic and Classical periods, see Antonaccio 2009 and Funke 2006, respectively. For more detailed analysis, see the relevant chapters in volumes 4 and 5 of the latest edition of the Cambridge Ancient History, which contain references to much of the relevant scholarly bibliography. A useful survey of cities in the Greek West can be found in Cerchiai, Jannelli, and Longo 2004. Luraghi 1994 is fundamental on tyrannies in the Greek West. Pugliese Carratelli 1996 is a catalog of a landmark exhibition of art from the Greek West and contains much information about the western Greek cities. Bennett, Paul, Iozzo, et al. 2002 and La Regina 2003 are both also helpful sources for western Greek art.
There is as yet no comprehensive study of sport in the Greek West, though see Todisco 1997 for an attempt to synthesize the relevant iconographic, archaeological, epigraphic, and literary evidence. Much of the important bibliography specifically on sport in the Greek West is in Italian. Noteworthy contributions include, but are no means limited to, Allegro 1976: 604–9 (on an athlete’s grave from Himera); D’Amicis, Giboni, Lippolis, et al. 1997 (on sport-related materials from the cemeteries at Taras); Giangiulio 1993 (on western Greeks at Olympia); Lo Porto 1967 (on “athletes’ graves” from Taras) and 1982 (on an athlete’s grave from Metapontion); and Philipp 1994 (on western Greeks at Olympia). Several Italian scholars published essays in English in the volume edited by Stampolidis and Tassoulas in 2004. The volume lists many important sources in its bibliography, and all of the essays can be recommended. The equestrian endeavors of the Deinomenids and Emmenids, and the commemoration of their successes in epinikia, continues to attract scholarly attention; see, for instance, Cummins 2009/10 and 2010/11. Excavation reports from individual sites such as Metapontion and Taras (published in various languages) are key sources of information. Moretti 1953, 1957, and 1970 are essential for studying athletic victors and their distribution over space and time. Bell 2005 identifies two statues found in western Greece as victor statues. Nicholson 2005 opened new ways to consider the status of athletes, trainers, jockeys, charioteers, and the aristocracy, drawing heavily on material culture. Finally, Hornblower and Morgan 2007 has many useful essays and resources for further reading.