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The Athletic Games and their Effect
on Greek Art

A LECTURE DELIVERED
IN THE SHEFFIELD SCIENTIFIC SCHOOL MECHANICS' COORSE
NEW HAVEN, FEBRUARY 1 7, 1 893

BY
J. M. HOPPIN
ProlesBor of the History of Art in Tale University

THE ATHLETIC GAMES AND THEIR
EFFECT ON GREEK ART.

The chief interest attached to the athletic games of
the Greeks is the influence they had to foster the
heroic spirit, proving not only that it was a heroic
nation that established them, but that .they tended
to make the nation heroic. The heroic element
shows itself very early iri Greek art and literature,
yet is hardly ever without certain childish features and
accompaniments that are, indeed, to be found in the
sagas of all Oriental races, Indian, Hebrew and Ara
bian, as well as Greek, and which is an evidence of
the simplicity of the poems of earlier nations. Even
the Homeric heroes, as critics have noted, exhibit
traits of weakness, and they were not all of them
anxious to go to the big wars and tried hard to bribe
Agamemnon to except them from military service,
the wily Odysseus feigning madness to escape the
draft; but his device was detected and he finally
joined the army with an effective contingent. When
the Trojans got among the ships of the allies, the
Greeks cried like children because they fancied that
they were fated to destruction; and this sensitiveness
in regard to death, which the heroes nevertheless
fearlessly met, is manifested in the scene where the
inspired horses of Achilles, shedding tears as if
human, foretold his early doom.
The heroic Greek character was crystalized in the
strong Doric race and type; but, singularly enough
for a Greek, Xenophaiies of Colophon, the founder of
the Eleatic school of philosophy, decries heroic quali-

THE ATHLETIC GAMES AND

ties and the athletic games; and he says: "Whoever
wins in a foot race, boxing, wrestling or chariot race,
receives all kinds of honors, precedence at festivals, a
purse of money and public support. This is his
reward, even if the horses have done it. Yet he is of
less valor than I; my wisdom is better than the
strength of horses or men. All this is foolish; it is
not proper to prefer strength to wisdom. Of what use
is all this physical skill? It secures no better govern
ment, and the delight of winning a contest is a brief
one, in no way helping to fill the granaries of a
city." The vigorous life which sprung up after the first
Persian wars gave an additional impulse to the ath
letic games, as tending to keep alive the heroic spirit
that had been kindled in the strife of a small but free
people against innumerable foes combined by a cohe
sive rather than organic unity, and urged to a com
pelled valor, whereas the heroic spirit is bred from a
deeper race-principle; as, for example, Sir Philip Sid
ney was a courtier and poet, spending much of his
time in composing euphuistic phrases and ' ' rustical
roundelays ' ' in praise of Queen Elizabeth, and yet he
lived a perfectly heroic life ; and Gen. Gordon, it is
said, was more like a quiet citizen than a soldier in
appearance and habits, who, nevertheless, was a hero
if such ever existed ; but the Greeks found one of
the chief means of nourishing and perpetuating this
spirit in the agonistic games, recognizing the truth
that all strength comes through struggle.
The great athletic games were held every four years
at Olympia in Elis, during the month of the sacred
truce, and they constituted, perhaps, more than any
thing else, the symbol and realization of Hellenic
unity.

THEIR EFFECT ON GREEK ART 5
The wonderful scene which presented itself to the
eye at one of those great Olympic festivals, was that of
a whole nation met for an inspiring and joyful purpose;
and it offered just "that mixture of uniformity and
variety most stimulating to the observant faculties of
a man of genius," who, at the same time if he sought
to communicate his impressions or to act upon this
mingled audience — composed of such diverse charac
ters — soldiers, legislators, orators, writers, poets,
sailors, wealthy men and vine dressers, princes and
demagogues — he was forced to shake off what was
peculiar to himself and to his little town and com-
munit}', and to put forth matters' in harmony with
the feelings of all, and in this /way mutual interest
and competition was'excited, and thehuman element
came into Greek life' and. drama, and was the most
important feature of Greek art and the secret of its
expression, variety and power. In the vast crowd of
spectators brought together from every part of Greece
and her remotest colonies — from swarthy African
Cyrene to the borders of snowy Scythia — do you
think that the artist was not there ? Do you think
that he neglected such an opportunity to study
human nature ?
And the contests themselves were not confined to
simple athletism, but were combined with philoso
phy, history, the drama, music and sculpture; and
the wreaths of wild parsley, olive and pine showed
the essentially heroic character of the games appeal
ing to an ideal motive, while the combats of youths
in the palizstra, stimulated by ancestral heroic tradi
tion, served to build up a splendid manhood; and
yet after a time, and almost of necessity, there came
about a degeneration of the sports, and the professional
athlete made his appearance on the scene, who was

THE ATHLETIC GAMES AND

not regarded with the highest respect, since the Greeks
did not glory in mere brawn and muscle.
The forms represented in Greek heroic sculpture
prove that they were not of men who made a busi
ness of being athletes, but of the noblest youth; there
is in them the light and grace of something more than
physical power, for, though the statues of Greek
athletes betoken a marvelous development of physical
strength, compared with which Michael Angelo's mod
els were porters and draymen, they manifest muscular
force combined with fineness of proportion, and a
beauty and nobility that show the sincere but uncon
scious enthusiasm for honorable things which belongs
to a youth who might have gone from the most excit
ing race that strained every nerve, or the most violent
wrestling match, to sit at the feet of Plato.
Yet it is to be noticed, as proving the finer charac
ter or training of the Greeks, that even in the profes
sional athlete and gladiator of later Roman times, the
Greeks still showed the touch of a superior race, as
illustrated in what Plutarch relates of the sanguinary
athletic exhibitions in his day, that at the last ban
quet which was commonly given to those who were
about to die, while Roman and Thracian gladiators
gave way to excessive feasting, the Greeks spent the
precious moments in taking leave of their families
and giving advice to those who would hear them no
more. Athletic training in Greece, it should be remarked,
aimed at the development of power combined with
harmony of action; and the athlete exercised himself
not only in the arena but in the choruses of singing
and processional dances, that induced rhythmic grace,
and for this purpose music of the flute, harp and lyre
contributed to bring his nature into agreement with

THEIR EFFECT ON GREEK ART

musical measure and tone, which, combined with the
study of rhetoric and philosophy, produced, in its
best examples, the result of the heroic spirit, beauti
ful action and noble thought. The life evidenced the
training, and there are, indeed, relations that nature
has established between the body and mind, a myste
rious interdependence of the faculties, that cannot be
overlooked if broad and healthful intellectual results
are to be sought for, so that even the reign of intellect -
ualism is a short one which neglects those bodily con
ditions under which it can only exist at its best ; and
I think, therefore, that the gymnastic training in our
universities might derive, through the study of Greek
sculpture and the methods and discipline of the Greek
gymnasia, much valuable aid, and that, by this, the
athletic training of the university would tend to
become more earnestly practiced and more gener
ally diffused, and it would be regarded as an element
of education, or as forming a part of that culture
which would modify and enlarge the whole system.
In order rightly to understand the Greek athletic
games and their influence on art, we must go behind
the games to the gymnasia. The gymnasia (from
gumnos, naked) were the local training schools for the
great games; but the gymnasia belonged to the sys
tem of education of which Greek philosophy, lit
erature and • art formed the consummate flower.
Education was held to be the most important of the
state's functions, so that Aristotle laid down the
principle that the state was justly compelled to
assume its control, and that any occupation, art or
science which rendered the body or soul of the free
man less fit for the practice of virtue, should be pro
hibited as vulgar; wherefore all arts and occupations
that have an influence to deform the body or the mind

THE A THLETIC GAMES AND

were not only not to be encouraged, but forbidden ;
since it must be confessed, that the Greeks, for free
citizens of democratic communities, were, in many
respects, rank aristocrats, and they held a lower
opinion of honest work than we do, or than is just
and right, esteeming manual labor fit only for slaves,
which sentiment, with other similar ideas, finally
brought about the overthrow of Athens and Greece;
but should we judge this bright and noble nation
too harshly, and refuse to learn from them what was
really beautiful in their life and example ?
And (to make a little digression from our theme)
the mention of work recalls an odd episode that Oscar
Wilde once related in a lecture given in New Haven
many years ago, of Mr. Ruskin's heading a company
of Oxford students to dig a new road in the neighbor
hood of the university, showing that the great art-
teacher and his scholars were not afraid of soiling
their hands by work; and, in the same lecture, some
here may remember, with me, that the speaker prom
ised to give the statue of an athlete to Yale ; and
perhaps it would be a good thing to remind the dis
tinguished gentleman of his promise, so that a copy
of the ' Apoxyomenos, ' or of some other fine statue,
might be set up in the vestibule of our gymnasium.
Aristotle likewise said that ' ' gymnastic exercises
tended to infuse courage, while drawing and art were
fitted to make pupils judges of the beautiful ; for to
be always seeking the useful does not become free
souls." The gymnasia might be called the universities of
Greece, and they exerted a direct influence on the art
of Greece, because there was in them just this ming
ling of the physical and intellectual; and springing as
they did from the needs of the state to train young

THEIR EFFECT ON GREEK ART 9
men for civic virtue and for war, that demanded the
best disciplined strength (as in those warring com
munities to exist was to contend), it came about in a
natural way that the whole man received discipline,
and even the highest, for these contests had a higher
side, because, since they were held to be instituted by
heroes and demi-gods, no one could contend in the
games who had disgraced himself by a dishonorable
act or been guilty of sacrilege.
The games were, in fact, a part of popular education,
and formed, as it were, its summit ; and education was
not a creature of accident, fashion or custom, since the
Greeks believed in compulsory education, and thought
that it could not be left to loose ends; for Greek edu
cation, whatever it was, was not superficial; and
while it doubtless had its faults, it was founded on a
philosophical basis, or on the nurture of the soul as a
living organism that was contained in a body which
needed careful training. The passions were to be
regulated but not repressed; and even in nature, the
higher element, the spirit, was to be cultivated; and
this cultivation of the spirit was the work of the gym
nasium, as Plato remarked, that a man could be best
judged by the manner in which he bore himself in
the gymnasium — meaning probably his patience, self-
collectedness and courage. The true object was self-
training. This was that hard element {res severa) of
human nature, which, if rightly nourished, becomes
bravery, but if exclusively encouraged, degenerates
into brutality.
Then followed the culture of the imagination and
tastes, and, above all, of the rational soul, which
needs philosophy.
The three great divisions of Greek education were
"Gymnastic," "Music," and "Philosophy;" and

io THE ATHLETIC GAMES AND
' ' Gymnastic ' ' was by no means considered to be the
least of these, for though it was bodily training it
was not to end in the body but the soul, in a spiritual
discipline which made a man hardy, self-centred,
gifted with andreia (manliness), another name for the
perfection of all the powers, and the full development
of mind and body. This made the heroic man. It
was inward more than outward, but it was the outward
in combination with the spirit and acting upon it.
At first gymnastic exercises were held wherever
there was convenient open ground; but as they
acquired more importance the state provided places
and erected buildings, and as these required room,
the gymnasium usually covered a large area; and
Athens had three such great training schools — the
Kynosarges, the I^ykeion and the Akademeia, of
which the last, situated in a dell and surrounded by a
grove was a resort of the best citizens. Indeed, the
spaces devoted to the gymnasia were of such size that
the whole arms-bearing population of the city could
exercise in them. In the special building, or gymna
sium proper, parts of it were used for dressing rooms,
and for anointing the body with oil and sanding it,
and for cleansing the body with the ' strigil;' and other
chambers were employed for cold and hot baths, fires
and lodgings. To these were added porticoes for the
assemblage and conversation of the Ephebi, colon
nades and halls, walks, gardens and copses of trees;
and, as the gymnasium was dedicated to some divinity,
altars, statues and religious symbolic adornments
were not wanting.
The exercises of the Greek gymnasium were quite
simple when compared with the modern elaborate sys
tem, or, we might say, with that of our own complete
and noble gymnasium, and consisted, originally, ol

THEIR EFFECT ON GREEK ART n
the Pentathlon, or five contests — to which the horse
race and other contests were afterwards added.
The Pentathlon, in a word, was made up of the
combined exercises of running, leaping, throwing the
javelin, casting the diskos and wrestling with boxing;
though running or the foot race {diaulos) in which
the stadium was traversed twice, seems to have been
the principal of the sports, and the Greeks carried it
to an astonishing pitch of perfection. The course
was usually of deep sand, where the foot took no firm
hold, and the runners were naked, but sometimes
were armed in complete armor, or, it might be, with
shield and helm only.
' ' The length of a long course was 24 stadia (about
three miles), and that the runners who were trained
for special emergencies were of extraordinary speed
and endurance is shown by the story of the Plataean
Euchidas, who on being sent after the battle of Sala-
mis to fetch fire from Apollo's altar, made in one day
the distance between Platsea and Delphi and back — a
thousand stadia (about 100 miles) — but the exertion
cost him his life."
The exercise of leaping, both the high and distant
leap, was practiced by the simple spring of the mus
cles, though sometimes weights {halteres) were held
in the hand and swung to gi-ve impetus. The javelin
sport consisted in the flinging of a light lance covered
with a thong to make it revolve, and both accuracy
and distance were striven for.
Casting the diskos was of very ancient date, as
Homer teaches. The diskos was a heavy circular plate
of bronze or iron, about eight inches in diameter,
which was grasped by the whole hand, and swung
round to give it a rotary motion. Before the throw
it was carried in the left hand so as not to tire the

THE ATHLETIC GAMES AND

right ; and both positions are illustrated in the two
well-known statues of the Diskoboloi.
Wrestling was developed to an art; and the victory
did not depend on strength alone; there were rules,
sleights and advantages of various kinds in which the
wrestler was instructed, so that scientific skill not
seldom bore off the prize from sheer strength, as was
magnificently illustrated in modern athletism, I may
be excused for saying, by the last boat race at New
Dondon between Yale and Harvard.
If gymnastics were universal in Greece so also was
the enthusiasm felt in these contests, which were
regarded as national affairs, and at which every free
man of Hellenic blood had a birthright to be present
and to participate in them.
I ask you to consider what an immense effect these
games must have had on the art of sculpture, and what
a concentration of popular sentiment was brought to
bear on them. That the sculptor made use of the
study of the nude of which the games afforded oppor
tunity, numberless Greek statues and bas-reliefs of
heroes, fighters and victors testify, in which there is
a force, a technique, a close imitation of nature, a free
dom of composition, a truth without exaggeration
or violence in the rendering of the muscular system,
a beauty springing from full and exact knowledge,
which could only come from daily, yearly, life-long
sight and study, and an actual mingling in the con
tests themselves where every power was tried, every
muscle developed and every energetic and beautiful
attitude that the human frame is capable of, was pre
sented in more bald and varied forms than in Michael
Angelo's famous cartoon of the " Battle of Pisa." I
fear we can never have such sculptors again, certainly
not without a revival of a system similar to that which

THEIR EFFECT ON GREEK ART 13

produced them; though, indeed, it is said that in the
wrestling matches on the village green in Cumber-
landshire, England, fine models for the sculptor may
yet be found, because athletic sports have been kept
up for centuries by a hardy mountaineer race. But
our sculptors copy from the Greeks while their sculp
tors copied from nature; and they had models as
nearly perfect as humanity, perhaps, ever afforded.
Eooked at artistically, the main effect of the public
games upon sculpture was in the opportunity presented
for artistic study of the human form; and I have
translated a short passage bearing on this from the
French of Duval on ' art-anatomy.'
" There would seem to be," he says, " a contradic
tion between these two facts, viz : that while Greek
artists have on their part shown in their works the
most vigorous anatomical exactitude, on the other
hand neither they nor their contemporaries, the phy
sicians, studied anatomy by dissection. But this con
tradiction disappears when one examines the con
ditions whereby artists were permitted to have
incessantly under their eyes the human form in move
ment, which set them to analyze these forms, and to
acquire, through the mechanism of their active
changes, empirical ideas as precise as those demanded
to-day by the scientific study of physiology.
The artist was privileged to study his model before
exercising, while anointing himself; then during the
course, or leap, which showed the muscles of the lower
limbs; then at the play of the diskos which brought in
relief the contractions of the great deltoid muscles of
the shoulder; and during the wrestle, which success
ively, according to the numberless variety of efforts,
threw into play all the muscular system. Why need we
be astonished that when antique life was given up,

J4 THE ATHLETIC GAMES AND

images deprived of the movement of life, and that sat
isfied the religious sentiment only, succeeded those
reproductions of the man in action, those statues
which inspire the beholder with the force and beauty
drawn from the living plastique of the Greek gym
nast ? In point of fact, the decadence of the art of
sculpture proceeds parallel with the abandonment of
gymnastic exercises; later, in the Middle Ages, art
returns to the producing of sculptures without living
force, which however, express the mystic aspirations
of the epoch, but have nothing in common with the
real representation of the human form well developed
and active."
It is a valuable idea for the student of art to obtain
that Greek sculpture was a genuine product of the
national mind, and that it had an object which called
it into being and dignified it ; that it was to set forth
real deeds, and was commemorative of actual struggle
and caught the breath of popular life. A statue was
not made, as nowadays, to be put in a palace or
museum and admired as a work of art, but it carved
a man in full life, as like him as could be and be
beautiful, and bade it live with the spirit which in
spired him and his act. Thus alone sculpture could
be great and have a purpose which was vital, nay,
religious, springing from man's deepest impulse.
Greek sculpture was stimulated by the athletic
games, not only from the fact that artists had a
chance to study the human frame and compare form
with form, thus idealizing the forms of gods who pre
sented the sum of perfection, but that the greatest
sculptors were employed to make statues of victors to
be placed in the Altis, or sacred enclosure of Olympia,
which, totally lost sight of for noo years, has been
laid bare by recent excavations, so that we can now

THEIR EFFECT ON GREEK ART 15
trace with perfect accuracy the topography of the
Olympian palcestra and stadium themselves.
The public games gave a raison d'etre to sculpture
and a practical aim to artistic effort, and, combined
with the motive of religious cult, this influence
wrought mightily on the various schools of sculp
ture. The custom of commemorating successful ath
letes by setting up statues to them, arose about 600
B. C, and signs of progress appear as early as the
50th Olympiad (544); but when the usage became
more general of thus dedicating the statues to vic
tors, sculptors were obliged to study their subjects
carefully, since an accurate resemblance to all parts
of the body was demanded, and this led the way to
the vigorous marbles of ^Egina, the breathing statues
of Myron, and the ideal forms of Pheidias. It was
building on nature and knowledge which is art's
inexorable condition of progress; and many of the
statues we are now so familiar with in the European
galleries were probably these very statues of athletes
that were erected in the consecrated places.
The immense antiquity of the games, which, tradi
tion says, were instituted by the Idaean Herakles, is
evinced by pictures painted on vases of extreme antiq-
ity representing wrestling matches ; and the influence
of the athletic sports on archaic Greek sculpture is
seen in the combats carved on the tympana of the old
Doric temple of iEgina, older than the Parthenon, and
that are of the purely heroic type. The people of
the island of iEgina were renowned athletes. In the
forty-five odes of Pindar which have reached us, there
are but four odes commemorative of victors in the
games from her own city of Thebes, four from Agri-
gentum, two from Athens, and still fewer from other
cities whose praises he celebrates, while he sings of

1 6 THE ATHLETIC GAMES AND
eleven who belonged to ^Egina; and the first victor
honored by a statue in the Altis of Olympia, was an
iEginetan. These JEginetan groups represent real
fighters, forms taken directly from the palcsstra, cor
rect in physique, regular in movement, of terrible
because disciplined energy, yet wanting the grace,
life and poetic touch of Pheidian sculpture. It was
the realistic period of sculpture,' but was on the way
to something higher.
Herakles, the heroic ideal of the Greeks, as repre
sented in the familiar statue of what is called the
' Farnese Hercules ' now at the Naples Museum, is a
noble, but unnaturally exaggerated, example of the
school of heroic art, which, in the Grasco-Roman
time, had lost its idealism and gloried in enormous
exuberance of muscular development to express
utmost physical force.
The so-called ' Apoxyomenos ' is an older and more
simply natural statue of very easy attitude, being a
marble copy of the bronze original by Eysippos, and
now stands in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican. It
illustrates the use of the ' strigil ' after the athletic
contest, and it is a trivial but curious fact, that
among the remaining evidences of Alexander's re
mote conquests, the use of the ' strigil ' for cleansing
the body of oil and sand still survives in India ; for
the Greeks carried their athletism everywhere, to
India, Syria, Egypt, Spain ; and Pausanias said that
a Greek city could be told at once by its palcestra.
The ' Diskobolos, ' the work of Myron, was cele
brated even in antiquity — Eucian wrote of it :
' ' You speak of the diskos-thrower, who stoops pre
paratory to the throw, with the face towards the
hands holding the disc, and with one leg bent, as
though he meant to rise again after the throw." This

THEIR EFFECT ON GREEK ART 17
sculpture is now in the Palazzo Massimi at Rome, and
its original was, also, probably of bronze. It has a vig
orous swing as if the whole force was thrown into it,
while .the beauty and manly modesty of the face show
one bred to hardship yet retaining the sweetness of
youth. The 'Diskobolos in repose,' sometimes
ascribed to Alkamenes, illustrates what I said of the
athlete's holding the diskos in the left hand when at
rest. The so-called ' Fighting Gladiator, ' by Agasias
of Ephesos, giving the whole stretch of a powerful
human frame, is really an athlete in the games con
tending as an armed hoplite, probably against a horse
man, and may have been one of these public statues
of victors.
The group too of the 'Wrestlers,' is a splendid
fruit of the effect of the public games on sculpture ;
and its anatomy will bear the most scientific criti
cism. All scientists say that the free range of move
ment of the shoulder is one of the most striking and
beautiful arrangements of the human form, so that
the arm can be moved around in every direction
through space ; and when we examine this carving,
we can have no doubt that the physical fact, or con
trivance, of bone and muscle in the shoulder, has
been closely studied by the artist.
We see in this sculpture-piece that subtle quality,
or device, sometimes employed with great effect in the
most thoughtful art — of suspense — or of suspended
action. In the mov?ment of the figures and the ex
pression of the faces, there is a prolongation of the
action after the moment of the act seized upon has
really ceased, and we feel that it is by no means certain
that he who now has the upper hand will have it at
the end ; when his determined antagonist who has evi
dently bated no jot or tittle of courage will haue pain-

THE ATHLETIC GAMES AND

fully regained his equality of position, or may even
suddenly turn the tables on his somewhat more youth
ful rival.
The ' Borghese Achilles ' of the Eouvre, represents
the hero as athlete, nude though wearing a helm, and
resting from combat, with a melancholy expression as
if thinking of his great grief and loss. The sculpture
of the 'Diadumenos,' after Poly kleitos, represents a
young athlete binding the fillet of victory on his fore
head, with a placid expression. It is the pahnam non
sine pulvere, but with a lofty peace that fills his soul.
By way of comparison, or it might be said, contrast,
I would mention one or two modern sculptures of ath
letes, such as the ' boxers ' of Canova, or the story
of Creugas and Damoxenos. While these have un
doubted vigor, they are results of study rather than
of nature, and are barbarians, absolute savages, when
compared with the Greek. The simple nobility of
youth, the repose in the midst of action, the classic
facial expression of a high type of race, the even
health and unconquerable spirit of the young Greek
,athlete — in fact the heroic element which is chiefly
spiritual— is not in them. The harmonious pose of
body and mind is absent, and, in their place, only
agitating passions. The gladiator ' Spartacus ' of the
Eouvre, by the French sculptor, Barrias, is spirited
but too academic to be great, and lacks the freedom
and nature of the antique.
Taken as a whole, one of the most charming, shin
ing, and admirable ancient statues of a Greek athlete
is the ' Hermes of the Vatican, ' carved as a runner
resting himself, while the trunk of the*palm on which
he leans signifies that he has conquered in the race.
The mirror-like polish of the statue is retained. It
shows, in its natural force and grace, that the Greeks

THEIR EFFECT ON GREEK ART 19

studied the living body before putting it into the
marble, thus lending it life without affectation, and
repose without weariness. Take for another example
the wonderful fragment of the ' Belvedere torso '
which Michel Angelo called his ' master,' and its
anatomy, the magnificent arch of the chest, the great
hollow of the pelvis and the mighty legs, could only
have been produced by an artist who knew the human
form thoroughly by a life-long study in the arena.
In its pathetically broken condition, what veritable
flesh and blood, what breathing powerful life !
The Greeks regarded the public games in a peculiar
light, for they were looked upon as an inheritance
from the immortals, since a perfect human body was,
in some sense, the most sacred of objects, enshrining
the soul as in a temple, and associating it with the
divine. To contend in the games was a religious
aspiration, a lofty endeavor, a striving for the perfect,
even as antiquity, or the best antiquity, was full of
the idea of struggle, of bringing forth the perfect
through contention ; and we can probably have no con
ception of the earnestness thrown into these games
when a nation was looking on, when it was some
times the whole aim of a life to conquer, when it was
a religious consecration. The fine statue now in Ber
lin of the "Praying Boy" has been supposed by
some to be that of a youth consecrating himself to
the gods before or after the Olympic games.
The relation then of the athletic games to the art of
sculpture was mainly three fold:
1. They kept alive the heroic spirit.
2. They brought to the front the best artists to
carve iconic statues of victors erected in the sacred
enclosures. 3. They gave opportunity for constant and accurate

20 THE ATHLETIC GAMES AND
study of the human form in every attitude, j^nd of the
most perfect specimens of the human body developed
by training and under circumstances that tended to
ennoble rather than debase it; since athletic discipline
was one part of the system of physical, intellectual
and religious education.
In view of what has been said of the athletic system
under the Greeks, and its importance in many ways,
I venture to remark that modern athletism, especially
at the university, might be also regarded from many
interesting points of view other than the training
of the physical powers for athletic contest and com
petition, although this is a great object, and I doubt
if the athletic system could be maintained without it
as was demonstrated by the Greeks themselves in the
games, bringing young men up to a high' pitch of
physical power and skill, and making them ready to
contend for the prize with any foe however formidable;
but that, with this, it should fit in with the training
of other powers, and not aim at the discipline of the
body only, but of the soul, in order to give it its
fullest efficiency in our university life.
The best period of athletic practice among the
Greeks before its degeneration in the Alexandrian
and Roman days, was when a great deal was still
left to nature, when it was a real joy and inspiration
to contend in the games, as well as a hard struggle,
when it was healthy sport and had not yet became a
rigid system of overtraining and sheer muscularity
but continued to be a means of healthier, happier and
more beautiful life. This rare combination of athletics
and art in Greece meant a great deal, and was a most
happy and pregnant circumstance. The close con
nection that existed between the agonistic games and
sculpture, though at first sight there would seem to

THEIR EFFECT ON GREEK ART 21
be no connection between them, brought into the
games the aesthetic, and, I might say, the poetic,
element, and gave to them a higher meaning and
glory. The Greek's genuine love of the beautiful and
his earnest conception of the state, and its demand
upon him for the best he could give it, for all the
power of body and mind he was capable of, ennobled
everything he did. The Greek sought instinctively
the ideal, the perfect, development. Beauty with
him was no mere sentiment, but was another name for
perfection. His line of beauty was a line of strength.
He understood, as far as he went, the working prin
ciples of a true education, which aspired not to
knowledge merely, but to culture, and that belonged
not to the few highly trained men, but to the entire
educational system, serving the purposes both of liv
ing and art, and tending to create a healthy nature
and heroic spirit in the best youth of the land.