The weight hurled at the games of Patroclus was no stone but an unwrought metal of mass, probably the contents of one of the open-hearth furnaces of the Mediterranean world. This “pig of iron,” which had been taken by Achilles from Eetion of Thebes, is not only the weight to be thrown but the prize, and contrary to the courteous Achaean custom the only prize, although there are four competitors. “The winner’s shepherd, or ploughman,” says Achilles, “will not want for iron for five years.” But in spite of its weight Polypoetes hurls it as far as a herdsman flings the bola[21] “when it flieth whirling through the herds of kine.” The word solos occurs only in this passage and in later imitators of Homer; the passage is, as has been said, a very late one, so late that the writer seems to be consciously archaizing, and I believe that, wishing to give the description a primitive appearance, he substituted the solos for the athlete’s diskos, with which he was undoubtedly familiar. The word seems to be connected with the Semitic sela, a rock, but at an early date to have been used to describe the pigs of iron produced on the island of Elba and elsewhere. In late writers it is sometimes a poetical synonym for the diskos.
The chariot-race and the strictly athletic events, such as boxing, wrestling, and running, were essentially the sports of the nobles; but though the latter excelled the common soldiery in throwing the spear, heaving the weight, and shooting with the bow, as they did in everything else, there is in these three events a distinctly popular element. The bow, the javelin, and the stone were the weapons of all alike, and so, when Achilles was sulking in his tent, his folk, we read, “sported with diskos, with casting of spears, and archery.” The diskos and the spear were also the favourite recreation of the suitors of Penelope, who had, we may suppose, no taste for more strenuous exercises. Their popular character is clearly indicated by the use of the terms “a diskos throw” or “a spear throw” as measures of distance.[22]
Jumping, which was an important event in the later pentathlon, is in Homer only mentioned as one of the sports in which the nimble Phaeacians excelled. Among these we meet with ball-play, a favourite amusement of the Greeks in all ages. Not only do Nausicaa and her maidens disport themselves with the ball on the seashore, but all her brothers give a display of their skill before Odysseus, and in both cases the players, as they toss the ball from one to another, move in a sort of rhythmic dance to the strains of music in a way which would have delighted the heart of some modern professors of physical culture.[23] Dance and song were always dear to the Greeks. We have also hints of acrobatic shows that remind us of the Cretan scenes. On the shield of Achilles was wrought “a dancing place like unto that which once in wide Cnossus Daedalus wrought for Ariadne of the fair tresses … and among the dancers as the minstrel played two tumblers whirled.”[24] “Verily,” says Patroclus to Meriones, as smitten by a stone he falls from his chariot, “verily there are tumblers among the Trojans too.”[25] Still more suggestive of the circus is the comparison of Ajax rushing over the plain to a man driving four horses and leaping from horse to horse as they fly along.[26]
With the origin of the Homeric poems we are not here concerned. Whether we regard them as the work of a single poet or as evolved by a series of poets, whether as a contemporary picture of the Mycenaean age or as based upon tradition, it is generally agreed that the state of society described is separated by a long interval from any of which we have historical knowledge in Greece, and that, despite slight discrepancies, this description is in its general features consistent. Of this society the games are the natural product. Just as in the Homeric polity we can trace the elements from which the various later institutions were evolved, and yet the polity as a whole is distinct from all later developments, so in athletics the events are the same as are found in the later festivals, but the spirit that pervades them is purely Homeric and separated by a wide interval from the spirit of the Olympic games. Critics tell us that the chief passages referring to the sports are comparatively late, later than the founding of the Olympic games in 776 B.C. If this is so, the poet must have followed closely traditions of a much earlier date. Otherwise we can hardly explain the contrast between the Homeric and the Olympic games, and the absence, with one doubtful exception, of any allusion to the latter. This silence is especially remarkable when we remember the large part played in the games of the Iliad by Nestor and the Neleidae, who lived in the neighbouring Pylos, and the close connexion in the Odyssey between Elis and Ithaca.
The distinctive character of the Homeric games may be summed up in two words—they are aristocratic and spontaneous. They are spontaneous as the play of the child, the natural outlet of vigorous youth. There is no organized training, no organized competition, and sport never usurps the place of work. They are aristocratic because, though manly exercises are common to all the people, excellence in them belongs especially to the nobles; and when sports are held on an elaborate scale at the funeral of some chieftain, it is the nobles only who compete.
CHAPTER III
THE RISE OF THE ATHLETIC FESTIVAL
The athletic meeting was unknown to Homer: in historic times it is associated with religious festivals celebrated at definite periods at the holiest places in Greece. If the growth of the athletic festival was due to the athletic spirit of the race, its connexion with religion may be traced to those games with which the funeral of the Homeric chieftain was celebrated. Though the origin of the great festivals is overgrown with a mass of late and conflicting legends in which it is difficult to distinguish truth from fiction, there is no reason for discrediting the universal tradition of their funeral origin, confirmed as it is by survivals in the ritual of the festivals, by the testimony of the earliest athletic art, and by later custom.[27] So we may conjecture that these games, originally celebrated at the actual funeral, tended like other funeral rites to become periodical, and as ancestor-worship developed into hero-worship became part of the cult of heroes, which seems to have preceded throughout Greece the worship of the Olympian deities. When the latter superseded the earlier heroes, they took over these games together with the sanctuaries and festivals of the older religion.
The custom of celebrating funerals with games and contests is not confined to Greece. Among the funeral scenes that decorate the walls of Etruscan tombs we see depicted chariot-races, horse-races, boxing, wrestling, and other athletic sports, together with contests of a more brutal nature.[28] From the Etruscans the custom spread to the Romans, who borrowed from the same people their gladiatorial games, which were likewise possibly of funeral origin. Funeral games are found in Circassia, in the Caucasus, among the Khirgiz, and yet further afield in Siam and in North America.[29] But the most instructive example for our purpose is furnished by the old Irish fairs, which lasted from pagan times down to the beginning of the last century.[30] These fairs, founded in memory of some departed chieftain, took place at stated intervals commonly in the neighbourhood of the ancient burial-place. Thus the triennial fair of Carman, near Wexford, was instituted in fulfilment of the dying charge of Garman “as a fair of mourning to bear his name for ever.” These fairs, which lasted several days, and to which people of all classes flocked from every part of Ireland, and even from Scotland, furnished an opportunity for the transaction of a variety of business public and private. Laws were promulgated, councils and courts were held, marriages were arranged and celebrated.
There was, of course, buying and selling of every sort, but the principal business of these gatherings was the holding of sports and competitions. Of these there was an endless