Nikon D7200, 12-24mm f/4G lens @13mm f/8, aperture priority. |
"More celebrations, songs, and commemorations awaited victors returning home. Sometimes a city would put up a statue of a local victor, and local veneration over time could reach the level of a hero cult. Theagenes of Thasos, who won the boxing (480 B.C.) and pankration (476 B.C.) at Olympia, claimed some 1,400 wins in his long career. After his death his city commissioned a statue of him that became the focus of a hero cult. Supposedly an enemy of Theagenes flogged the statue, whereupon it fell on him and killed him. When thrown into the sea, the statue brought famine to Thasos until it was restored. Major victories brought privileges, including free meals and seats of honor at civic gatherings for life. Years later one might still be known as 'the athlete' or 'the stadion-runner.'' Athletic fame sometimes even brought wartime clemency. During the Peloponnesian War Athens freed without ransom Doreius of Rhodes, a thrice victorious Olympic pankratiast. Alexander the Great, who supposedly disliked athletics, spared the home of Pindar while destroying Thebes in 335, and later freed the Theban Olympic victor Dionysiodoros captured after the Battle of Issus in 333 B.C." — Donald G. Kyle, "Winning at Olympia", Archaeology, April 6, 2004 |
