Nikon D7200, 12-24mm f/4G lens @12mm f/8, aperture priority. |
"The Greek athlete's world was not without its critics. Protests against the inappropriateness of honors for athletes rather than intellectuals reverberated, with no effect. Aristophanes' Clouds laments the passage of the 'good old days' of proper and proficient gymnastic education, and the writings of Euripides and Plato contain criticisms and caricatures of athletes as unnatural, overdeveloped, socially burdensome, and unsophisticated louts: 'the worst of the thousand ills of Greece.' However, the archaeological record—stadiums and gymnasiums, dedications, prizes, and artworks—shows that society at large, then as now, heralded games and athletes as cultural treasures. Even Plato admitted that the majority of Greeks deemed the life of Olympic victors 'most happy,' and, in his Myth of Er, Atalanta chooses the life of an athlete because of its great honors. Ancient Greeks would have agreed with the sentiment expressed in Homer's Odyssey that, 'There is no greater fame for a man than that which he wins with his footwork or the skills of his hands' (trans. S.G. Miller)." — Donald G. Kyle, "Winning at Olympia", Archaeology, April 6, 2004 |
