THE OTHER OLYMPICS

 

According to the International Olympic Committee’s homepage, the ancient Olympic Games ceased their operations in 393AD. The various neopagans that punctuate our paroikia blame Christian intolerance for this and in particular a purported decree by the Emperor Theodosius II, even though evidence exists to indicate the Olympics were held after this date, and that the Games were declining in popularity even before the Christianisation of the Roman Empire. The court poet Claudian then refers to the Olympics in A.D. 399, after the demise of the emperor who supposedly banned them.

Indeed, scholars now contend that it is more likely that the flooding and earthquakes that extensively damaged the sporting venues of Olympia and invasions by barbarians are what caused the Games terminal decline, a fire that burned down the Temple of the Olympian Zeus having dealt the final coup de grâce.

What is generally overlooked however is the fact that there was not one but several Olympic Games throughout the Greek speaking world, including those of Aegae in Macedonia, in existence in the time of Alexander the Great, those of Alexandria, those of Anazarbus in Cilicia, Attalia in Pamphylia, in commemoration of which coins were struck, Cyzicus in Mysia, Cyrene in Libya, Dion in Macedonia instituted by Archelaus I of Macedon, lasting nine days, corresponding to the number of the Muses, at which Euripides wrote and presented his play the Bacchae, Ephesus, Magnesia and Nicopolis in Epirus.

Perhaps the greatest Olympic Games however in late antiquity were those of Antioch, which, during late Hellenistic and Roman times was one of the largest, most vibrant and multicultural cities of the world. Proving that the trade in sporting rights, teams and franchising is not a modern phenomenon but has its roots in hallowed antiquity, in 44AD, the citizens of Antioch, whose games were originally called the Daphnea being sacred to Apollo and Artemis, purchased from the Eleans of the original Olympia, the right to call their games Olympic as well. While considered historically part of Syria, the region around Antioch, now known as Hatay, was These Games were under the control of the Syriach, the chief priest of the Roman province of same name and the Alytarch, who as leader of the Olympic police was charged with the responsibility of ordering the rabdouchoi, rod-bearers, and the mastigophoroi, scourge-bearers, to administer punishment to athletes who didn’t obey the rules, providing a distinct dimension to the definition of the term Games, and all this, aeons before latex was invented.

Far from the Olympics being banned for religious reasons, as late as 465AD, some seven decades after the supposed abolition of the Games, Emperor Leo passed an edict directing that curiales, that is, well to do citizens who were expected to procure funds for public building projects, temples, festivities, games, and local welfare systems could no longer serve as alytarchs but rather, that this role had to be played by the Comes Orientis, the Count of the East instead. Prior to that, in 430AD, Antiochos Chuzon, praetorian prefect of the East and consul, who was also a key figure in the compilation of the Codex Theodosianus, personally provided an endowment for the convening of the Games. This suggests a level of state sponsorship and interest in the Olympic Games of Antioch that belies simplistic interpretations as to the demise of the institution in its entirety.

Just as everything is bigger and brighter now under the AFL than it was under its small-town predecessor the VFL, so too were the Olympic Games of Antioch. According to Byzantine chronicler John Malalas, a good deal of money was expended not only in renovating existing infrastructure but also in constructing new facilities for the multitude of sporting events to be hosted at the Games, including a number of wrestling pits, a monomacheion for combat sports, a hippodrome and a large palaestra called the Plethrion which, it is believed, occupied thousands of square meters in the centre of the city. The main Olympic stadium was situated in the sacred grove of Apollo and Artemis at Daphne on the outskirts of the city, and the pagan sophist Libanius, teacher of Saint John Chrysostom tells us that it was referred to by the populace at large as the «στάδιον Ὀλυμπικόν».

Not only the sporting events themselves, but the associated entertainment accompanying them seems to have drawn the ire of Christian preachers of the time, especially in relation to the various processions that took place through Antioch towards the Olympic Stadium, indicating that the Christians of Antioch, a city in which the new religion was dominant, were heavily invested in and willing participants of the Olympic Games. The Monophysite prelate Severus of Antioch for example, felt the need to compare the metaphorical athlete Athanasius to the violent athletes of the Olympics, who had arrived in the city from all the realms of the Greek world. In one of his homilies, he invites his flock to compete in his Christian arena, rather than in the one at Daphne “which is madly anticipated,” acknowledging the hold that the Olympics had over the Christians of that era. In particular, he fulminated against the excessive amount of depilation his Christian flock undertook and the skimpy garb they wore, when participating in the Olympic procession, imploring them to understand that this was tantamount to giving glory to Zeus.

It appears that entreaties of this nature fell largely on deaf ears, so entrenched were the Olympics in the culture of Antioch. Saint Palladius the Hermit describes his church as virtually empty during the Olympic festival of 404, as all had flocked to Daphne to watch the Games. In 408, he referred to the Olympics as “Heracleian,” evidencing the manner in which their pagan origin existed in parallel with the emerging Christian world. In vain did the sermons of the Antiochene clerics admonish people to consider all facets of their existence in terms of their Christian affiliation. The reality was much more nuanced, as the citizens also identified with kin, their professions and their social networks. Standing above religious differences, the ten kilometre Olympic procession elicited an identification with the city and with citizenhood, that no amount of preaching could compromise.

While lasting until 521AD, some 128 years after the supposed abolition of the Elean Olympic Games, the Olympic Games of Antioch finally came to an end via Imperial Edict by Justin I. This was not due to any religious consideration or the need to enforce Christian conformity. Instead, there was a temporary blanket ban on all games in the Empire of any description, in reaction to the riots of the Blues, supporters of one of the rowdy horse-racing factions of Constantinople. A subsequent riot of similar nature a decade or so later, would see the destruction of the first Saint Sophia. After the ban, it was not an easy matter for the Games to be reconvened. A terrible fire swept through the city in 525AD. There were catastrophic earthquakes in 526 and 528 and funds that would have been utilised to the repair and rebuilding of sporting infrastructure were sorely needed to aid the afflicted citizens and were applied to general reconstruction instead. Further calamities ensued. In 540, Antioch was sacked by the Persians and 300,000 of its citizens were deported to Mesopotamia. A year later, there was the advent of bubonic plague which wiped out the majority of the city’s remaining population.

Although Antioch would remain in Byzantine hands for another century, it was constantly subject to the depredations of the Persians and then the Arabs and it never recovered its former glory. In 637, it was taken by the Arabs and by the time it was reconquered some three centuries later by Nicephoros Phocas, it remained a frontier town, valued as part of the overall Byzantine strategy of maintaining the integrity of the eastern borderline after the Seljuk conquest of Anatolia. By that time, Antioch’s Olympic legacy, beyond the writings of the chroniclers, had long been forgotten.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 6 July 2024