Cornell: On War and Games in the Ancient World

Cornell, T. J. “On War and Games in the Ancient World.” Sixth International Symposium for Olympic Research, pp 29-40.
29 Great list of resemblances shared by war and sport in intro
29 two prime theories about sports & war: sports are complementary to war and stimulate the attitudes; sports are an alternative to war.
30 while sports promote fitness needed by soldiers, it's an incidental feature not the primary function of sports

30 vital discussion in second paragraph: while sports helped develop the manly virtues needed in war ( a Victorian value/view), sports were not a form of military training.
30 sports training not always relevant to war
30 list of a few generals in classical period who did not like athletics for their soldiers
30 Romans (plutarch) greek athletics led to the feminization of the greeks and eventual downfall of the greeks
30 ancients stressed or denied the value of sports in soldierly training; victorians pomorted the charcter building and abstract vvitres of team, group, selflessness
30 there was little to no team sports in the clasical world—especially contact sports
only the Spartans
31-32 sport as alternative to war discussed
32 proposes that sports and war are autotelic, that is ends in themselves
32 war often had ritual/cultural purpose and not just a political instrument as proposed by Clausewitz
32 primitive war is highly ritualized
32 in Homer war and sports are highly ritualized events by aristocratic men
33 “The agonistic spirit expressed itself not only in athletics, but in competitions in art, drama and music, and in the constant striving to outdo one's rivals in all areas of life—public speaking, law politics, and philosophical argument.”
33 chivalric behavior in war only makes sense with an agonistic sense of war (contest) in which artificial rules ensure a fair fight. this reduces battle to a game
34 Gladiator contests were called a munus, which means gift (of the citizens who promoted them)
35 in Greece the citizens were the atheletes; in Rome, the citizens were usually spectators watching low-class pros, foreigners and/or slaves compete
35-6 discussion/dismissal of links usually made between war and games in Rome: ampitheaters and gladiator training
36 gladiators rarely soldiers; very rare to have large scale combat—usually one on one or pairs
37 battles rarely restaged for the public
37 games were at their height when Rome was at peace

Pritchard: Sport, War, and Democracy

Pritchard, David. Sport, War and Democracy in classical Athens.
from In Press Sport in the cultures of the ancient world. Special issue of the Int'l journal of the History of Sport
downloaded PDF

Overall, this is an incredibly well-documented and thorough discussion of some of the basic issues which interest me regarding sports, war, and Greece. There are over one hundred footnotes and an extremely useful list of works cited.

Key points:
3 sport atheletes had some of the highest esteem in Athens
3 athletes were rarely targeted by playwrights for abuse
5 athletics were closely associated with justice and moderation
6 two primary roles of athletics in classical athens: festival based agonesand physical education classes
7 athletics one of three traditional subjects in male education; grammar/letters and music were the other two
7 education privately funded; only the wealthiest could afford to send their boys to all three forms of training
8 Athenians held that athletic training was necessary in order to perform well in sports; the result is that only those boys who had been trained were encouraged to compete; hence the athletic heroes of athens were the sons of the rich
9 discussion of role of public schools in England preparing boys to lead the country
10 Orwell: int'l sport creates int'l ill will,not good will
11 popular culture regards sports as safe way to blow of steam & reduce anger
11 steam blowing related to Konrad Lorenz's aggression as innate drive and aggressive activities are drive-discharge catharisis—thus the more sport, the less aggression and war
12 social sciences discredit drive-discharge
12 psych & physiologists for simplifying aggression; phys anthros & biologists for fallacious extrapolation from animals toohumans; cult. anthros for ignoring observed cultural variation in responses to threats
12 multiple studies listed where watching violent sports resulted in agitated folks
12 study of students who responded differently; those who worked out their agg via punching ended up being the angriest and most aggressive
12-13 Berkowitz: aggression related experiences form network in memory and thus current agg potentially summons up past agg
13-14 Sipes finding that war/sport support each other's presence; study on 20 pre-modern culutres found 9/10 violent cultures had combative sports as well

14 battles and sports events were both considered agones
15 agones tested the moral fiber and confirmed/demonstrate the arete of the competitors
16 if men lost in the games, they deserved to receive abuse in the Athenian pespective
17 bc fifth century Athens democratized war
18 poor citizens now experienced war; shared that in common with elite
20-1 experiencing war and that form of agone enabled the poor to identify with the agones of the elite wealthy athletes “As a result, lower-class citizens came to beliee that upper-class athletes exhibited te same moral qualities and experienced the same ordeals as they did when fighting battles.

Review the bib for articles to order/get copy

Article: Mouratidis "Athlos"

Mouratidis, Yannis. The "Athlos" in Ancient Greece and Its Educational Significance.

I have pages 475-480. I think they were printed from a Google book, but I am not sure. Sloppy reference tracking, I know.

First, this is a good piece to give general overview/ information on the word athlos. Second, it is written in an academic tone that is easy to read, but it does not seem to have any footnotes.

476

In other words, the wider meaning of the word "athlos", [sic] covered many forms of human activity, which contributed to the advancement of civilization. The word "athlos" as time went by was more closely connected to major achievements in the field of sports contents, which achievements were, however, always attained under conditions of fair play.

...those who had neglected their physical traning were considered to be uneducated, the educated being only those who could combine it wiht intellectual pursuits. Such comibnation was truly the basic and primary achievement (or athlos) from which stemmed all other accomplishments in the field of art, science and other activities, which contribute to social progress and give a special meaning to human life.

477

The word athlos also meant good manners, nobility of character and honesty. Athlos did not mean to misue one's strength or to achieve victory by unfair means. Athlos mean as well (some characters in Greek here (modesty), honesty, respect and nobility of spirit.

Combative Sports in Aristotle

Rhetoric: Book I: Chapter 11

Victory also is pleasant, and not merely to "bad losers," but to every one; the winner sees himself in the light of a champion, and everybody has a more or less keen appetite for being that. The pleasantness of victory implies of course that combative sports and intellectual contests are pleasant [1371a] (since in these it often happens that some one wins) and also games like knuckle-bones, ball, dice, and draughts. And similarly with the serious sports; some of these become pleasant when one is accustomed to them; while others are pleasant from the first, like hunting with hounds, or indeed any kind of hunting. For where there is competition, there is victory. That is why forensic pleading and debating contests are pleasant to those who are accustomed to them and have the capacity for them.

Combat Sports Texts

Battle Exhortation: The Rhetoric of Combat Leadership
By Keith Yellin
Published by Univ of South Carolina Press, 2008
ISBN 1570037353, 9781570037351
191 pages

Possible. It seems like a stretch, but there's an early chapter on Greeks in there. Additionally, perhaps leadership can be linked to teacher/pedagogy?



Aaron Freundschuh
‘New Sport’ in the Street: Self-Defence, Security and Space in Belle Epoque Paris
French History Advance Access published on December 1, 2006, DOI 10.1093/fh/crl026.
French History 20: 424-441.

Of possible interest discussion self-defense. More interested in this in terms of bibliographies and sources.



Chapman, Kris. "Ossu! Sporting masculinities in a Japanese karate dōjō" Japan Forum 16.2 (2004). 09 Jan. 2009

Possibly interesting material on sports and masculinities. Get to examine the bibliographies. See if there's a discussion of budo vs. bujutsu.




Crowther, Nigel. "Sports, nationalism and peace in ancient Greece" Peace Review 11.4 (1999). 09 Jan. 2009

More than 100 years ago, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic movement, declared that the Olympic games should promote “international understanding, brotherhood and peace.” Was this a modern concept, a dream of Coubertin, or did it resurrect the ideals of the ancient Olympics?

On the one hand, the ancient Olympic games certainly promoted in Greece a sense of unity among the independent city states, for Greece was for much of its history not a united nation but rather a collection of individual cities. Every four years the games brought together as many as 40,000 spectators, athletes, politicians, merchants and cultural figures to a festival that celebrated not only sports but also religion—since it honored Zeus and other gods. It was also a kind of trade fair, as were some of the more modern Olympics, such as the one held in Paris in 1900. The ancient Olympic games were the biggest single gathering of any kind in the Greek world, and thus their importance to the Greeks can hardly be overemphasized.

That was the official abstract. Maybe I need this? A little bit of background? I'm not sure, but I did not want to lose track of this.



Militarism, Sport, Europe: War Without Weapons
By J. A. Mangan
Published by Routledge, 2003
ISBN 0714653608, 9780714653600
316 pages


Virtually everywhere, directly or indirectly, modern men are prepared for war through sport. It has been no different in the past. Throughout history a constant imperative has been a moral commitment to defend the society. Sport has played its part in the inculcation of this commitment. However, sport has also been considered both a substitute for war and an antidote to war. This collection explores the relationship between sport and war and brings together established authors, including Peter J Beck, Hans Bonde, Vassil Girginov, J A Mangan, John McClelland and Gertrud Pfister, and emerging authors such as Steve Bailey, Penelope Kissoudi, Orestis Kustrin, Callum McKenzie, Alethea Melling, Antonio Misseroli, Hamad Ndee and Roberta Vescori.

This looks quite exciting with a lot of potential, but it is super expensive. Review the chapter selection more closely.

Rhetoric & Training & Greece: Potential Texts

Bodily Arts: Rhetoric and Athletics in Ancient Greece
By Debra Hawhee
Published by University of Texas Press, 2004
ISBN 0292705840, 9780292705845
226 pages

Check out The Arts of Training chapter



Hawhee, Debra.
Agonism and Arete
Philosophy and Rhetoric - Volume 35, Number 3, 2002, pp. 185-207

Appears to be very similar to the first chapter of her book Bodily Arts.



The Poet as Athlete
Mary R. Lejkowit
Journal of Sport History, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Summer, 1984)


In press, in Sport in the Cultures of the Ancient World, edited by Z.
Papakonstantinou. Special issue of The International Journal of the History of Sport.
London and New York: Routledge, 2009.
Sport, war and democracy in classical Athens
David M. Pritchard
School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics, University of Queensland,
Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia. Email: d.pritchard@uq.edu.au



The Smell of Sweat: Greek Athletics, Olympics, and Culture
By William Blake Tyrrell
Published by Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 2004
ISBN 086516553X, 9780865165533
264 pages

Paper Topics 5364

I like to start thinking about things early.

From TOPIC:

The term paper will be a typical academic study of about 4000-5000 words, or about 16-20 pages double spaced, 12 point New Times Roman. Obviously, the primary subject will be classical Rhetoric, but your thesis may extend beyond just our time period, 500 BC to 400 AD, and beyond the tradition of oral political and judicial oratory. What I mean by this is that you may apply the precepts we will study to other times and even other genres of expression. We will talk more about this in the coming weeks, but if you’ve read my slightly incendiary little essay, “What is Classical Rhetoric?” (item 1.1), you should realize that I take Rhetoric, even classical Rhetoric, as the essential element (beyond language itself) of what I somewhat clinically refer to as the “negotiated society,” more easily understood as the “free society” or democracy.

and more:

In these ways, classical Rhetoric should not be thought of as existing in an isolated time period “back then,” but instead seen as the original paradigm of how society functions when it functions well. This paradigm, or these paradigms, are applicable to a wide range of human endeavors -- politics, art, war, education, business.

Your principal subject must be classical Rhetoric, of course, but you may either further explain something you find interesting in the period or compare-and-contrast with something operating entirely outside the period. What you should avoid is a "report," or a summary of what scholars have already summarized.

The key points that have my attention are in bold.

Potential Topics:
Compare/contrast current/classic rhet surrounding olympics (broad)
same but combat sports, i.e. classic pankration and current MMA
rhetoric of sports or combat
rhetoric re: warriors/atheletes

focus on the epideitic rhetoric of sports?

Google Scholar produced a number of good results, and views, on pankration