7 Sports of Ancient Greece

The ancient Greeks, who organized the first Olympic Games in 776 BC, gave the world the idea of ​​holding large-scale sporting events as entertainment for arenas full of spectators. More than that, they were the first culture in which people idolized their favorite sports superstars, on a level that even today’s most fanatical sports fans might find extreme.

“The Greeks believed that athletes had special powers,” says David Lunt, associate professor of history at Southern Utah University, expert on ancient Greek athletics and author of The Crown Games of Ancient Greece: Archaeology, Athletes and Heroes. “They commissioned poems to sing about them, and they told stories about statues of athletes who could heal people.”

link

Related Posts