Sport in the Ancient World from A to Z

Mark Golden

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN: 9780415248815
• eBook ISBN: 9781134535958
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

Sport in the Ancient World from A to Z covers an extraordinarily wide range of Greek and Roman sporting activities.

Arranged in an easy-to-use dictionary format, this volume includes more than 700 entries discussing ancient athletes, festivals, important sites, equipment and concepts. The approach throughout is comprehensive yet succinct, with key topics, such as athletic festivals, chariot racing, prizes and the role of women receiving more detailed discussion.

Each entry concludes with pointers to the most important sources of information, both ancient and modern. The places mentioned in the text are picked out on a useful map, and a timeline of significant developments and events is also included.

Reliable, enjoyable, and up-to-date, this handy work of reference will suit readers from student level upwards.

P

Pacideianus, GLADIATOR, mid-second century. Pacideianus is called far and away the best gladiator in all history in a fragment of a poem by the Roman satirist Lucilius.

Lucilius, Satires 149–158 Marx.

Paegniarius (plural paegniarii), a type of GLADIATOR who engaged only in mock combat –perhaps with wooden weapons or whips. One (Secundus) boasted of living to the age of ninety-eight.

Suetonius, Caligula 26.5;ILS 5126.

Paeonius, son of Damatrius, of Elis, HEAVY athlete, third century. Paeonius was Olympic wrestling champion in 216 but was defeated by CAPRUS when he tried to repeat. However, after winning the crown for boys’boxing at Delphi, he triumphed there in both men’s boxing and wrestling on the same day.

Pausanias 6.15.10, 16.9;IνO 179.

Pagondas, or Pagon, of Thebes, chariot victor, seventh century. Pagondas won the first running of the Olympic chariot race, in 680.

Pausanias 6.8.7.

Paides, AGE-CLASS in Greek athletics. The youngest competitors, paides were sometimes further divided into subgroups, including paides Pythikoi and Isthmikoi (first at the ASCLEPIEIA (2) on Cos), paides of the first, second and third ages (at the Athenian THESEIA), pampaides and paides presbyteroi (at the Erotidea at Thespiae) and others, often local or even designed by an individual AGŌNOTHETHŌS. Age limits for paides were probably from 12 to 17 at Olympia;paides Pythikoi may have included those 12 to 14, Isthmikoi, 14 to 17. In all cases, a boy’s physical development may have influenced officials. Paides generally competed in the same events as older athletes, though pankration and DOLICHOS are less common on their pro-grammes. Variations abound. For example, though paides ran only the STADION at Olympia, only competed in pentathlon once (628) and in pankration only from 200, the PYTHIAN games included diaulos, dolichos and pentathlon for boys from their inception and pankration from 346. Similarly, the scheduling of boys’events differed at these two most prestigious festivals, preceding all athletic contests (except pentathlon) for men at Olympia, alternating with them at Delphi.

Rules for paides were the same in all events –boxing was no safer –with the exceptions that their discus was smaller and their dolichos may have been shorter. Aristotle recommends a lighter training regimen up to the age of seventeen on the grounds that boys who are worked too

Mosci Sassi (1992) 146–147. hard rarely go on to successful athletic careers. In fact, we know of many who were champions both as paides and later on, in part because inscriptions and EPINICIANS boast of such victories. Prizes for paides could be considerable. At the PANATHENAEA, the pais who won the stadion took home fifty amphoras of olive oil, the equivalent of perhaps US$50,000 today, close to the prize of an AGENEIOS (sixty amphoras). However, this was (likely) much less than the prize for men. It is also striking that boys’events were believed to have joined the programme at Olympia late and at a date which was disputed (? 632 ? 596) at that. Whatever their glory, paides were minors;their fathers or older brothers took the Olympic oath on their behalf, and (in keeping with this) it is their fathers we find charged with cheating (or refusing bribes). The separation of younger and older competitors is universal at Greek festivals, where fighters of different sizes and weights regularly faced each other. The motive may have been to prevent a father’s defeat by a son –careers in the combat events in particular could cover twenty years, and there were numerous families with champions in several generations. The tendency of events for paides, as of subdivisions within the group, to multiply over time probably has a different impulse, the desire for victory and its rewards: local competitors were more likely to triumph among the paides than against older athletes.

Aristotle, Politics 8.1338b9-a10;Pausanias 5.8.9;Philostratus, On Athletic Exercise 13.

A. J. Papalas, ‘‘Boy athletes in ancient Greece’’, stadion 17 (1991) 165–192;M. Lavrencic, ‘‘Zu Knabenagonen im antiken Griechenland’’, in R. Renson, M. Lämmer, J. Riordan and D. Chas-siotis (eds) The Olympic Games through the Ages: Greek Antiquity and its Impact on Modern Sport. Proceedings of the 13th International HISPA Congress, Olympia/Greece, May 22–28, 1989 (Athens 1991) 65–71;Golden (1998) 104–116.

Paidotribēs (plural paidotribai), ‘‘boyrub-ber’’, Paidotribe‘‘boy smoother’’, physical TRAINER and athletics instructor. The paidotribēs usually worked at and often owned a PALAESTRA. In fourth-century Athens, the people elected two paidotribai (later reduced to one) to ensure the physical fitness of EPHEBES in military service;on Hellenistic Teos, two were appointed to the local palaestra and paid slightly less than instructors in the two other main elements of Greek education, grammatikē (reading, writing, literature) and mousikē (musical instruments and the poetry sung to them). From Aristotle on, writers often distinguish the paidotribēs, concerned above all with athletic skills and techniques, from the GYMNASTŌS, who is said to be more expert in the body’s workings and development.

Antiphon 3.3.6;Aristophanes, Knights 1238;Isocrates 15.181–185;Plato, Republic 3.406A;Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians 42.3;Nicomachean Ethics 10.1180b14;Politics 4.1288b17, 8.1338b9;Philostratus, On Athletic Exercise 14;SIG³ 578.

Jüthner (1909) 3–8;Kyle (1987) 141–145.

Palaemon see MELICERTES

palaestra(Greek palaistra, plural palaistrai), Greek exercise and training site. palaestra etymologically and perhaps originally referred to an area for wrestling (palē), but came to describe a structure with wider functions: an enclosed square or oblong courtyard surrounded by rooms for various activities (e.g. undressing, oiling, dusting). The Roman writer Vitruvius gives two stadia (about 400m) as a standard circuit;however, no excavated example is so large. Palaestrae (from at least the fourth century) might be privately owned and operated, as standalone facilities or as part of a GYMNASIUM, and identified by an individual’s name;or public. In some communities, palaestrae (like gymnasia) were set aside for boys or older users, perhaps in an attempt to prevent undesired SEXUAL activity. Restrictions on SLAVES, non-citizens and tradesmen represent and reinforce ideologies about athletics.

Herodotus 6.26.3;Euripides, Andromache 595–600;[Xenophon], Constitution of the Athenians 2.10;Plato, Charmides 153A;Lysis 203A-204A;Antiphanes fragment 298 Kassel- Austin;Theophrastus, Characters 5.9;Vitru-vius, On Architecture 5.11.1–2;Isidore, Etymologies 18.23–24.

S. L. Glass, ‘‘The Greek gymnasium: some problems’’, in Raschke (1988) 155–173.

Palaistritēs (plural palaistritai, Latin palaestrita, palaestritae), ‘‘PALAESTRA-goer’’, an athlete, especially a wrestler, or a slave athlete who trained or entertained a wealthy Roman master. Palaistritēs is an epithet of the god hermes (2), patron of palaestrae and GYMNASIA.

Callimachus fragment 554 Pfeiffer;Plutarch, Moral Essays 274DE;Cicero, Against Verres 2.2.36;Petronius, Satyricon 21.4–5;BE 1994. 380.

M. W. Dickie, ‘‘Palaistritēs/‘palaestrita’: callisthenics in the Greek and Roman GYMNASIUM’’, Nikephoros 6 (1993) 105–151.

Palaistrophylax (plural palaistrophylakes), ‘‘PALAESTRA guard’’, slave attendant in a PALAESTRA or GYMNASIUM. In Greco- Roman Egypt (and perhaps elsewhere), the term comes to be used for a minor office filled by citizens.

Hippocrates, Epidemics 6.8.30;IG 5.1 18;ID 290, 316, 372A;Oxyrhynchus Papyri 390, 1266.

K. J. Rigsby, ‘‘Notes sur la Crète hellénistique’’, REG 99 (1986) 350–360 (350–355).

Palēsee WRESTLING

Palus (plural pali), ‘‘stake’’, term for a wooden stake used in training GLADIATORS and also for their standing. A primus palus (or primuspalus), ‘‘first stake’’, was a GLADIATOR of the top rank (and so especially expensive). The emperor commodus styled himself primus palus of the SECUTORES. Four pali were usually recognized, though there is some evidence for...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• INTRODUCTION
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND DEDICATION
• ABBREVIATIONS AND SHORT TITLES
• SOME IMPORTANT DATES
• A
• B
• C
• D
• E
• F
• G
• H
• I
• J
• K
• L
• M
• N
• O
• P
• Q
• R
• S
• T
• U
• V
• W
• X
• Z