Athletic Contests in Contexts of Epic and Other Related Archaic Texts
The ritual ordeal of the athlete re-enacts the ordeals of the warrior, and, like heroic deeds, athletic activity compensates for the athlete’s mortality as the athlete figuratively dies a ritual death in recurrent festivals. The origin of athletics is related both to initiation and to funeral games, and real or symbolic death and rebirth is common to both activities. Epinikian songs refer to those done ‘in compensation for’ (epi) the ordeal involved in winning the victory. Epinician songs also in a sense depict the community’s welfare as being contingent on the reciprocity of aristocratic exchange, and also related to revelry. The non-recurrent agōn occurs in Homeric epic, including gymnic and musikos events (recitation of epics and hymns). Later seasonally recurring festivals became the dominant form. The Panathenaia features the ‘art of the Muses’ among its events, namely rhapsodic contests in the reading of Homer. The apobatēs event in the Panathenaia serves as an evocative link between Homeric heroes in combat and the contestants in armour jumping from chariots in the Athenian games.