KP141 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: Pankration, Jousting, Gladiator
Document Summary
If we de ne sports as physical contests we can assume that greeks invented sports. Greeks were the rst to start sport not as a cult but as activities engaged for. Modern analyses of sport spectators has mostly come form marxist or neomarxist writers. Thye believe sport spectators are essentially passive. They are consumers rather than produers of the spectacle. They also beleive that spectators are frequently active but their activity is destructive rather than constructive. They become a mob yelling and rioting towards athletes and the games. Marxists, neo marxists and non marxist have many disagreements on spectators but they all agree in their concentration on the present. Many think that greeks were participants sports while romans were simply spectators. Physical exellence was a goal for greeks. Odysseus was insulted by phaiakians beleived he was not an athlete. We dont know how many greeks actually lived up to their expectations.