Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

CHAPTER VII.
THE ORIGIN OF THE OLYMPIC GAMES.
By F. M. Cornford.
More than one theory has recently been put forward by
English scholars, to account for the origin of the Olympic Games.
It has been felt that the naive view 1 which sees in these athletic
contests no more than the survival of an expedient, comparable
to the whisky-drinking at an Irish wake, for cheering up the
mourners after the funeral of a chieftain, clearly leaves something
to be desired; for it entails the rejection of the whole ancient
tradition recorded by Pindar, Pausanias, and others. Some part
of this tradition is, indeed, undoubtedly fictitious—the deliberate
invention of incoming peoples who wished to derive their claims
from a spurious antiquity. Nothing is easier than to detect these
genealogical forgeries ; but when we have put them aside, there
remains much that is of a totally different character—the myths,
for instance, used by Pindar in his first Olympian. This residuum
calls for some explanation ; and no theory which dismisses it
bodily as so much motiveless 'poetic fiction' can be accepted as
satisfactory.
The first hypothesis that claims serious consideration is the
current view, lately defended by Professor Ridgeway 2 . Games
were held, he says, in honour of heroes, beside the tomb, ' in order
doubtless to please the spirit of the dead man within.' 'Athletic
feats, contests of horsemanship, and tragic dances are all part of
the same principle—the honouring and appeasing of the dead.'
1 Stated, e.g., by Christ (Pindari Carmina, 1896, p. Ixii ff.) : ludos instituebant
ad animos recreandos atque post luctum exhilarandos... Aliam opportunitatem ludos
faciendi faustus eventus belli obtulit. Namque et hominum animi libenter post
atroces belli casus laboresque reficiebantur, etc.
2 Origin of 'Tragedy, pp. 30, 38.