The origins of the Olympic Games can be traced to a competitive sport played as a tribute to dead warriors. Homer’s Iliad mentions that Achilles held funeral games on the shores of Troy in honour of his male lover, Patroclus. Games were also held to celebrate the killing of a foe. The Pythian games celebrated Apollo’s slaying of the Python. The Nemean games celebrated Hercules’ killing of the Nemean lion.
There are a number of possible explanations for the practice of funeral games. First, it honoured the dead warrior by re-enacting his military skills. Second, it served as a symbolic affirmation of life to compensate for the loss of a warrior. Third, it was an expression of the aggressive impulses that accompany rage over death. Perhaps, they are all true at the same time.
The ritual nature of the ancient Greek games and their association with death, war, and victory suggests that these were organised ceremonies held to enable people come to grips with the eternally present fact of death. It was, after all, a time of high infant mortality, death by diseases that we are now in control of, and it was also a time of almost incessant warfare.
The origin of the Olympic Games, according to Greek mythology, is also enmeshed with death, war, and victory. The most common story was carved on the walls of the Temple of Zeus at Athens. Oinomaos, king of Pisa, challenged young men to a chariot race promising them his daughter Hippodamia’s hand in marriage if they won, provided they were willing to be beheaded if they lost. Many young men came hoping to win and marry but they all lost and were killed, for the horses that pulled Oinomaos’ chariot were celestial, the horses of Ares, God of War.
By being fair in the game, the athletes honoured Zeus, king of Greek gods, and keeper of the balance of universal justice.
Devdutt Pattanaik is an Indian physician turned leadership consultant, mythologist, author and communicator whose works focus largely on the areas of myth, religion, mythology, and management.
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