ATHLETES, are also known as combatants. From the Greek αθλητης, which comes from the word αθλειν, meaning to fight. It was the name properly given to those who in the public games competed in wrestling or boxing, and later was applied generally to those who competed for the prize in running, jumping, or discus. The Latins distinguished them by these five specific names: lucatores, or wrestlers; pugiles, or boxers; cursores, or runners; saltatores, or jumpers; and discoboli, or discus throwers. In Greek these correspond to παλαισται, πυκται, δρομεις αλτικοι, and δισκοβολοι. See Gymnastics.

Athletic exercises were first instituted in order to train and form young men to the work and struggles of war; however, these exercises soon degenerated into spectacles, and those who dedicated themselves to them into public figures. These athletes led a difficult life, and although some of them were famed for their appetite, causing Plautus to coin the proverb, pugilicè et athleticè vivere [to live and fight like an athlete] , to describe a man who eats a lot; it is certain that they generally maintained a very austere diet, began training by digging the earth one month before combat to become more flexible, and abstainied from strong drink and intercourse with women. This is what Horace tells us in these verses:

Epictetus and Saint Paul give the same testimony: qui in agone contendit, ab omnibus se abstinet [he who strives to compete, refrains from everything]. Athletes would invoke the aid of the gods before combat, and make a sacrifice to them on six altars. When they were victorious, they would be given a crown to the applause of the people, sung about by poets, and received in their homeland as victors upon entering through a breach made in the city walls. Their names were written down in the archives, in inscriptions, and on other public monuments. Lastly, public and private feasts would conclude the ceremonies celebrating their triumph. All their lives they were revered by their fellow citizens, and held the prime seat at public games. According to Horace, the Greeks viewed them as some sort of gods.

Another privilege enjoyed by athletes that was less glorifying, though more useful, was to be fed for the rest of their lives at public expense, a privilege conferred on them by the emperors. In addition to this advantage was the exemption from all appointments and civil functions, but to earn it an athlete had to have been crowned at least three times at the sacred games. The Romans even added this condition, that at least one of these crowns had to be won in Rome or Greece. Statues were erected to them, and they went so far as to render divine honors to them. All the exercises of athletes were comprised under the generic name πενταθλον, pentathle [pentathlon] ; and those who demonstrated all five of these talents were dubbed by the Greeks πενταθλοι [pentathletes], and by the Romans quinquertiones.

1. Horace, Ars Poetica, v. 412-14, trans. John B. Quinn (St. Louis, 1938).

2. “By noble palms, they are raised to the gods, as Earth’s masters.” Horace, Odes , Bk 1, v. 5-6.