The Modern Games?

Just in time for the Olympics, University of Cambridge historian Nigel Spivey previewed his new tome The Ancient Olympics in last week’s Guardian, while in the New York Times Bernard Knox takes the opportunity to look at The Ancient Greeks and How They Played the Games. (subs may be needed for NYT). Making the case for Milo of Croton, winner of 6 consecutive Olympic wrestling titles before 500BC, to be named as “greatest Olympic champion of all time” Spivey asks whether Baron Pierre de Courbertin was justified in ‘reviving’ the ancient Olympics as “some sort of International celebration of the brotherhood of man” in 1896, contrasting his interpretation of Classical times with his near-contemporary Friedrich Nietzsche (with lessons to be learned by all interpreters of the past), and compares the modern view of sport with that of the original participants in the Pan-hellenic agones.

Pete Baker