Greek pentathletes: the path to victory

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to find out how the Greek pentathlon was organized at the Panhellenic Games as well as what was the sequence of competitions in it, whether the rules of its organization differed at the Panhellenic and the local Games, how the judges determined the winner, and which path the pentathlete had to go to victory. Basing on the written sources and epigraphic data, the author demonstrates that the basic principle of the pentathlon organizing was developed at the Olympic Games, but deviations from it were possible at the local Games. The sequence of pentathlon competitions and the determination of the absolute winner is one of the most difficult tasks in the scientific literature but it is directly related to the question of which competitions the athlete should have won on the path to victory. Statistical analysis of data on the athletes’ victories in the pentathlon as well as on the pentathletes’ victories in special disciplines allow the author to assume that pentathletes more often won due to competitions in running rather than in wrestling, and that a track and field athlete had good chances of winning rather than a martial artist.

Keywords

• pentathlon
• wrestling
• running
• olympic games
• pausanias
• philostratus
• panathenaea