Ancient Greece: The Link Between Sports And Warfare

For centuries there has always been a link between sports and warfare. Even in our modern age, sports commentators are often illustrating images of military battles for the viewers as the sporting event unfolds. The commentators constantly make reference to the game at times for a team's aggressive attacking, having impenetrable defensive or implementing ingenious tactics. For the Greeks, the link between sports and warfare was even more deeply knitted into their society than America is with football. For a military to be strong they not only have to have the latest gear, but they also have to be in outstanding physical shape, this goes for athletes as well. Meaning, they both have to train rigorously. Both personal are warriors in their

With both soldiers and athletes bearing the same traits and training in the same way, it was only natural for Greece's sporting events to become battlefield of its own. In our modern age of technology, we have vests that allow us to be protected from bullets and that aren't relatively heavy. In ancient Greece they weren't as fortunate as just even their shields would weight around 16 pounds. This is the reason that training and conditioning was fundamental to both the military, athletes and ordinary citizens. With Greece's army being populated by majority of its citizen's, athletic competition was the perfect means to train their bodies to be able bear the burden of the hoplite armour and give them the stamina required to endure a battle. Athletic competition is the type of education that "is said to help youths prepare for their role as defenders of the city and to train men for warfare. It gives them a stamina which is set in powerful contrast to the weak, pale bodies of those who have not trained in this way and therefore wilt in battle under the heat

A military's battlefield is used to display a countries overwhelming power and all of their soldiers bear the country's ideologies. It's a fight to see who is better and to settle certain problems between the two or more enemies. Sporting events in ancient Greece were used "as an alternative battleground on which civic rivalries were played out" . When the Olympics were held, the Greeks had a mutual agreement that during this time no hostilities between city states would occur . Thus in turn, the sporting event would ultimately become the new battlefield for which the city states would show their dominance. In some aspects, when the games were being held and the ceasefire began, it gave the city states a chance to come to peace with each other in various