The Significance Of Masculinity And Culture In The Ancient Olympic Games

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When looking back at many of the ancient civilizations, we can learn things about them based on documents written during that time periods and the events that took place. From these things, we can tell what they valued and the meaning behind these values. In Ancient Greece, many of their ideals are prominent in their practices, especially those performed during the earliest Olympic Games, which is something that Greece is known for. Many people know that the Games started here and that the gods were an influencing factor, but that is the extent of their knowledge. Little do they know, there were many sacrifices, rituals and praises to worship their gods during the Games. This shows a lot about their culture and how their values effect they …show more content…

These things all show how Greeks believed that Zeus was masculine, but why does this make them believe that he was the most important? It may not be popular knowledge, but in ancient Greek culture, masculinity and power were highly respected and desired traits. In fact, masculinity was of such a high value in ancient Greece that it is still influential in the culture today. This proves just how influential masculinity was to these people; over a thousand of years later, the culture still has the same ideals because of how strongly imbedded it was in the culture that long ago. This same thing goes for power. Power was something that the Greeks strived for, right next to masculinity. It was so important to them that some said that in order to have a purpose in life, you must gain power. The fact that power meant purpose for people in ancient Greece shows just exactly their ideals and how they viewed things. Their extreme desire for masculinity and power explains the praise that they gave to Zeus. The rituals that they performed and the texts that were written during this time show historians that Greeks believed that He was both of these things – powerful and masculine. His achievement of these traits gives explanation as to why he was so beloved by his worshipers. Zeus was beloved for his attainment of both of these, and the people of Greece gave him extra admiration for his accomplishment of

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