Olympic games

Chapter 4.

The Story of Cleon, the Greek Boy Who Ran at the Olympic Games.

ah yet be mindful of your old renown your great forefathers virtues and your own we have reached the third station on our road from long ago see it is a beautiful country with mountains and valleys and the blue mediterranean surrounding it on all sides but the north lovely green islands border it like a fringe and a deep blue gulf almost cuts it in two just south of the entrance to this gulf lies a greek state called elis a peaceful state where flocks feed and grain is waving in the fields in these july days and grapes are ripening in the sunshine and nobody fears that some enemy will suddenly come by land or sea to molest or destroy for to all the people of greece this is a sacred state and therefore safe from all harm i want to show you a valley in elis before i begin to tell about cleon it is almost shut in by mountains and a river the alpheus flows through it its hillsides are green and wooded and its fields covered with grass and flowers in these old days long ago a temple stood in this valley guarded by a golden statue of victory and beneath the statue hung a shield of gold shall i let you pass between the long rows of pillars and look in at the great throne and the gold and ivory statues of zeus the father of gods and men see how beautiful the throne is cedar-wood and ebony and richly set with precious stones but when we look at the mighty statue that sits upon it we forget all the glory of the throne and think only of the olympian zeus those old greeks used to say not to have seen the olympian zeus was indeed a misfortune to any man the great sculptor phidias had done his finest work when he made this statue he made it as beautiful and as grand as he could because he said always to himself while he worked it is in honor of the mighty zeus the father of all the gods and he will look with favor on my work if it is worthy so he carved the face the chest the arms and the feet of ivory the hair and beard of solid gold the eyes were precious stones and the robe was of gold with jewelled flowers in one outstretched hand stood a golden figure of the winged victory in the other was the mighty sceptre forty feet high was this grand statue as high as the house i live in he sat there with a look sublime and inapproachable yet not stern nor angry and this statue our little cleon is really going to see with his own eyes i wish we could see it with him for to us also to you and to me it would be very grand though we know that no image can represent god the father of us all but the rows of pillars and the long lines of light and shadows that fall across the pavement the costly throne the gems and gold and ivory the majestic figure and face and the great golden victory over the door make us stand still with a solemn feeling and ask what it all means Can you see it like a picture, and will you not forget it while I take you away to Cleon and the others who are hastening over the long roads in the bright summer weather towards this very valley to take part in the great Olympic Games? From the south came the Spartan youths, marching, they always march instead of walking, over the rough road with their bare feet.

A bit of black bread in their wallets and water from a wayside spring is food enough for the journey.

Okay.

he has a classmate named atticus who found it almost impossible to learn his letters although in the way of mischief there was nothing atticus couldn't learn so at last his father took him away from school and bought twenty-four little slaves of the same age as his son these little fellows he named for the letters of the alphabet not a b c but alpha beta c and he hired a schoolmaster to teach the whole twenty-five together and it wasn't long before atticus who shouted to gamma to catch the ball or called delta to run a race with him had learned all the letters and begun to put them together to make words before cleon began to go to school and when he was still a very little boy only five years old he one day climbed up the steps that led to his mother's bed you must know that going upstairs to bed was exactly what they always had to do in athens for the bedsteads were so high as to need several steps to reach them well he climbed upstairs on to his mother's bed and wrapping his little chitten across his breast with one arm held out the other as he had seen the orator do when his nurse led him past the marble porticoes where the people were often gathered to hear some wise man speak and then in his baby talk he made a little speech beginning citizens of athens though his father and mother did not appear to take special notice of this at the time they afterwards said to one another our boy will become an orator we must see that he studies the works of the poets so even before he can handle the stylus he has begun to study the grand heroic verses of homer not from a book for i am sure you must know that there were no printed books in those days and few written ones his master taught him being quite as careful that he should stand gracefully and hold his head erect and his arms and hands at ease as that he should understand the noble words and repeat them in a clear tone and with good expression sometimes it is a speech of the wise nestor to the greeks before troy o friends be men your generous breasts inflame with mutual honour and with mutual shame think of your hopes your fortunes all the care your wives your infants and your parents share think of each loving father's reverend head think of each ancestor with glory dead absent by me they speak by me they sue they ask their safety and their fame from you Or with Ajax he makes a stand to defend the ships, and shouts, O friends, O heroes, names forever dear, Once sons of Mars and thunderbolts of war, Ah, yet be mindful of your old renown, Your great forefathers' virtues and your own.

This spot is all we have to lose or keep, There stand the Trojans, and here rolls the deep.

or he learns by heart the brave old tales and grows to understand not hate but glory made those chiefs contend and each brave foe was in his soul a friend inspired by such grand words the boys will grow up to do brave deeds in battle some day themselves when they can read and write and count and reckon by numbers a little the lessons in music will begin for although the law of solon teaches only that every athenian must learn to read and to swim no less surely must every athenian learn to sing and to play on the lute or for he must be able to sing the great paean when he goes into battle to join in the sacred choruses in honour of the gods and also in time of peace he must know how to play and sing for the pleasure of himself and his friends and company but of course cleon does something besides study don't you want to go out with him to the seashore three miles away and skip shells flat oyster shells as we do stones on the blue water of the mediterranean and he can play leap-frog with the best of you it is a persian game brought from that country years ago to play ball is a part of his education for the body must be educated as well as the mind and it makes one erect and agile to toss and catch and run a year or two ago he used to drive hoop a lovely hoop with tinkling bells around the inside of it wouldn't that be a good christmas present for somebody do you suppose it was a christmas present to him no there is no christmas yet any more than there was for darius he had the hoop on his birthday he is too old for it now but it is put away in case he should ever have a little brother it is only within a year that cleon has been training for the foot races perhaps you don't see why every athenian boy must be a swift runner but when you remember that war was then the chief occupation of the people and that a greek army ran into battle shouting a grand paean you will realize that a soldier untrained in running was but half a soldier cleon has been doing his very best in the racing for this year he is going for the first time to the great olympic games three of his neighbors and friends go with him and of course his pedagogue diogenes who has trained him so well goes with him also he will take care of them all and the boys must be sure to obey him for obedience is one of the duties of a good citizen and good citizens they are all bound to become you and i have reason to be particularly interested in these athenian boys for athens is a republic the very first republic in the world so far as we know and all that you learn in becoming acquainted with cleon will show you what was necessary in those old days to make boys into good citizens of a republic and now at last we set out on the journey to olympia the dress of the boys is a simple chitin a little garment of linen without sleeves They have sandals on their feet because this journey is long and they will not unfit their feet for the race, but often and often they have walked miles and miles barefooted.

What do you kind of, you know, think about, you know, what steps he needs to take or just how you see him getting back into true form?

Yeah, well, I think the other factor at play, maybe not considered by people last year, was the Olympic factor, right? So he was playing through injury throughout the season, but he also was really on all those guys' minds was their NHL season.

But they have another crack at that how many more times, right? The Olympics is the first time they've been able to be there in how long.

They were all really focused on that, I think.

And I think that that distraction, it messes up your routine.

So I think that that plays into it.

That said, he certainly without Marner, he still had enough to work with last year where he could have and should have had a better season.

So I think for him, it just comes down to focus and you know, the Olympic thing happened.

which is also one of the most famous archeological sites in Greece.

And I like Olympia because it is associated with the history of the Olympic games and the spirit of the ancient Olympics, which was a little different than the spirit of the modern Olympics.

And this is a place where you can see how all the Greeks would come together and they would compete.

So you have their antagonism, but not in war, but in sports and how they were trying to prove that they could excel above everybody else.

And so what it means is everything except college football gets slashed.

And so women's sports get cut, uh, Olympic sports gets cut, tennis gets cut, golf gets cut, track and field-

Yeah

... swimming, wrestling, volleyball, all of those are just getting decimated.

Um, the, the, the major league pros, uh, the NFL, the NBA, Major League Baseball, National Hockey League are all supporting the bill.

The NBA Players Association, the NFL Players Association are supporting this bill.

The Olympic Committee, the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee is enthusiastically supporting this bill.

W- w- we have hundreds of coaches across the country supporting the bill.

Then the Lacedaemonians brought him down to Sparta, and while they gave Eurybiades the prize for valour, to him they gave one for wisdom, a crown of olive in each case, and they presented him with the best chariot there was in the city, and sent three hundred picked youth along with him to serve as his escort to the boundary.

And it is said that when the next Olympic festival was celebrated, and Themistocles entered the stadium, the audience neglected the contestants all day long to gaze on him, and pointed him out with admiring applause to visiting strangers, so that he too was delighted, and confessed to his friends that he was now reaping in full measure the harvest of his toils in behalf of Hellas.

And indeed he was by nature very fond of honour, if we may judge from his memorable sayings and doings.

When, for example, the city had chosen him to be admiral, he would not perform any public or private business at its proper time, but would postpone the immediate duty to the day on which he was to set sail, in order that then, because he did many things all at once and had meetings with all sorts of men, he might be thought to be some great personage and very powerful.

There too was the shrine of the hero Andocrates hard by, enveloped in a grove of dense and shady trees.

And besides, that the oracle might leave no rift in the hope of victory, the Plataeans voted, on motion of Arimnestus, to remove the boundaries of Plataea on the side toward Attica, and to give this territory to the Athenians, that so they might contend in defence of Hellas on their own soil in accordance with the oracle.

This munificence of the Plataeans became so celebrated that Alexander, many years afterwards, when he was now king of Asia, built the walls of Plataea, and had proclamation made by herald at the Olympic Games that the king bestowed this grace upon the Plataeans in return for their bravery and magnanimity in freely bestowing their territory upon the Hellenes in the Median war, and so showing themselves most zealous of all.

Now with the Athenians the men of Tegea came to strife regarding their position in the line.

With good reason, she said, for we are the only women who bring forth men.

An old man wandering around the Olympic Games looking for a seat was jeered at by the crowd until he reached the seat of the Spartans, whereupon every Spartan younger than him, and some that were older, stood up and offered him their seat.

The crowd applauded, and the old man turned to them with a sigh, saying, All Greeks know what is right, but only the Spartans do it.

Let a man learn how to fight by first daring to perform mighty deeds.