Pan-Hellenism and Particularism: Herodotus on Sport, Greekness, Piety and War

Abstract

This essay discusses the intersections of sport (athletes, agonistic festivals) and Greek ethnicity, religion, politics and warfare in Herodotus' Histories. Herodotus makes occasional but significant use of sport to characterize peoples and individuals. Passages concerning Egypt (the Elean embassy), Lydia (Croesus) and Persia (Xerxes being told that Greeks compete at Olympia ‘for arete, not material gain’), help define ‘Greekness’ or Hellenic culture. Herodotus also mentions several athletes but primarily because of their military or political activities. The study uses Herodotus on sport to contrast particularism and pan-Hellenism in the Persian War, especially concerning presentations of agonistic festivals (Olympics, Karneia, Hyakinthia) as excuses for delayed or inadequate involvement in defensive efforts in 490 and 480–79. Herodotus (8. 144) has Athens invoke cultural pan-Hellenism, but reactions to the Persian threat suggest more particularism than pan-Hellenism.

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