© DEA / ICAS94 via Getty ImagesAn 1838 illustration of Pindar, the lyric poet from ancient Greece, reciting one of the Olympian odes
Poetry was an official Olympic event for nearly 40 years. Pierre de Coubertin hoped the modern Games would encourage the ancient Greek notion of harmony between "muscle and mind"At the
ancient Olympics in Greece, athletes weren't the only stars of the show. The spectacle also attracted poets, who
recited their works for eager audiences. Competitors commissioned
bigger names to write odes of their victories, which choruses
performed at elaborate celebrations. Physical strength and literary prowess were inextricably
linked.
Thousands of years later, this image appealed to
Pierre de Coubertin, a French baron best known as the founder of the modern Olympics in 1896. But today's Games bear little resemblance to Coubertin's grand vision: He pictured a competition that would "reunite in the bonds of legitimate wedlock a long-divorced couple —
muscle and mind."
The baron believed that humanity had "lost all sense of
eurythmy," a word he used to describe the harmony of arts and athletics. The idea can be
traced back to sources such as Plato's
Republic, in which Socrates extolls the virtues of education that combines "
gymnastic for the body and music for the soul." Poets should become athletes, and athletes should try their hand at verse.
Comment: There's evidence showing that the above may have been but one method of the hunt, too:
Bones of 60 mammoths found near human-built traps in Mexico
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