Olympic Games (interesting, actually)

[SigniferOne]

I know the story, but as far as I can remember, it's not from Herodotus. That being said, you are right that the "worship" of sporters is Greek - but that's not the issue. The issue is whether the Olympic Games, in its first stage, may not have had eastern influences. I think that the claim deserves serious study; it's not unlike other eastern influence - think of the "orientalizing style" in Greek painting, the use of eastern motifs by Herodotus, the use of the alphabeth, the introduction of sacred prostitution in Corinth.

If that's the argument, then it is far more intellectually supportable -- and at the same time for all intents and purposes irrelevant. If we talk about the orientalizing period in Greek art, the question is -- did it have any causative and fundamental relevance to the creation of the Discobolus and everything it means? Obviously no. Of course the Greeks took the alphabet from the East, they certainly had to take it from somewhere, and it would be silly to say they made it up from scratch because people simply don't work like that. But they went on to write and infuse infused into it ideals and literature that other people simply couldn't even dream about. So how relevant is the fact of the alphabet coming from the east to the subject and meaning of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics? That in fact, the proper word is actually "alphabeth"? Very obliquely. Only as a curious and meaningless little curiosity to bring up at cocktail parties.

Same with Olympics -- is it possible that the Babylonians or the Egyptians had events where people would throw one another, or run? Sure, there are Egyptian paintings of this. But the Greeks took this and infused ideals and hero-worship into it that made it completely unrecognizable from the original "parents". That's why I took so much offense at that GilgameshGames website, because it seeks to efface this fundamental infusion of Greek values:

"The revelation that the Olympian “jewel in the crownâ€