“Have you heard the words, gymnasium and gymnastics?” They both come from the same root, from the word gymnos, which means naked and for that reason gymnasium literally means the place of the naked men.Gymnastics is the activity of the naked men, athletic nudity. Ancient Greek classical statues, depicting athletes, depicted the athletes naked. Athletic nudity came into the stadium from the battlefield, from heroic nudity.
The Battle of Thermopylae was on the edge between the pre-classical and the classical time and the common soldier of that time appeared in the battlefield like you see in the monument of the King of Sparta, naked, for two reasons.
First, if the soldiers would run out of arrows and their swords were broken and their spears, they had to grasp their enemy with their hands and kill him by wrestling and boxing using only their hands. For that reason, their bodies were naked and rubbed with olive oil to be slippery.
At the latest phases of the battle they threw away all that was bothering them. They had only their hair, and their beard covered with a helmet, and when they grasped against the enemy with their hands, nakedness was to their benefit because usually the enemy was dressed. That is the first reason.
The second reason is that they went to the battlefield with a 50% risk of being killed – and you know what happened after the battle. The winners came back to the battlefield to undress and disarm the dead bodies of the enemies to fix their trophy and prepare their triunes.
The Spartans didn’t like to leave behind spoils to their enemies to fix for their own trophy. That was the pride of the winner but at the same time was a shame for the memory of the dead one. So, they preferred to leave behind nothing but their dead bodies, which were totally useless to their enemies. This is heroic nudity.
Heroic and athletic nudity were common in antiquity and athletic nudity is used in the New Testament as an illustration of the transparency of the Christian life.
Do you remember which book of the New Testament speaks about athletic nudity? It’s in the book that no one could ever imagine – the book of Hebrews. The athletic life of the Greeks was a part of the religious life. For that reason, any participation in the games, races or athletic events, was totally prohibited to the Hebrews.
But in Hebrews, where no one ever could expect it we find a very strong athletic illustration related with athletic nudity.
Hebrews Chapter 12: verses 1 and 2:
Being surrounded by a cloud of witnesses (the spectators of the stadium) let’s run our race – not putting down every weight as most translations say but everything which has a volume on our body – that means totally naked – and let’s run a race fixing our eyes to Jesus who is the author and the perfecter of our faith.
There are many Christians today who believe that the life, the human life, is divided into private and public – life behind doors and life out doors. All of our life is public and we run our race of this life totally naked, in front of the eyes, not only to God and devil and demons but also in front of the eyes of the cloud of many other witnesses.
So, nothing is private. There are a lot of witnesses witnessing the most private moments of our life and this is what the Bible says.
Don’t deceive yourselves that there are things that no one ever will know because it’s totally private. Everything’s public.
Kostas asked, “Ok, are there any questions?”
Next he turned our attention to the monument of King Leonidas and the frieze under the monument.
He pointed out to us that the King of Sparta was depicted as an ancient soldier, a common soldier.
Under the monument, etched in the frieze, we looked closely to see the battle scene with naked soldiers and dressed soldiers, and soldiers with armors – these were mostly officers and noble men.
Rich with effort to support an armor, the officers and noblemen went to battle together with their servants. A full armor weighed approximately 45 kilos, over 90 pounds, and it was a little bit difficult for the well-armed people to move. In the battlefield the servants had the obligation to fight against the enemy, to protect themselves and to protect also their master.
We could see two reclining figures – one depicting the River Evrotas of Spartacus and the other the Mount of Taygetus, Spitogatos, giving the geographical frame of the King of Sparta.
We took our photos and then climbed a little bit to the top of the hill to see the grave and the battlefield.
