The Olympic
Truce - Myth and Reality
by Harvey Abrams
The ancient Greeks loved to
fight and their wars literally consumed them. The victors killed
all the men and enslaved all the women and children. The cities
were pillaged and destroyed. No truce for a sports event interfered
with this kind of conflict. And what of the Persians and other
invaders? Did they also observe the Greeks' "truce"?
Certainly not. Heads rolled anyway.
Our modern myth has grown through
misunderstanding and, trying to put this politely, ignorance.
Studying about the ancient Greeks is difficult. Not just the
Greeks, but all ancient civilizations are difficult to study
and understand. We learn from the ruins unearthed at archeological
sites, artworks such as statuary and vase paintings, and even
some written records that have survived through the millenniums.
But there are no surviving Greek books! There are no papyrus
scrolls sitting in museums. What we have today came to us from
medieval monks who translated Greek scraps into Latin, which
were later translated into French, German, Dutch and British
English, which then were translated into American English.
Have you ever played "Message
to Garcia"? The message in the end bears no resemblance
at all to the original. No written record has ever been found
with the rules of the ancient Greek ekecheiria, or truce. Only
written references to its violations are recorded. These records
say that the truce forbade the taking up of arms, the pursuit
of legal disputes and the use of the death penalty. But these
rules cannot be interpreted to mean that all wars came to an
end.
What did the truce really mean?
Now you can sit back and try to become an historian! You guess.
You try to make an intelligent guess, of course. You review all
the knowledge that historians and archeologists have uncovered
through the centuries. You look only at ancient Greek evidence,
which is like putting together a puzzle after it has been thrown
into a campfire. You recover the ashes and try to put the puzzle
back together. You interpret the evidence, and try to find the
truth, sort of like a judge or jury.
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