From lockyert@mweb.co.za Sun Oct 1 11:58:10 2000 Received: from mxu1.u.washington.edu (mxu1.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.05/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id LAA146336 for ; Sun, 1 Oct 2000 11:58:08 -0700 Received: from jhb-imta.mweb.co.za (jhb-imta.mweb.co.za [196.2.48.244]) by mxu1.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id LAA24773 for ; Sun, 1 Oct 2000 11:58:05 -0700 Received: from default ([196.30.238.201]) by jhb-imta.mweb.co.za (Sun Internet Mail Server sims.3.5.2000.03.23.18.03.p10) with SMTP id <0G1R008ONLZ8ZP@jhb-imta.mweb.co.za> for classics@u.washington.edu; Sun, 1 Oct 2000 20:57:10 +0200 (GMT-2) Date: Sun, 01 Oct 2000 20:55:15 +0200 From: Terrence Lockyer Subject: 1st, 2nd and 3rd place To: Classics List Reply-to: Terrence Lockyer Message-id: <001001c02bd9$3c662a80$c9ee1ec4@default> MIME-version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2014.211 Content-type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2014.211 X-Priority: 3 On Sat, 30 Sep 2000, Dave Abbott wrote: : There is no point in checking the official Olympics : website for the answers as they seem to be of the : impression that the ancient games took place : amongst the lions and gladiators of the Coliseum : (re: the Coliseum-like image on the prize medals : themselves). Oh, well :-) The stadium on the 2000 medals has been discussed here before, on which occasion it was, I believe, pointed out by David Meadows (I think) that the generic stadium that features on all modern Olympic medals is supposed to be based on the Athens Colosseum, site of events in the first modern Olympics. It seems that the designer simply used one Colosseum instead of another. 'Coliseum' is a modern (and apparently almost exclusively American) misspelling of the Latin Colosseum. This itself is (according to OCD3, s.v. 'Colosseum') a name first used in medieval times for what in ancient times was called the Flavian Amphitheatre (or Amphitheatrum Flavium), because it was built in the period of the Flavian Emperors (Vespasian, Titus and Domitian, 69-96 CE). It was dedicated in 80 CE. The name Colosseum derives from a large-scale statue ('colossus') of Nero that stood nearby. The sequence of gold, silver and bronze for first (or best), second (or next best) and third (or next after that) has a long history. One of the earliest Greek uses of this sequence may be found in Hesiod (Works and Days 109-55), who describes how the gods created three successive kinds (the Greek word is GE/NOj) of mortals, the first of gold, the second of silver and the third of bronze, each of which was less perfect and less long-lived than its predecessor. The bronze age was, in Hesiod's version, succeeded by an age of heroes, which included the seven against Thebes and those who attacked Troy. The age of heroes was, in Hesiod's version, the last before Hesiod's own. The idea of medals, however, seems to be a distinctly modern one. Victors in the ancient Olympic games received crowns of olive, and the prizes at the other three major Greek athletic festivals (the Pythian, Nemean and Isthmian games) were similar. Victors in events at the Panathenaic games, a lesser festival held at Athens, received prizes of money or amphorai (of a special design, known as Panathenaic) containing olive oil. These amphorai usually bore on one side a depiction of the goddess Athena, and on the other one of an athletic event (perhaps that for which the amphora was awarded). The Panathenaic games seem to have been unusual in having prizes that had intrinsic, rather than symbolic, value. Terrence Lockyer Johannesburg, South Africa .