The effects of the Hellenic Revolution

on Modern Athletics and Fitness

(including “before the Revolution ” and
“after the establishment of Hellas”)
- Kostas Dervenis© 2021
 Neoclassicism

• Neoclassicism (from Greek νέος (nèos), "new," and Latin classicus, "of the highest rank") was a
Western cultural movement in the decorative, visual and physical arts, literature, theatre, music, and
architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity, emphasizing ancient
Greek and Roman culture.
• Neoclassicism was born in Rome largely thanks to the writings of Johann Joachim Winckelmann, at
the time of the rediscovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Winckelmann (1717 – 1768) was one of
the founders of scientific archaeology and first articulated the difference between Greek, Greco-
Roman and Roman art. Born in Germany, in journeyed to Rome to join the Catholic Church and
become a librarian of the Vatican, president of Antiquities, and personal secretary to Cardinal
Albani.
• Winckelmann's masterpiece ”Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums” ("The History of Art in
Antiquity"), published in 1764, was soon recognized as a permanent contribution to European
literature and affected European culture throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.
 Neoclassicism

• Neoclassicism affected all aspects and fronts of European culture, including art, sculpture, literature,
fashion, architecture, athletics, philosophy, government, legislation, etc.
• Napoleon had a set of emblems unmistakably associated with his rule, most notably the eagle, the
bee, stars, and the initials I (for Imperator) and N (for Napoleon), which were usually inscribed
within an imperial laurel crown. Motifs used included: figures of Victory bearing palm branches,
Greek dancers, nude and draped women, figures of antique chariots, Apollo, Hermes and the
Gorgon, swans, lions, the heads of oxen, chimeras, sphinxes, sea horses, oak wreaths, climbing grape
vines, cornucopias, amphoras, tripods, the caduceus of Hermes, helmets, Cupid(s), etc.
• The British were even more centered on Greece itself: Writers such as Alexander Pope, John Dryden,
Jonathan Swift and many others found inspiration in the classical period during the 17th and 18th
centuries. They set the stage for the greatest PhilHellene of them all: George Gordon, Lord Byron.
 Neoclassicism

• Throughout the early 19th century, the contrast between the glories of ancient Greece and the
servile humiliation imposed on modern Greeks by the Ottoman Empire was a frequent theme for
poets in Europe. Lord Byron, before going off to join the cause of Greek independence, lamented in
his Childe Harold: “Tis Greece – but living Greece no more! So coldly sweet, so deadly fair, We start –
for soul is wanting there.”, while in Germany Friedrich Hölderlin wrote in his novel Hyperion of the
struggles of a young Greek to raise awareness of his country’s plight and find a place in the wider
world.
• Lord Byron famously considered the ancient ruins of Greece to be the sepulchre, or burial ground, of
lost Western civilisation. Europe had to fight to resurrect the Phoenix of Hellas from its ashes, and
that resurrection took many forms, as many forms as the Phoenix had feathers. One of those forms
was classical athleticism and wellness, νοῦς ὑγιής ἐν σώματι ὑγιεῖ (though the phrase is in fact
Roman, not Greek, coined by Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis).
 Neoclassicism and Athletics

• L’ Olympiade de la République was held in revolutionary France as an early forerunner to the

modern Olympic Games. In 1796, four sporting events were held in front of 300,000 people:
running (track), a horse race, a chariot race, and the “ring-race”, a lancer’s competition wherein the
rider had to complete six laps of the Champ de Mars while snatching rings with the tip of their lance
(the merry-go-round amusement ride derives from this military training exercise).
• The 1798 Olympiade included wrestling , jousting, and running races at various distances. It also
marked the introduction of the metric system into sports.
• Athletics competitions were held about 1812 at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and in 1840 in
Shrewsbury, Shropshire at the Royal Shrewsbury School Hunt. The Royal Military Academy at
Woolwich held an organised competition in 1849, and a regular series of closed meetings open only
to undergraduates, was held by Exeter College, Oxford from 1850. The annual Wenlock Olympian
Games, first held in 1850 in Wenlock, England, incorporated athletics events into its sports
programme.
 Neoclassicism and Athletics

• Thomas Arnold was the headmaster of Rugby School from 1828 to 1841, where he introduced a
number of reforms that were widely copied by other prestigious public schools redefining standards
of masculinity and achievement and centering on neoclassic principles.
• Between 1862 and 1867, Liverpool held an annual Grand Olympic Festival. Devised by John Hulley
and Charles Melly, these games were the first to be wholly amateur in nature and international in
outlook, although only 'gentlemen amateurs' could compete. The programme of the first modern
Olympiad in Athens in 1896 was almost identical to that of the Liverpool Olympics.
• In 1865 Hulley, Brookes and E.G. Ravenstein founded the National Olympian Association in Liverpool,
a forerunner of the British Olympic Association. Its articles of foundation provided the framework
for the International Olympic Charter. In 1866, a national Olympic Games in Great Britain was
organised at London's Crystal Palace.
 Hellas and modern Sports

• Greek interest in reviving the Olympic Games began with the Greek War of Independence from the
Ottoman Empire in 1821. It was first proposed by poet, newspaper editor and political-hopeful
Panagiotis Soutsos in his poem "Dialogue of the Dead", published in 1833 in Nauplion, then the
capital of the newly-independent Greek state. The poem portrays the spirit of Plato returning to
Hellas to gaze upon it in despair, hoping for a return to ancient glory. (The poem is also notably anti-
Kapodistrias, who, having been murdered, is a ghost in attendance in the poem.) “Where are your
Olympic Games?” Plato asks. (Soutsos was a Phanariote and student of Adamantios Korais.)
• Two years later (1835), Soutsos followed this up with a letter to the Greek Minister of the Interior,
Ioannis Kolettis, proposing that 25 March, the anniversary of the outbreak of the Greek War of
Independence, should be declared a national holiday, marked by festivities including the revival of
the ancient Olympics.
 Hellas and modern Sports

• Evangelos Zappas (1800 –1865), an Aromanian Greek from the village of Labovo near Argyrokastro in
Northern Epirus, was the prime benefactor of the modern Olympics. During his youth, Zappas joined
the Greek War of Independence (1821–1832), achieving the rank of major and fighting in several
significant battles. Following Greek independence (1831), he moved to Wallachia (Romania) where
he made a fortune in land and agriculture, becoming one of the richest men in Europe.
• Zappas first wrote to King Otto of Greece in January 1856, offering to fund a permanent revival of
the Olympic Games. In July 1856, an article in the Greek press by Panagiotis Soutsos made Zappas's
proposal widely known to the public. King Otto subsequently agreed to the organization of athletic
competitions at four-year intervals, with Zappas' full sponsorship, to coincide with industrial and
agricultural expositions.
• Zappas sponsored the first Olympic Games in 1859, which were held in an Athens city square (likely
Πεδίον Άρεως, the Field of Mars). Athletes participated from Greece and the Ottoman Empire.
 Hellas and modern Sports

• The “Papingo” connection (Once Again!):

• Zacharias Sardellis (c. 1830-1913) was a reporter, teacher, author and philosopher. Between 1858
and 1865 he was the secretary of Evangelos Zappas in Bucharest, Romania.
• He was the drafter of Zappas’ will, creating the 13 articles that had to do with the Olympic Games
and ensuring that «οι απανταχού του κόσμου Έλληνες, να πέμπωσι κατά τετραετίαν επιτροπάς εις
τας Αθήνας, ένθα θα εδρεύη διαρκής Επιτροπή, και να συσκέπτονται περί των συμφερόντων του
γένους».
• Sidenote: Sardellis was a tough S.O.B. who was involved politically in clashes between Romania and
Greece later in his life. When Konstantinos Zappas died in 1892, the Romanian government seized all
his assets, causing much trouble. In his 70s, Sardellis was the victim of an assassination attempt that
cost him his eye (therefore photos of him show one eye covered by a black monocle) and he was
subsequently exiled to Gaesti during the Balkan wars where he died in 1913.
 Hellas and modern Sports

• These second Olympic Games were held in 1870 at the newly refurbished Panathenaic Stadium.
After a period of litigation over Zappas's bequests, his cousin Konstantinos Zappas continued and
expanded his endowment of the Games and maintained efforts for the continuation of the Olympic
spirit and completed reconstruction of the stadium (Sardellis was a witness on his behalf). The
Olympic Games of 1870, apart from being the first modern international Olympic Games to be
hosted in a stadium, were attended by 25,000 people and by athletes from all over Europe and the
Ottoman Empire.
• A third iteration of the Games was held in 1875 once again at the Panathenaic Stadium. Records
were not kept.
• All these games were international.
 Hellas and modern Sports

• The Baron de Coubertin was focused in particular on physical education and the role of athletics in
schooling. In 1883, he visited England for the first time, and studied the program of physical
education instituted under Thomas Arnold at the Rugby School. Coubertin credited these methods
with leading to the expansion of British power during the 19th century and advocated their use in
French institutions. The inclusion of physical education in the curriculum of French schools would
become an ongoing pursuit and passion of Coubertin’s.
• As a historian and a thinker on education, Coubertin romanticised ancient Greece. Thus, when he
began to develop his theory of physical education, he naturally looked to the example set by the
Athenian idea of the gymnasium, a training facility that simultaneously encouraged physical and
intellectual development. He saw in these gymnasia what he called a triple unity between old and
young, between disciplines, and between different types of people.
 Hellas and modern Sports

• The rest is history. In 1894, precursor institutions crystallized into the International Olympic
Committee (IOC), with Demetrius Vikelas as its first President. The work of the IOC increasingly
focused on the planning the 1896 Athens Games, and de Coubertin ensured that Greek authorities
took the lead in logistical organisation of the Games in Greece itself.
• Professor David C. Young, of the University of Florida (Gainesville), notes:
"Had it not been for Zappas, the Athens Games of 1896 surely would not have taken place.
Zappas's actions, his will, and the previous tradition of Zappas’ Olympic Games made [Crown
Prince] Constantine [of Greece] an advocate of Olympic Games before the formation of the
IOC in 1894.”
Hellas and Martial
Education (Pammachon)
• Beginning in 1865, martial education was
enacted by Royal Decree within the Greek
school system in Hellas and exported to the
schools of the Hellenic Diaspora in the
occupied territories. We have discussed this
in previous EMBCA panels.
• People are quick to assign these practices to
French or British influence on Hellas proper
(especially French). But sports did not mature
at Rugby until 1840 or so, and de Coubertin
did not visit England until 1883. Savate and
baton matured in France throughout the 19th
century, taking proper form only in the late
19th. German and Danish influence on Hellas,
for example, might have been greater; it was
Danish King George I that issued the decree.
• Given the rise and love of neoclassicism and what
we know of the history of the Hellenic Diaspora in
Europe, we must be careful in evaluating
influences. Reality is fractal. The Hellenic
Diaspora were tremendously successful and
influential in Eastern Europe.

?
• We must not forget that all neoclassical sport had
a military “character” (the “Field of Mars”).
 Conclusions: Hellas and modern Sports

1. Were it not for the Hellenic Revolution, the neoclassicism of Europe would not have evolved into
its 19th century format, which was a more “warrior-focused” evolution of the earlier more
“liberal” and humanistic neo-classicism (we can call it “neoclassical martial education”).
2. Were it not for the rebirth of Hellas itself, Zappas would not have left his legacy for the Olympic
Games to prosper and take the world by storm. Zappas specifically wanted all Olympic Games to
take place in Greece “περί των συμφερόντων του γένους”. (Note: The Greek Diaspora prospered
in the 18th and 19th centuries in the Ottoman Empire and beyond. The Revolution was specifically
enacted to initiate the re-birth of Hellas. Zappas did not fund Olympic elsewhere.)
3. Were it not for the Olympic Games, would sport and wellness have evolved to their modern shape
in the world? Would modern athletics and fitness be as widespread, and would they be such a
positive influence on everyone’s lives in every country in the world today?