How did the ancient greeks train? They had some pretty impressive feats, mostly in endurance (rowing triremes, cross country running, etc), but what about getting strong?
Greek Fitness
Charles Bailey
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Nathan Moore
They didn’t. Strength of random unused muscles is not important in war. That’s why the military only tests you in pushups, sit-ups, and pull-ups.
Sebastian Gonzalez
Most hoplites during the polis period of Ancient Greece were farmers who owned their own land and grew a pretty wide diversity of crops, and often owned some small animals as well. They did own slaves but only one or two and would usually work along side them. This meant doing manual labor all day, almost all year.
In terms of actually military training they did almost none. They were too busy, and the phalanx formation did not allow much in terms of in-battle maneuvering so it wouldn't have made much of a difference. You needed the strength and muscle endurance to carry about 70 lb of equipment in battle (which lasted a couple hours at most) while still retaining enough mobility to stab with a spear, but there was little benefit to being stronger than that because of the constraints phalanx warfare imposed.
The Spartans were the exception to this, because they had helots to do their work for them. They trained a lot, but I don't know any of the specific exercises. Many important aspects of their training were designed to promote mental fortitude, which in a phalanx was more important than anything else - you had to march your enemy head-on, staring them in the face, without flinching or breaking formation.
Many well to do city dwellers would train in gymnasiums, mostly doing exercises that resembled competitions in the Olympics. But the hoplites like in your picture rarely if ever used these places.
Logan Smith
How did they TRAIN? user, there's little to no evidence that they even existed...
Brody Watson
>This meant doing manual labor all day, almost all year.
lmao no
The entire premise of the gym and the palestra (really what all of Western Civics were predicated on during the pre-Christian era) was that the men wouldn't start to take on aspects of human domestication syndrome, which they observed in the Asian peoples compared to the barbarians of Europe. Greeks could build a heroic physique through training and that this and only this could lead to a mind worth thinking with and a civilization worth living in. Someone pls post that old BAP-pilled pasta about the bone density of the ancient Europeans, how all those men charged the ranks at Marathon and marched back like 20 miles in a single fucking day in full suits of bronze armor to defend their city. The ancient Greeks trained their bodies more than any single people in the ancient world. It goes back to myth, Hercules and Theseus invented pankration. Read Plato user, there is tons of gay shit about him mirin' young lads and etc. He was a wrestler and so was Socrates, Socrates saved Alcibiades in a battle once. One of the most eminent philosophers who ever lived saved the life of one of the most unrestrained, chaotic, charismatic, impossibly intelligent and warlike men to have ever lived. A guy who got paid actual money to sit on his ass and think and talk all day had fought that many battles and spent that many years training his body with his gay friend Plato, and lived to tell how he once saved a gigaChad from death -- and his bros could verify it. Think about that for a fucking second.
Jordan Ward
Why is it always so sunny in ancient Greece? Did they wear those skirts in the winter? Jesus.... that would mean Skyrim was historically accurate.
Dylan Young
Aristotle thought they were all cucks in an intellectual sense and taught a young Alexander the Great. Alexander hated anything to do with the palestras or the gyms because of the progressing decadence one could find in them but still knew the value of training wrestling (and all one needs to do to train wrestling, bodyweight exercises, weights, good nutrition, etc). They knew this because when man doesn't train his body he becomes weak, diseased and docile.
The Romans disregarded the same types of training because they thought it was so decadent. And by the time Romans were commonly observing what was going on in gymnasiums and palestras, they were probably right (though some think this was just because of their prideful nature, they did not like the idea of losing or admitting inferiority ever when possible, real macho shit). They were much more of le manual labor type of military culture, much more the ones to focus solely on military training and building roads and tedious bullshit like that, instead of gains. Manual labor is fucking gay, gayer than gay sex and no man in his right mind wants to participate in that year-round. Much less ancient fucking Greeks, like one of the highest cultures to have ever existed.
There was an interesting claim a few years ago by an Italian fellow, who said that the Ancient Greeks were actually Nordics, or that at least their environment was like Northern Europe. I think it's bullshit of course but the way he explained some aspects about Homer unironically made me think. I don't think Myceneans or the bronze age peoples had a similar aesthetic, or maybe that was just Homer being creative.
Dominic Harris
nigga wat
Anthony Diaz
>The entire premise of the gym and the palestra was that the men wouldn't start to take on aspects of human domestication syndrome
The population of Ancient Greece was overwhelmingly rural. You're right about the purpose of the gymnasium, but that only applied to people who lived in the city, which was a small minority.
>all those men charged the ranks at Marathon and marched back like 20 miles in a single fucking day in full suits of bronze armor to defend their city
Armor was usually carried by a slave.
>Read Plato user
I have read some Plato. Plato was an Aristocrat, so he never had to work. Socrates was not, but by their time the old status qualifications had turned into strictly monetary qualifications (so he could serve as a hoplite), and the Athenians were quite desperate during the Peloponnesian war. And besides he had rich benefactors like Plato so he could spend time in the gymnasium. Plato and Socrates are not representative of most Greek warriors.
Athens was the second most atypical Greek polis, with only Sparta being more atypical. Socrates and Plato were atypical people in an atypical polis, making generalizations of Greek culture based on them is silly.
>Manual labor is fucking gay, gayer than gay sex and no man in his right mind wants to participate in that year-round. Much less ancient fucking Greeks, like one of the highest cultures to have ever existed.
Yet the vast majority of Greeks did participate in manual labor, as did the vast majority of mankind until quite recently, and they did not share your attitude towards it.
Austin Moore
>The population of Ancient Greece was overwhelmingly rural
Slaves, perhaps. You need to understand the mindset of the time, they viewed slaves as more like cattle. Not like people. If you were wealthy and owned land, you lived in the city and were involved in the affairs of state and at the forum...
>Armor was usually carried by a slave.
Not at Marathon, this was the point of my post. I wish I would have saved that old screencap of that other post I mentioned, it was so poetic and funny, I couldn't match it perhaps even if I tried.
>Plato and Socrates are not representative of most Greek warriors.
… Yeah I'm aware. What other insights can you offer? This is fucking insulting at this point. This unironic worship of manual labor is very revealing amerimutt, you are a pleb at soul. Not even medieval peasants worked hard labor the entire year. You've been duped!
Brandon Carter
The majority of Greeks didn’t live like that, in the same way that most people today don’t look like Dwayne Johnson.
Jose Taylor
>making generalizations of Greek culture based on them is silly.
Also I never did this. My point was about civic structure and why the gymnasium & training was so integral to the culture of ancient Greece.
Jackson Allen
Most people aren't frauds, and most of the people in the polis weren't slaves or abused laborers. Your points are shit and so are his desu.
Jayden Ortiz
>Slaves, perhaps
Ancient Greek agriculture (at least pre-Alexander) was not based around huge plantation systems. It was dominated by small family farms, which did own slaves, but only a couple, and the owners would usually work with them doing mostly the same work.
>If you were wealthy and owned land, you lived in the city and were involved in the affairs of state and at the forum
Again, completely untrue, unless you're only talking about aristocrats, but most people who were eligible to be involved in the affairs of the state were not aristocrats. Many people eligible to vote did not vote on most issues precisely because they did own land, because they weren't going to take a day trip away from their farm to vote on minor issues.
The most normal arrangement in Ancient Greece pre-Alexander was hoplite oligarchy, where participation in government was based on agricultural output and one's ability to pay for the hoplite panoply. You did not need to be an aristocrat to achieve this, but you did need to own property.
>Not at Marathon
It probably was at Marathon. Herodotus is pretty unreliable.
>Not even medieval peasants worked hard labor the entire year
I said almost all year. Greece is very warm so the growing season is very long. And they grew a wide variety of crops, as I said, so at different parts of the year they would be planting different crops. And even during the "winter" trees don't die, nor do pests because it's not that cold in Greece, and animals still need to be fed, so even then there is work to do. Besides, the farmers (who also made up the hoplite class) of Ancient Greece were not peasants, they were yeomen. There's an important difference - yeomen own their own land, peasants do not.
>the gymnasium & training was so integral to the culture of ancient Greece
It only was among the urbanites, who are not the people that would make up the bulk of the military (at least until the Peloponnesian war).
Xavier Collins
I should make clear that I'm talking about the polis period, which includes both the archaic and classical periods.
William Rodriguez
Utter bull. Elite forces incorporate things like log carry into training because for real warriors, strength matters.
Wyatt Perry
Dylan Lee
Easton Gutierrez
David Wright
Socrates was not only ripped, he was FUCKING ripped. Pretty much every Greek philosopher, poet, tragedian, and so on would have been, because they were all adult male citizens, and either had to fight in the army or (later) row in the fleet. Or both.
People underestimate the level of physical exertion these things required. These guys worked out EVERY day. They worked out so much that they actually liked working out. They lived to work out. Their entire leisure time was composed of working out and getting gay over how hot their bods were in the balmy Mediterranean sun. The first ten fucking pages in Plato's FIRST dialogue have Socrates lusting over a teenager's sweaty, manly pecs through his toga. Socrates likens himself to a lion that is about to gobble up its prey. He can barely control himself. That is how the Western philosophical tradition starts: homoerotic lust for ripped abs. When Alcibiades, the manliest man in history, bursts into the famous drinking party, at which the guests are discussing the urbane topic of Love, it is to ask Socrates why he never fucked him in the ass when they cuddled. You know how the dialogue ends? Socrates goes to the gym and works out.
Henry Jenkins
Modern recreations and reconstructions have not even succeeded in duplicating the physical feats reported of the Athenian soldiery - that is, the Athenian citizenry. Often, modern historians doubt that these feats are even being accurately reported, for instance the straight dash of the Athenian army across the entire field at Marathon. This is because modern athletes and bodybuilders can't even do these things, even with relatively light gear compared to what the Athenians actually carried. It took a team of Olympic master rowers to even APPROXIMATE the sailing techniques of the Athenian fleet, outside of combat conditions, on a placid sea. The entire Athenian fleet was regularly capable of these maneuvers, season after season, year after year, campaign after campaign. The sole engine of these maneuvers was muscle. Raw, sweaty, heaving Athenian muscle. Athenian men were the envy of the Aegean.
It is understandable that modern historians, coming from a society of flabby, skinnyfat wimps, are unable to comprehend the sheer manliness of Athens. Socrates saved Alciabiades in a hoplite battle in the Peloponnesian War. Aeschylus, the tragic poet, fought at Marathon. And all of them worked out and fucked ass, at every moment they weren't literally inventing Western civilisation.
Aiden Davis
Most motivating thing I've read all year probably
Gabriel Moore
athenians went rowing all the time harder than most good modern teams
Connor Hill
Based Symposium poster
Charles Sullivan
Citations?
Benjamin Gomez
It was a global warm period
Logan Russell
Probably by lifting up heavy things and putting them down again
Cameron Rogers
fucking idiot
Josiah Gray
>You know how the dialogue ends? Socrates goes to the gym and works out.
lol'd
Nathan Miller
it's copypasta
Isaac Diaz
I suspect wrestling Greek women was a pretty good workout.