Hippeis, not Hippies

[Polinik]

.................There was a table that showed almost all of the olympic victors in the last quarter of the 5th c were winners only of chariot racing. Since the winner of chariot races were not even the fellow driving, but the person who bred and trained the horses, this does not speak well for the qualification of a bodyguard! Perhaps someone knows more about the list of victors than was in this one chapter I found.

Since Spartan "Olympic Champions" were distinctly lacking, other than wealthy horse owners......................

I came here with text I prepaired earlier,when I was not home.Because I expected this issue to appear.Since this topic is very rich on text so to say,I will keep this as short as possible,and only on this particular issue.

List of Olympic victors is NOT COMPLETE,NOT EVEN CLOSE..If you see a list of Laconian Olympionikes ( http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_JtQs3lLQqb8/S ... s1600-h/EN ???+???'+007.jpg) you will see that 7th century(the best recorded) takes almost half of entire list. And if it’s not argument enough for list and records being uncomplete,let’s take only less than 2 decades in early 5th BC:

-Who won wrestling in 488BC,492BC,500BC,504BC etc etc?
-Who won hoplitodromos in 488BC,492BC,496BC,500BC etc etc?
-Who won pankration 488BC,492BC,496BC, 500BC,504BC, 508BC etc etc?
-Who won diaulos in 492BC,496BC,500BC etc etc?
-Who won discus, or javelin – in any ancient Olympic games,ever ?
etc etc etc

WE DON’T KNOW. We have rougly 1/3 of recorded victors in ancient Olympic games.
Point – we should stop taking the crumbs of historical evidence we have so seriously and literary because in most cases they are just that - crumbs.In any topic…And making conclusions based on crumbs is ridiculous.
And judging by previous, even RECORDED accounts,Spartans could count on Olympic victors enough to safely make “Olympic victors become bodyguards” a rule..but that is for another time.

All best