New Trains & Old Olympics
THE ISOLYMPIC
GAMES
The somewhat less than irresistible force of underground train construction in Naples
has once again run
into the immovable (but not indestructible) object of an
ancient Roman archaeological site. So far it’s a tie,
but I suspect than when the dust has cleared, the new
Duomo metro station at Piazza Nicola
Amore will incorporate (as the metro has done elsewhere)
at least part of the old ruins, in this case, the
monument complex of the Isolympic Augustan Roman Italic Games.
Construction now seems to have picked up again, and a
lot of archaeological pieces have been moved to the
small metro-museum
beneath the main National Archaeological
Museum.
Wall display in the metro-museum
Historian
Strabo mentions the games of
Neapolis and says that they "rivaled the most famous games
of Greece." The recent excavations
have uncovered parts of the portico and temple associated
with the games, which were started by Augustus Caesar in 2
AD. Those structures were found on top of earlier ones put
up in the second century BC as part of a general
renovation of the stretch of beach before the old southern
wall of Greco-Roman Naples.Suetonius tells us that the August One was quite a fan:
...he watched the proceedings intently; either to avoid the bad reputation earned by Julius Caesar for reading letters or petitions, and answering them, during such performances, or just to enjoy the fun, as he frankly admitted doing. ...His chief delight was to watch boxing…
The
prefix iso-
means “same as” and thus proclaims the importance of the
games by declaring them equal to those of the Greeks.
Indeed, archaeologists
have actually found
the inscription, "We are the Roman Augustan games equal
to the [games] in Olympia." The inscription was one of 400 pieces of
Greek-inscribed marble recovered from in front of the
temple of Augustus.
Augustus chose the very Greek town of Neapolis
for the games. They
were held every four years and featured equestrian,
athletic, and musical contests. The equestrian contests
included horseback races, and races of chariots drawn by
teams of two and four horses. The athletic contests
included stadium races, pentathlon, wrestling, boxing,
pancratium (mixed—anything goes—combat), an armed race
(I’m afraid to ask!), and acrobatics. The athletes, who
came from all over the Mediterranean, competed
in their age groups. Women also took part in the
contests.
The winners in the athletic contests
received a wheat-stalk wreath, but there were also
prizes in money for the musical and theater contests,
which included flute, kithara (or ‘cithara,’ a
seven-stringed lyre; the name is the origin of the word
‘guitar’), poetry, comedy, tragedy, and pantomime. The
Isolympic games were still being celebrated in the
second half of the third century AD, when the temple and
the portico were renovated for the last time.
There are three slabs on display in the
museum (photo, above) and date from the late first
century AD and bear lists of winners of several editions
of the games. The winners came from Asia Minor and Egypt. The only Neapolitan
winner may have been one Julius Valerianus —“from
Neapolis” (although other towns named Neapolis existed
in the Greek and Roman world).
On the first slab, one can still read
the year in which the games were held (94 AD) and the
names of the agonothetai (the
presidents and organizers of the games). The second slab
lists winners of athletic games. The program includes,
as well, a female contest. On the third slab, the name
of the reigning emperor (Domitian?) stands out in a list
of authors of eulogies to Augustus and his successors.
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