Not Olympic

[porphyry]

The continuation of Leni Riefenstahl's toch-lighting ceremony.





They would do better to bring back the chariot races and the race in full armor.

Comments

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

What I miss here besides chanting (their mouths look that closed, to me) is a voluptuous Isadora Duncan banging her tambourine, hopping along uncoordinatedly, "dressed" in nothing but a piece of voile. It would at least add charm, where now it all looks merely ridiculous, like any theatre play boring one stiff before one´s time; which must be avoided at all costs!

[petrusplancius.livejournal.com]

- and the pankration; there's nothing like a good gouge.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Oh You're wicked--you know perfectly well gouging and bitting were illegal.

I left it out because it's all too like that in the near future 'etreme fighting' which began on college campuses as a revival of the pankration, will be added.

[benicek.livejournal.com]

Never mind the girls, just look at those columns! Phoaaaar!

Was it Riefenstahl's idea? That makes it more acceptable to me. Yes to chariots and armour. Sounds similar to the English civil war re-enactments I used to take part in as a teenager.

[benicek.livejournal.com]

I wonder if this ceremony annoys the orthodox church as much as other pagan activities: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/01/religion.uk

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

A further notice:

Philostratus' Gymnastikos 5: "When the
Eleans had slaughtered the sacrificial victim according to their custom,
its consecrated parts would lie on the altar, though not as yet set on
fire. The runners would stand at a distance of one stade from the altar,
in front of which was a priest signalling the start with a torch. And the
winner would set fire to the consecrated parts and then depart as an
Olympic victor."

The altar at Olympia, by the way, was famously jsut a heap of ashes left from previous sacfrices which was already a hill by classical times