It is a commonplace of historiography that ancient Greece provided models of intellectual and political experience that are familiar to modern Western culture. But the iconography of the ancient world is not dominated by representations of philosophers or of city-state assemblies. It is entirely possible that, asked to select a single image representative of Golden Age Athens, many would settle on a piece of decorated pottery or sculpture portraying a discus thrower or chariot racer in action. Indeed, the ancient-era Olympic Games survived myriad ancient wars and "occupied such an important place in Greek life that time was measured by the interval between them--an Olympiad" (Abrahams).
For the Greeks, athletics had religious and cultural as well as practical significance, which helps explain why the poetry and philosophy of ancient Greece includes references to sports. The evidence of ancient discourses on the education of the future ruling classes is that training in physical development was just as essential as training in rhetoric, ethics, politics, and philosophy. The fact that participation in the Olympic Games and other athletic contests was restricted to freeborn males--women were not even admitted to the Games as spectators--further points up how much intellectual weight was invested in physical education.
Athletic training was considered an important feature of Greek culture and identity throughout the classical period. Herodotus makes much of the distinction between the Greek and Persian (Western and Eastern) mind-set when describing the circumstances of Xerxes's attempt to conquer Greece as revenge against the Greeks' earlier defeat of Darius at Marathon. The contrast Herodotus draws comes down to one between the absolutism of the East and the relatively more democratic civil society of the West, but the context for it is that, as Xerxes is regrouping for a sea invasion after losing thousands of warriors, he receives ...