Pentathlon
The pentathlon ( pentathlon ) was an athletic discipline in the ancient Olympic Games . The name is derived from the Greek word "five competitions": spear, discus, jump, run and wrestling. The first time they were there from the 18th Olympic Games in antiquity.
The rules of the ancient Pentathlon were lost in the confusion of the forced Christianization of the Roman Empire , if they were ever written down. In no surviving text is the sport the focus, in a few the reference is only made marginally, mostly in an interpretable metaphor . Today more questions about the Pentathlon are open than answered; Researchers agree on a few points. Half of all publications about Greek sport concern the Pentathlon.
The competition
The fighting was done in disciplines. The next discipline was not started until all athletes had completed the previous one. The referees stood in the stadium during the competition. Everyone had a stick in hand and punished every violation of the rules with a blow. There is often a flute player next to throwers and jumpers. He was the timepiece. Before his verse or verse was finished, the athlete had to throw or jump.
It is not known how many athletes took part in a competition. There are 21 career tracks in Olympia. This number is taken as the upper limit. Plato recommended that all young people practice the pentathlon. After that there must have been thousands of pentathletes in Athens with correspondingly large competitions. How long a competition lasted is only known from the Olympic Games . There the afternoon of the second day was reserved for the Pentathlon.
Order of disciplines
From the sequence we know that arm and leg exercises alternate. Last was wrestling. It is not known whether the order was always the same for all competitions. In the "holy" games, that is what one assumes. The order had no influence on the outcome of the competition.
Some researchers conclude from texts that the three pentathlon-specific disciplines were at the beginning. Then the order would be:
- spear
- Leap
- discus
- Run
- Wrestling
Disciplines
“The pentathlon was composed of both, namely easy and difficult exercises; because wrestling and discus throwing are difficult, javelin throwing , jumping and running are easy. ”(Philostratos). Throwing and jumping was only part of the Pentathlon. Running and wrestling were also sports in their own right.
To run
The length of the Pentathlon route is not clearly stated in any text. Most researchers assume the shortest and most popular ancient running track stadium (= 600 feet , depending on the venue between about 167.00 meters ( Delos ) and 192.24 meters ( Olympia )). This is supported by the fact that the length was not mentioned anywhere because it was taken for granted. In addition, the Pentathlon was won more often by sprinters , never by a long distance runner . Some researchers see the Pentathlon ruled by the magic number 5 , which is why they assume five stages as the running route.
Jump (five jump)
The jump was about the distance, not the height. You jumped from a special jump threshold ( bater ), probably from standing still several times (probably five times) in a row. The athlete had to leave clear, closely spaced prints on the previously loosened ground. In his hands he held elongated weights with handles, so-called holders . Weights of stone, clay and bronze between 1.48 and 4.629 kg were found. Each athlete used their own holders. Weights of different weights were used in a competition. The jump distance was marked with stakes and measured. The exact jumping technique is still unknown. According to Aristotle , one jumped further with weights than without. Jumping was one of the easy disciplines, but was considered difficult to learn.
Studies and computer simulations from 2002 have shown that by choosing suitable dumbbells, approx. 17 cm more width can be achieved per jump and thus approx. 1 m more in the five jump from a standing position.
Discus throw
The exact throwing technique is controversial. Rotary throwing and standing throwing were probably both allowed. The throwing distance was marked and measured up to the point where the disc remained lying. The disks probably had different weights depending on the location. In a competition, however, all athletes threw identical discs. Disks found are made of bronze or stone and weigh between 1.353 and 4.758 kg.
Javelin throw
The spears were much lighter than the battle spears, about body length and the thickness of a finger. They had blunt metal fittings on the front to prevent accidents. After jumping, the spear was thrown from below the hip or from shoulder height. In the middle of the shaft, a strap was wrapped around the spear, and the index and middle fingers were put into the loop. When it was thrown, the spear was initially released. The pull on the noose gave the spear momentum and rotation around its longitudinal axis. The distance to the point of impact counted. The ancient javelin required above all speed, but less strength than today. Seneca writes in Phaedra: "Even the bow-famous Cretans with their light arrow cannot reach the distance like a powerfully thrown thrown sling-spear." Then one must assume distances of up to 200 meters.
Wrestling
Wrestled was - unlike today in Greco-Roman wrestling - was primarily in the state target the enemy prostrate so that his back touched the ground.. The fight was decided when the opponent was knocked down three times. All grips, including kicking the legs and tripping on the knees, were allowed, but forbidden to force the opponent to give up by hitting, choking or twisting the joints. This type of wrestling, which was carried out at the same time as a fist fight , is also known as pankration . Of all martial arts today, ancient wrestling resembled Japanese sumo most .
Scoring the competition
Only one fact is undisputed by almost all researchers: as soon as an athlete is determined to be the winner of the Pentathlon, the competition is abandoned. Sometimes an athlete has won the first three disciplines. Then it was over. Most of the time, however, the winner of the last wrestling was also the winner of the Pentathlon.
A good dozen different ratings have become known, which of course do not differ in all aspects. In the disciplines, every athlete receives a bonus for every performance. Either in the form of the place he has reached or in the form of superiority over individual opponents. Whether the performance was good or bad could not play a role, if only because it was not measurable in running at the time and it is fundamentally not measurable in wrestling. Some scores also count bad performances (i.e. all five), but most do not. The rules according to which the individual achievements become intermediate and final results are part of the winning systems. These systems also contain rules for exclusion, i.e. provisions about which interim results are not sufficient to remain competitive.
Most of the systems of the Triagmos, which all researchers understand as the premature termination of the competition because one of the athletes has won three disciplines, fits very poorly. Since this case has been proven beyond doubt in several sources, most systems contain a separate rule for this case.
Due to the elimination rule, many Pentathlon winning systems combine the evaluation with the sequence of the disciplines. Because the weak up to that point always have to be eliminated. A bad jumper is in a better position the later the jump is made. Firstly, he can collect so many bonus points before jumping that his weakness is not so significant, secondly, some opponents have already been eliminated by then. In many systems, a different order would result in a different athlete from the same competition as the overall winner.
Sources for researching the rating
- Wrestling as the last discipline
- Xenophon described an armed attack on Olympia in 364 BC. Chr. On the afternoon of the Pentathlon: “The hip agonies and dromos exercises of the Pentathlon had already been done; those (athletes) who had reached the point of wrestling no longer wrestled in the dromos (= in the stadium), but between the dromos and the (large) altar (of Zeus). ”Most researchers conclude from this text that the last discipline, wrestling, not all were allowed to contest and that the competition was about eliminating opponents.
- Lukillios
- In an epigram by Lukillios, a contemporary of Nero , it says: “None of my wrestling opponents fell faster than me, and none of them walked through the stadium nearly as slowly. I didn't even touch the disc, and I never had the strength to get my feet up while jumping. A cripple threw the spear on. After the five fights, however, the Herald shouted that I was the first - who was defeated five times. "
- Here an athlete collects last places, but still remains in the competition. A rule of elimination that would allow someone who was last four times to wrestle is unthinkable. Either Lukillios describes nonsense or the elimination does not play a role in the evaluation.
- Pentathlon of Letters
- In a text by Plutarch it says about the letter alpha : “(The alpha) proves (the other letters) like the pentathletes (their competitors) in three things and wins, first over most (letters) by that it is a vowel, via the vowels in turn by the fact that it is two-part (that is, it can occur both short and long), but about this (ie via the other two-part vowels) by preceding it, but never in the second place and wont to follow up. "
- The elimination of the non-vowels is a parallel to the situation after the third discipline in the Pentathlon. The elimination of the one-phase vowels corresponds to the situation after the 4th discipline, the measurement between alpha, iota and ypsilon corresponds to wrestling.
- Argonauts Pentathlon
- The Argonauts legend names the only pentathlon with several participants that has survived from antiquity and describes the course in a partially understandable way. Five similarly strong opponents meet in it, which makes it particularly valuable for the unveiling of the Pentathlon ranking. Because only with a similar strength can the subtleties of the rating come to light.
- “Before Jason and Peleus, the jump was awarded a wreath for itself, as was the discus, and the spear was enough to win at the time of the Argo journey. Telamon threw the discus best, Lynkeus the spear, the Boreas sons Kalaïs and Zetes ran and jumped (best) , Peleus, on the other hand, was inferior in these types of combat (literally deuteros = second), but defeated everyone in a wrestling match. When they now competed at Lemnos, Jason is said to have linked the five types of fighting to please Peleus and Peleus thus achieved the overall victory. "(Philostratos)
- Peleus only has second places before the wrestling. Nevertheless, he is not out. He also wrestles - unlike the athletes in the individual sport wrestling, who fight duels with elimination - against all opponents. However, unlike the special wrestlers, his opponents do not wrestle against each other.
- Lukian
- Lukian attended Olympia and was an eyewitness to the games. From him comes the most precise description of the draw of opponents in the fighting disciplines wrestling, fistfighting and all- round combat . However, he does not report that there was also a drawing in the Pentathlon. However, all researchers assume that Lucian with rings both the struggle for the olive branch means and the sub-discipline of the pentathlon.
- Defeat of the Taisemeno
- Pausanias: “[...] when (Taisamenos) took part in the pentathlon in Olympia, he had to withdraw defeated. He was first in two disciplines, of course, because he defeated Heironymus von Andros in run and jump. But when he was overcome by him in the wrestling and came for the victory [...] “Hieronymus obviously won in the discus, spear and in wrestling.
- Bakchylides
- "[...] (Automedes) shone out from among the pentathletes [...] when he threw the wheel-shaped discus [...] when he sent the shoot of the dark-leaved elderberry high into the sky or at the end of the wrestling match (demonstrated) a flashing agility. "
- In these two competitions, the overall winners appear to have won the olive branch because they mastered three disciplines. For researchers, they are proof that this rule was also the most important determination of the rating for games.
- List of winners from the Erotidia zu Tespiai
- This list of winners says: “Men's pentathlon: Albinius Methodikos Korinthios; Psychikos Herakleos Thebaios co-winner. "
- The ancient world was only interested in winners. Second are known only in very few cases. And never in winners lists, but only in the résumés of athletes who later became famous as politicians or military leaders. If the Theban Psychikos had finished second, he would not be in the list of winners. He is co-winner. He did not lose, and yet he was not entirely on a par with Corinthian Albinius.
- The fact that a list of winners names two names is a unique case in Greek sport: one must assume that the second name is a consequence of the rules of the Pentathlon. If two athletes were almost equally strong and if very special constellations occurred in the competition , there could obviously be two undefeated in the end. However, one is better than the other in one minor aspect.
Previous scoring systems for the Pentathlon
Some systems are based on the same principle, only differing in details. Therefore, all the important ones can be summarized in four groups:
- Point systems
- Qualification systems
- Systems with successive elimination
- System with indirect victory
Point systems
This group includes the systems by Moretti (1956) and Petrucco (1972).
These systems are based on Pausania's report from the Argonauts Pentathlon and on the epigram of Lukillios. In both of the competitions described there, nobody is eliminated, from which it is concluded that the elimination was not an essential feature of the evaluation. In addition, there is the conviction that in an all-around competition, all performances must count, including the bad ones.
In the point system, each athlete receives as many points in each discipline as he has defeated opponents. His overall result is the sum of all points scored. The winner is whoever has the most points in the end.
Weaknesses of the system: In no text is there not even a hint to be found that could be interpreted as points. The point system is also unfair, as it does not honor top performance enough. The characteristics of the ancient Pentathlon, which are no doubt handed down, the premature victory with termination is not possible in the point system, the elimination distorted the final result. The competition has no climax. When exactly the victory has been achieved, you only know when the points have been added, so usually long after the competition. The spectators cannot see the current status of the competition.
Qualification systems
To this type belong the systems of Lattimore (1945), Bean I. (1956), Raubitschek (1956), Bean II. (1956), Harris (1972), Merkelbach (1973), Sweet (1983) and Kyle (1990) . They differ slightly in the question of which athletes came into the wrestling.
The qualification systems give the discipline winners a special role. The last discipline, wrestling according to all traditions, is carried out according to the known rules. The first four disciplines serve to qualify for this wrestling.
As in ancient Greek sport it is all about winners, initially only the very best in the discipline qualified for wrestling. The Argonauts Pentathlon will either be declared a fable or special rules will be introduced, which will also make second disciplines struggle. In a system that counts discipline victories, it is of course inconceivable that someone with one victory becomes the overall winner before one with two discipline victories. To prevent this from occurring, these systems prohibit wrestling matches between double and single winners. To prevent this from happening, they sometimes include intermediate eliminations and consolation rounds, thus turning the pentathlon into a six-way fight. In addition, they need a special rule for the early triple win after the 3rd and one for breaking off after the 4th discipline.
The systems in this group contain many very specific rules, provided that they take all sources into account. Therefore they seem strangely pieced together. You get the impression that every source and every situation has its own rule. It is difficult to imagine that such a set of rules could have survived 1000 years without any comment and without any change.
These systems also have the known diseases of all qualification systems. Those who have already qualified will lose interest in the further preliminary battle. Since athletes met each other more often, and even had to train together for a long time in the Olympics, they knew the strengths and weaknesses of their opponents well. Some discipline winners will have calculated that it is more advantageous for them to spare themselves for wrestling than to waste energy in disciplines in which they have no chance of winning anyway. Many a pentathlon would then have to have degenerated into a four-, three- or even one-on-one, a tactical game. However, there are no complaints. Such a system must also have attracted specialists in jumping, throwing and running, who then preferred to practice wrestling, and wrestlers who had tried additional training in a single Pentathlon discipline. A train to the duathlon must have occurred that would certainly have sparked criticism. However, as far as is known, there were none.
Systems with successive elimination
This group includes the Brein (1980) system, which varies an older one from Pinder (1867).
Brein assumes two ancient texts: the competition only lasts half a day. A pentathlete praises himself for having defeated 87 opponents in one competition. So many athletes can only complete the competition in such a short time if the elimination starts early and if the shortest discipline is started. So Brein started with running. He supports this order with another argument that the run could not possibly have taken place after the jump, since a jump pit cannot be pounded back into a running route in one afternoon.
Eliminations are made after each discipline according to the same rule: The field of participants is halved. All non-eliminated and also all discipline winners come into the final ring. So the system is based on two contradicting principles. The winner of the wrestling is also the winner of the Pentathlon.
Other weak points: Athletes with weaknesses in the first disciplines are disadvantaged. A weaker competitor can snap away the overall victory from a four-time winner simply because of the win in the wrestling. So that this does not happen, Brein takes on a separate rule for the three-win, which actually contradicts the qualification rule.
System with indirect victory
Gardiner and Pihkala (1925) brought the idea of indirect victory to the Pentathlon. The practical version of this system comes from Ebert (1963).
The system is based on the rule of “best of five” and the elimination of the losers: In the large field there are lots of duels “everyone against everyone”, but not explicitly explained. But as soon as someone has been defeated three times by one of his opponents, this duel becomes the current one. The defeated must be eliminated, the winner can continue fighting. Gradually, competitors are eliminated. Whoever remains last is the overall winner.
This system has found many friends in the popular and scientific literature because it makes sense at first glance. It is based on a single, well-known principle. In the five disciplines everyone recognizes the five sets of the Grand Slam tennis tournaments and suspects why ancient times invented a pentathlon and not a quadrathlon or a hexathlon. Every day teams and athletes around the world are eliminated after they are defeated by an opponent. Nothing seems more just than such a rule, nothing more logical than this system.
Weaknesses of the indirect system: In an individual sport, the principle of indirect victory seems fair because it follows a simple logical law: If Bavaria defeated HSV , which was previously inferior to Schalke , everyone accepts that Bavaria has also shown its superiority over Schalke. The overall winner of the Cup is the only one to have won all of his fights, some directly and others indirectly, by beating their champions. A chain of sheer victories can be formed between him and every other participant, which logically shows why the overall winner was better than any opponent. However, in a field of three, Pentathlete A has places 1, 3, 3, 1, 2 in the disciplines; B places 2, 1, 2, 2, 3 and C places 3, 2, 1, 3, 1, this is a stalemate. Every athlete has defeated an opponent, he lost to an opponent. He was also indirectly inferior to the one he defeated directly. In a field of five equal pentathletes, in which everyone has a discipline victory and only different placements, everyone has defeated two opponents. At the same time he was defeated directly by two and indirectly by one.
The examples show that the rule best of five in conjunction with the rule of indirect victory is not suitable for an all-around competition. And not only in rare exceptional cases, but always when three or five similarly strong opponents meet.
The rigorous elimination rule prevents equivalence from being revealed. And the order of the disciplines determines the winner. It is difficult to imagine that in 1100 years of ancient sport it would not have been recognized that this rating does not provide a clear winner with similarly strong opponents and that the elimination rule creates an injustice.
Further weaknesses of the indirect system:
- It is unfair because it enables the following situations. The best of five. best pentathlete with weaknesses in the first disciplines is thrown out of the competition by a mediocre one. A third, clearly inferior to the first, becomes the overall winner because he defeats the mediocre. It is also unfair because it is built on defeat. Someone who has defeated almost all opponents can end up empty-handed if he loses in a wrestling against someone who has not yet defeated an opponent.
- It demands an excessive bureaucratic effort. Since someone can drop out at any time after the 3rd discipline, the course of the internal duels must be constantly followed. With 20 starters, that's 190 duels. After the third discipline, 190 × 6 = 1140 data must be compared. If no one is eliminated, 190 × 8 = 1520 data must be compared again before the wrestling. This work had to be done by three referees; it must have taken hours. Of course, with this wealth of data, errors cannot be avoided. It goes without saying that the competition cannot continue until all complaints have been resolved. Because everyone who remains in the competition without authorization and who is eliminated without authorization has an inadmissible influence on the further course of the competition. A competition with such a cumbersome evaluation procedure could not possibly have been followed by most of the spectators.
- It requires an exact finish. Sprinters cross the finish line in close succession. It's easy to see who has won. The second is almost always clearly identifiable and usually the third as well. The fourth can only be identified by someone who has not followed the first three. Nobody can see who finished 13th and 14th. However, the system requires an exact classification of all athletes. In the Pentathlon you have to imagine the difficulties even bigger. Every athlete knew who to leave behind. So, saving energy, he ran just inches from the guy he had to hit. Who should correctly recognize such a finish? What evidence can settle the argument between the two athletes?
- Missing “winner over all”. Some Greek athletes adorn themselves with extra titles when they have won their victories under adverse conditions or particularly well. In the indirect system, an overall victory would be particularly valuable if the winner had defeated all opponents directly, i.e. without benefiting from the fact that a third party threw one of the opponents out of the competition. This case would have to have occurred often, much more often than the traditional three-way victory, in which all opponents are directly defeated and in less disciplines. However, no pentathlete has the title “Winner over all”.
- The Argonauts Pentathlon could not have gone as reported. According to the rules, Peleus would be the overall winner after the 4th discipline. Wrestling would have failed.
- The Lukillios Pentathlon contradicts these rules.
- The Pentathlon of Letters contradicts these rules. The victorious Alpha directly defeats all opponents. Letters are eliminated because they have been defeated by all opponents that remained in the competition, not just one.
- Another weak point of this system is that it does not reward victories over opponents. Before the wrestling, all internal duels of all those remaining in the competition are 2: 2, all athletes have the same starting point as at the beginning. It doesn't matter whether someone has defeated many by then or nobody. Pentathlon according to the indirect system is actually wrestling with a preliminary selection.
Argonauts pentathlon according to Ebert
Peleus is neither second in the first 4 disciplines, nor does he defeat all opponents; but both have been handed down by Pausanias, but twice second and twice fourth. He doesn't wrestle with Kalais.
| discipline | winner | Second | Third | Fourth | fifth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I. Discus | Telamon | Peleus | Lynkeus | Zetes | Kalais |
| II. Jump | Kalais | Zetes | Telamon | Peleus | Lynkeus |
| III. spear | Lynkeus | Peleus | Telamon | Kalais | Zetes |
| IV. Run | Zetes | Kalais | Lynkeus | Peleus | Telamon |
| V. Wrestling | winner | loser | winner | loser | bye |
| 1 round | Peleus | Zetes | Telamon | Kalais | Lynkeus |
| 2nd round | Peleus | Lynkeus | - | - | Telamon |
| 3rd round | Peleus | Telamon | |||
| Overall winner | Peleus |
Logical evaluation according to Suppanz (2000)
(According to the same principle, the order of the countries at the Olympic Games is determined by counting gold, silver and bronze medals.)
Initial theses
- Herodotus wrote:
- "123. After the booty had been distributed, the Hellenes drove to the Isthmos, where they wanted to give the honorary prize to the one who had proven himself to be the most worthy of the Hellenes in this war (= Battle of Salamis). But when the generals came there and cast their vote at the altar of Poseidon, who of all they declared to be first and who to be second, everyone gave himself his own vote because he thought he was the best; but most of them awarded the second prize to Themistocles. The first had only one vote each, but Themistocles won the most votes for the second prize. "
- "124. Although the Hellenes did not want to decide this matter out of resentment, but instead went back to their homeland without a decision, the name of Themistocles was praised everywhere in the Hellenic Land as that of the brightest man of all Hellenes. But because he was not awarded the prize by those who had fought at Salamis, despite his victory, he immediately made a trip to Lacedaemon to get the prize there. The Lacedaemonians received him with dignity and did him great honor. Eurybiades they bestowed the honor of bravery, namely an olive wreath, but the prize of cleverness and skill they gave Themistocles, also an olive wreath, and presented him with the most beautiful chariot that could be found in Sparta. And after they had showered him with many honors, three hundred selected Spartians, the so-called knights, had to escort him to the border of Tegea. He is the only person, as far as we know, whom the Spartans have ever escorted. "
- All generals had the same number of first places: In the number of second places, Themistocles surpassed all opponents. The Spartans considered him the clear winner of the vote.
- Nobody spontaneously comes up with the idea to ask for the best and the second best when voting. You knew the rating. Where from? The Pentathlon was regularly on the program in the festival city of Corinth. The Pentathlon winners were crowned at the same altar on which the generals voted. Most likely by the priests who also directed the election.
- The only winner can be someone who has defeated all opponents. This principle, which is actually taken for granted and fulfilled in all sports, also dominated the Pentathlon. Ancient texts also emphasize it: Alpha defeats all other letters. Peleus defeats all Argonauts. The elimination, which is clearly documented, was not part of the evaluation, but served to shorten the competition. Who is already defeated can be eliminated without influencing the outcome. However, as with Lukillios, he can stay in the competition in order to embarrass himself completely.
- Lukian does not count the Pentathlon as one of the sports in which opponents were drawn against each other. Peleus does not fight according to the general rules of wrestling, but against all opponents. These texts are taken seriously: There was no drawing in the wrestling of the Pentathlon. The pairs were put together differently. It is shown below that this does not even require a separate rule.
This results in the following scoring rules :
- The overall winner is whoever has won more disciplines.
- If two athletes have the same number of first places, the number of second decides on the overall winner. Does their number also match, the number of the third, etc.
- Those who can no longer win are eliminated.
Course of the competition
In order to determine who is eliminated, the competition jury has to determine the leader after each discipline. This is the one who has already taken the most first, second, etc. places. Anyone who can no longer outperform this, even if he wins all the remaining disciplines, can no longer become the overall winner. He's out.
One such leader was obviously Teisemanos, who won two disciplines before the wrestling, but lost in the end. Peleus, on the other hand, fought at the beginning to remain in the competition. He is only allowed to wrestle because he has collected so many second places that he would have surpassed all opponents by winning the wrestling.
The first are eliminated after the third discipline, if someone won two disciplines and had a good place in them. The big elimination takes place after the 4th discipline. Because good discus throwers are often good javelin throwers, good runners are also good jumpers. The leader will therefore often have either two discipline wins or one victory with a good place. A 3rd place will hardly have been enough to be allowed to wrestle.
Until the wrestling, a number has formed depending on the successes in the disciplines. First of all, the leader, then a discipline winner with good places, etc. to someone who can still win the competition by winning the wrestling. The leader is separated from the last in this row by less than a discipline victory.
So the wrestling begins logically with the fight of the last against the penultimate. The loser is eliminated; he can no longer win the wrestling. The winner wrestles forward in line. If he loses a fight, he is eliminated. If he beats the leader in the end, he is rightly the overall winner. Because he got the missing discipline victory. Apparently this is how Peleus won. If the upstart loses the last wrestling match, the leading overall winner and the upstart is second in the wrestling. That apparently happened to Teisemanos "in the last gear in the wrestling". Also iota or Ypsilon show up in the last fight Alpha inferior.
This way of wrestling always gives a discipline winner. He defeated at least one opponent directly and all others indirectly.
Argonauts pentathlon after Suppanz
In accordance with Pausanias, Peleus is second in each of the first 4 disciplines.
| discipline | winner | Second | Third | Fourth | fifth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I. Discus | Telamon | Peleus | Lynkeus | Zetes | Kalais |
| II. Jump | Kalais | Peleus | Telamon | Zetes | Lynkeus |
| III. spear | Lynkeus | Peleus | Zetes | Kalais | Telamon |
| IV. Run | Zetes | Peleus | Kalais | Lynkeus | Telamon |
| V. Wrestling | winner | loser | |||
| 1st fight | Peleus | Telamon | |||
| 2nd fight | Peleus | Kalais | |||
| 3rd fight | Peleus | Lynkeus | |||
| 4th fight | Peleus | Zetes | |||
| Overall winner | Peleus |
Second place in the wrestling
If the leader loses the last wrestling match, he is not second in the wrestling. He's only lost one time, he didn't perform. He may be the worst wrestler.
Bad tie
If someone out of line defeats the leader in the last wrestling match, it can happen that the two end up agreeing on four place numbers. The winner of the last wrestling has a 5th place number from the previous disciplines, but the leader so far does not. Because in wrestling, as justified earlier, no 2nd place will be awarded to the leader.
But in fairness the leader in the wrestling deserves at least the last place in the ring. If only a few are wrestling, this can be a very good place. With that alone he could perhaps catch up with the overall winner. If the rules of competition allowed him to wrestle with everyone in the wrestling line, he could get an even better place. He could do even better than the overall winner. So the competition is not a draw ( draw ), but it cannot be decided who is the better pentathlete ( stalemate ). While you can clearly say in the case of five identical numbers: no one is the best, you cannot make a clear decision here. Probably one is the better one, because different performances are more likely than the same. So you acted unfairly towards this unknown better if you declared the outcome as undecided. The only clean way out of this dilemma is to declare both of them overall winners. With one of them you could see your 5th rating as a small advantage, if it is good, or the victory in the wrestling, as this demands the whole body, or because it was the last decision. With the other, the good performance in the first, the pentathlon-specific disciplines. You could also look at the internal duel between the last two and give a small plus to the one who was ahead three times.
The inscription of Tespiai seems to tell of such a competition, which ended with a winner and a co-winner.
Strengths of the logical evaluation
The logical rating corresponds to more sources than any other. No relevant text contradicts it. It explains the triple victory, the premature termination as well as the protracted fight of Peleus and Lukillios ridicule on his pentathletes. The battle of letters, which no one has been able to incorporate into their system so far, fits in just like the previously inexplicable tie by Tespiai. No system has yet been able to explain this co-winner. It enables both elimination and competitions that allow everyone to wrestle. The rules are suitable for small and large competitions. The traditional number of three referees is sufficient. More than the first three places in the run do not have to be recognized.
The tension grows from discipline to discipline. The spectators can easily follow the competition. The climax is at the end; the winner of the last exercise is also the overall winner. The rules are simple, logical, actually natural and fair. This explains why they were likely nowhere to be written down, and why in the many centuries of Greek sport no voice called for change. All the principles of ancient sport are met: it's about finding a winner. All applicants have the same conditions. The discipline winners play an important role, the overall winner has defeated all of his opponents. The scoring is independent of the order of the disciplines.
This evaluation is also supported by the fact that it gives a whole series of the words, expressions and comparisons chosen by the ancient authors a deeper meaning. The intention to express oneself in this way and not in another can be seen. The texts become brief but complete descriptions of possible processes.
Comparison of the winning systems
It is stated whether a system corresponds to a known property of the Pentathlon or whether it reproduces a source correctly.
| Property, source | Point systems (Moretti et al.) | Successive elimination (Brein) | Qualification systems (Harris, Merkelbach and others) | Systems with relative (indirect) victory (Gardiner, Ebert) | Logical evaluation (Suppanz) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fair | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Easy | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| The last discipline winner is the overall winner | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Neutral to the discipline order | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Highlight at the end of the competition | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Little bureaucratic effort | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| The number of arbitrators is sufficient | No | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Three win logical | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Termination logical | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Discipline victories are significant | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Argonauts pentathlon logical | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Letter pentathlon logical | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Lukillios Pentathlon, logical | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| Two winners possible (list of winners from Tespiai) | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
literature
- GE Bean: Victory in the Pentathlon. In: American Journal of Archeology . 60 (1956), pp. 361-368.
- F. Brein: About the evaluation in the Pentathlon. In: Research and Finds. Festschrift B. Neutsch. (Innsbruck contributions to cultural studies 21). 1980, pp. 89-93.
- Joachim Ebert: About the Pentathlon of antiquity. Investigations into the system of determining the winners and the execution of the holder jump (= treatises of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig, Philological-Historical Class . Volume 56 , no. 1 ). Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1963.
- English translation: The Ancient Pentathlon. Selection of the over-all winner and method of jumping (PDF; 83 kB)
- French translation: Sur le pentathlon de l'Antiquité, La méthode de désigner le vainqueur et la façon de sauter (PDF; 86 kB)
- Friedrich Fedde: The pentathlon of the Greeks . Graß, Barth & Co., Breslau 1888 ( digitized version )
- EN Gardiner: The Method of Deciding the Pentathlon. In: The Journal of Helenic Studies . 23 (1903), p. 54 ff.
- HA Harris: The Method of Deciding Victory in the Pentathlon. In: Greece + Rome. 19: 60-64 (1962).
- HA Harris: Sport in Greece and Rome. Southampton, London 1972.
- DG Kyle: Winning and Watching the Greek Pentathlon. In: Journal of Sport History. 17: 291-305 (1990).
- Reinhold Merkelbach : The victory in the Pentathlon. In: Journal of Papyrology and Epigraphy . 1973, 11, pp. 261-269.
- L. Moretti: Un regolamento rodio per la gara del pentatlo. In: Rivista di Filosofia e d'Instruzione Classica. 34, pp. 55-60 (1956).
- S. Petrucco: Lo sport nella Grecia antica. Arte e archeologica; studi e docum. 1. Firence, Olschki. 1972.
- L. Pihkala, EN Gardiner: The System of Pentathlon. In: The Journal of Helenic Studies . 45, pp. 132-134 (1925).
- E. Pinder: About the pentathlon of the Greeks. Berlin 1867.
- N. Suppanz: A logical rating for the ancient Pentathlon. Berlin 2000.
- WE Sweet: A New Proposal of Scoring the Greek Pentathlon. In: Journal of Papyrology and Epigraphy . 50: 287-290 (1983).
- AE Raubitschek's view of the Pentathlon system was not published by himself, but is - referred to as "Fourth Theory (Raubitschek)" and discussed by Bean 1956: 365-366.