An ancient Greek vase depicts three naked young men preparing for a treatment after physical exertion.

A strigil was used to scrape oil and dirt from an athlete’s body.

An ancient Greek tombstone depicts a naked young athlete and his servant.

An oil barrel, also called an aryballos.

In the enviable collection of ancient Greek art at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens is a type of red-and-black container known as a krater. They are ancient Greek clay vases that were typically used to mix wine and water, as the ancient Greeks did.

Of the thousands, if not tens of thousands, of craters the museum manages, this one, dating back to the early 4th century BC, traveled the long distance between Greece and China to be put on display in an exhibition focusing on ancient Greek civilization, and for a specific reason.

“The work, which on the one hand captures a specific moment in the gymnasium, tells a story about the construction of the body, which together with the training of the mind forms the Greek ideal of man,” said Guan Lin, curator of the exhibition Ancient Greek Civilization — the Glory of the Eegean Sea at the Nanjing Museum in the city of Nanjing, Jiangsu province in eastern China.

The photo shows three naked young people preparing for a treatment after physical exertion, with the natural red colour of the clay accentuated by the black background.

The one in the center holds up an aryballos—a small round or oval oil container—from which oil drips into the hands of his companion standing to his left. The athlete on the right holds a bronze strigil. A strigil consists of a handle and a curved blade designed to conform to the contours of the body. It was used after exercise to scrape off oil, dirt, and sweat, the latter two of which tended to accumulate on oil-covered young bodies.

Examples of both the aryballos and the strigil, also from the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, are on display at the exhibition, which runs until October 20.

The application of oil was done for both aesthetic and practical reasons. While it emphasizes well-trained muscles, the oil helps to warm up muscles and provides a protective layer on the skin. During wrestling, a well-oiled body would be very slippery and therefore difficult for the opponent to grab, let alone throw to the ground.

Plato considered wrestling as a sport for the education of youth in his envisioned “Ideal State.” Wrestling was one of the competitions of the ancient Olympic Games, which were held every four years between the 8th century BC and the 4th century AD in Olympia, a small town on the Peloponnese peninsula in Greece.

The Games also include competitions in jumping, discus throwing, javelin throwing, horse and chariot racing and, most importantly, foot racing, the only event in the first 13 Olympic Games.

“Participants had to cover a distance of 192.27 meters during the Games and it took just one day,” Guan said.

“Eventually it was expanded to a five-day event, beginning with the 77th edition in 472 BC.”

Foot racing was known in ancient Greece as stade or stadium racing — stadium is the ancient Greek word for stadium. Another term for sports venues — gymnasium — contained the inextricable link between physical training and education, Guan said.

“Few people may know this, but Aristotle founded his philosophical school on the grounds of the Lyceum, an important gymnasium in Athens,” she says.

The word athlete is derived from the ancient Greek word athlos, which means competition or battle. It seems that the ancient Greek athletes did not aim for victory alone in their battles, but for a balance between body and mind, a deeply philosophical concept that was not entirely unknown to ancient Greek philosophers.

The immense popularity and cultural significance of the ancient Olympic Games can be attested to by the fact that during the Games, Greek city-states observed a truce known simply as the Olympic Truce, which generally lasted from one week before the Games to one week after. Safe passage and participation by athletes competing in the Games was guaranteed, creating a shared sense of identity among the warring Greek city-states that ultimately proved essential to the nation-building of Greece.

An example of the implementation of the Olympic Truce, as documented by the 5th century BC Athenian historian Thucydides, involved its possible violation by the Spartan forces during the protracted and brutal conflict known today as the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC).

For allegedly carrying out attacks during the period of the truce, the Spartans were not only fined by the Olympic authorities, but also banned from participating in the Games in 420 BC. The Spartans refused to pay the fine, claiming that their maneuver had been completed before the Olympic truce was officially announced.

Whatever actually happened, the Spartans were banned from the Olympic Games that year. This decision was significant, as Sparta was one of the most powerful and militaristic city-states in Greece.

“Thanks to the armistice, the Olympic Games became a symbol of peace. This symbolism has persisted since the revival of the Games in 1896 by the International Olympic Committee under the leadership of Pierre de Coubertin,” Guan said.

Whenever there was a war, there were casualties, sometimes countless. In ancient Greece, annual funeral games were held for those who had fallen on the battlefield, as in the case of the 192 Athenians who died at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC.

Some scholars believe that although the ancient Olympic Games were held at Olympia, the sanctuary dedicated to Zeus, the king of the Greek gods, it was these funeral games that formed the core of their origins. And that would have added another human dimension to a game that is today closely associated with the celebration of humanity.

The Nanjing Museum’s exhibition features an ancient Greek funerary stele dating back to between 400 BC and 375 BC. The stele’s preserved relief depicts a naked young man trying to balance a ball on his right thigh and his naked servant holding a strigil and aryballos.

According to Guan, it was a Greek funerary tradition to depict the deceased as a young athlete, and it resonated deeply with the Greek psyche.

In Homer’s Iliad, Achilles, the greatest Greek warrior in the Trojan War, was given a choice between a long, boring life and a short, glorious one.

Achilles chose the latter.

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