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Greek Society and Agon

            In Ancient Greek Society there are few things that we can say that classified the entire society. The Greek City-states may have their differences in philosophy, their own take on what gods to pray for, and what form of government to rule by. Greek City states would go to war over these differences but one thing that they all agreed on are that Agon or Competition was a high honor in Greek society. Agon gave the men in Greece to drive to be the best of all of Greece. Through Agon men would be able to fight to obtain time and kleos. Time means that the winner of the fight would have the literally the tangible and physical tokens of Honor and the honor to being the best. Kleos is best know as fame, this fame is the reputation that one makes for himself to be known by. Agon was good for the Greek Society by uniting the City-States; even for a short while but still able to bring them together for small amounts of time. There are two main forms of this unity; one the Olympic games and second is the great wars from outside enemies (greek vs non greek).
             The Olympics was first started in 776 then every four years after that for the next 1000 years. Every four years the Greek City-States would have a sacred truce among themselves and hold games in the honor of Zeus. The special thing about these games is that the games were not about the City-States but about the individual athletes. These athletes would fight till the bitter end even if it killed them; this was done for the individual could earn himself Kleos; the glory and fame of being a winner. Cities-states would honor them and they would have the reputation of being a great man. An example of how the Greek Athletes would put everything on the line to win comes from an Inscription Here he died, boxing in the stadium, having prayed to Zeus for either the Crown or death. (Archaic Age) These games show that even in a time of war the games were a way to bring together the city-states as one culture even if they were political enemies.


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