The pharmakos-victor complex in Greek athletics

Tom Hawkins (Ohio State University)

In the world of Greek myth, heroes stand midway between gods and mortals; in the Greek athletic tradition, the crowned victor enjoys roughly the same status as the hero. Both figures have a virtually talismanic power that human communities could seek to integrate for their exclusive benefit. Yet if the hero and the athlete occupy the rarefied upper air of Greek society, they also have an anti-type in the figure of the pharmakos. In this paper I will demonstrate the inverse connection between the pharmakos and the victor, and argue that in certain unusual situations audiences were forced to decide whether a note-worthy but ambivalent individual was to be treated as one or the other of these extreme types. This model emphasizes the role of spectators (or readers) over notions of objective athletic achievement in creating a narrative of sport history, and it is rooted in the idea that athletic competitions are ethically loaded, aesthetic events to be evaluated by those who look on.

The cursed character of the pharmakos had a sacred power that was equal to but an inversion of the hero’s. An example of this connection can be seen in the rituals of incorporation/expulsion that apply to each. The returning victor is welcomed into the civic space in a manner that publicly proclaims the benefits of his presence while carefully avoiding the corrosive effects of personal jealousies and envy. The pharmakos experiences much the same treatment in reverse: his paradoxically split role of pariah-benefactor is clearly established before he is driven out of town in a manner that leaves the community safe and healthy because of his absence.

From this basic model of the inverted relationship between the victor and the pharmakos, I will examine two instances in which spectators fail to properly perceive, understand, or accept an athletic victory. In the stories of Dioxippus the Athenian (Diod. Sic. 17) and Cleomedes of Astypalea (Paus. 6), the status of the winning athlete hangs in limbo between the opposite extremes of the scapegoat and the victor. If his accomplishments are accepted by the community, he becomes the big-man to whom everyone looks up; if they are rejected or disqualified, he loses everything. Victory may be granted by the gods, but we humans still play a role in deciding who should be recognized as a divinely favored victor, and who should be driven out over the boundaries as a scapegoat.