The Greek In? uence Greek culture had a major focus on physical development and sport. The two key elements of the education of Greek boys were “gymnastics” and “music. ” Gymnastics included a wide range of physical activities and sports. Music was the term used for all the other academic subjects. Only Greek male citizens were given the opportunity to be educated. Women were generally not educated and were permitted only modest involvement in physical activity and sport.
All teachers were male. Education took place in temples; in the gymnasium, which was usually an outdoor facility for physical training and bathing; and in the Palaestae, which was a center for boxing and wrestling that also included changing rooms and bathing rooms.
Physical prowess and beautiful physical form were much sought after and admired in early Greek culture, especially in the city-state of Athens. Greek boys were encouraged to become athletes and to compete in the large number of “games” that made up the Greek sporting calendar. Contrary to popular belief, Greek athletes were not amateurs. Riches were bestowed upon winners in all these contests. Physical training and sport were also very much related to the need for all Greek men to ?ght in combat in the many small wars that erupted between Greek city-states and with other powers. The two primary city-states of Greece were Athens and Sparta.
The culture of Athens was home to Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Aristophanes and is credited with much of the development of drama, philosophy, and the spirit of democracy, although women, children, and slaves were considered inferior and were excluded from government. Sparta was the major military power whose goal was to rule all of Greece. In Sparta all babies were examined by a council of elders and only the strongest and healthiest were allowed to live.
Spartan boys left home at the age of 7 to be in the military where they were obligated to stay until age 50. Physical training and sports programs were taken very seriously in Sparta, all under the control of the military. Discipline, obedience, indifference to pain, and obsession with victory in competition were the primary values of the education system.
GALEN Stated that physical education is a part of hygiene and subordinate to medicine. Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus (b. 129 AD, d. circa 200 AD), better known as Galen of Pergamon (modern-day Bergama, Turkey), was a prominent Roman (of Greek ethnicity) physician, surgeon and phil osopher. Arguably the most accomplished of all medical researchers of antiquity, Galen contributed greatly to the understanding of numerous scientific disciplines, including anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology, and neurology, as well as philosophy and logic.
HERODOTUS Recognized the use of Physical Education as an aid to medicine as early as the fifth century. Herodotus Ancient Greek: was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria (modern dayBodrum, Turkey) and lived in the fifth century BC (circa 484 – 425 BC).
He has been called the “Father of History”, and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a well-constructed and vivid narrative. The Histories—his masterpiece and the only work he is known to have produced—is a record of his “inquiry” being an investigation of the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars and including a wealth of geographical and ethnographical information. Although some of his stories were fanciful, he claimed he was reporting only what had been told to him. Little is known of his personal history.
HIPPOCRATES Proclaimed the law of use and disuse of the part of the body, the parts of the body are strengthened through use, and disuse results in muscle atrophy or weakness. Hippocrates, (born c. 460 BC , island of Cos, Greece— died c. 375 , Larissa, Thessaly), ancient Greek physician who lived during Greece’s Classical period and is traditionally regarded as the father of medicine. It is difficult to isolate the facts of Hippocrates’ life from the later tales told about him or to assess his medicine accurately in the face of centuries of reverence for him as the ideal physician.
SOCRATES
Gave emphasis on the importance of physical education in attaining health, in order to achieve one’s purpose in life. Grave mistakes caused by poor decisions can be a result of poor health. Socrates lived during the time of the transition from the height of the Athenian hegemony to its decline with the defeat by Sparta and its allies in the Peloponnesian War. At a time when Athens sought to stabilize and recover from its humiliating defeat, the Athenian public may have been entertaining doubts about democracy as an efficient form of government.
Socrates appears to have been a critic of democracy, and some scholars interpret his trial as an expression of political infighting. PLATO Considered gymnastic and music as the two most important subjects in the curriculum. Plato believed the mother is responsible for the child’s physical education while the child is still in the womb. He advised pregnant women to walk around, as all the movement leads to good health and beauty in the child. After the child actually starts his academic life at Plato’s idealistic school, Plato envisioned him contesting many sporting events until he reaches age 18.
Then the child applies himself completely for two or three years to physical or military training. ARISTOTLE Recognized the closed interrelationship of the body and soul, and that mental faculties can be affected by poor health. He also prescribed progression of exercises, excessive or deficient exercises can result in harm to the body. Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, believed physical education was beneficial to every citizen and consequently also the state. Aristotle saw physical education as more than an activity alone. It was an important part in the development of a man’s character.
Plato, another Greek philosopher, said in his Laws that physical education is an activity and experience that begins before you are born. XENOPHON Thought of physical education as important in terms of military, and that essential to success in life is soundness of the mind and body.
Xenophon (Ancient Greek: 430 – 354 BC), son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens, was a Greek historian, soldier, mercenary, philosopher and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates. He is known for his writings on the history of his own times, the 4th century BC, preserving the sayings of Socrates, and descriptions of life in ancient Greece and the Persian Empire.