Endnote 22 – Ancient Combat Sports

The story of Diagoras and his family was often told in antiquity. See in particular Pausanias 6.7.1-7 and 4.24.1-3; Pindar praised Diagoras in a victory ode, Olympian 7, and Cicero tells the story, in Tusculan Disputations 1.46.111, of a spectator who saw Diagoras carried on the shoulders of his sons who had triumphed in boxing and pancratium on the same day at Olympia; the spectator remarked, “Die, Diagoras, for you cannot go up into heaven”—in other words, there is nothing greater that any mortal man could ever have.