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council and its public meeting place was the lifeblood of most aristocrats’ existence: there is a fine tribute to it by the noble poet Alcaeus, who was missing it during a time of rustic exile
c.
600 BC .
    Rhetoric did not yet exist as a formal theory, but leaders certainly had to speak effectively in public. Already in Homer, the gift of speaking well was admired in a nobleman, in an Odysseus, for instance, from whom words would pour in public ‘thick and fast as snowflakes’. Some of the finest speeches in all Greek literature are in pre-rhetorical Homer. 3 Judging and speaking were not the limits of an aristocrat’s accomplishments. He was also brought up to dance, to sing and to play music, especially on the
aulos
, an instrument like the modern oboe. He learned to ride, still without stirrups, and to use his sword and spear, but he could also compose verses and cap a neighbour’s wit at a party. He was accomplished in ways in which his modern critics tend not to be. But even in peacetime most of the outlets for these accomplishments were combative and competitive.Typically, an aristocrat would be a huntsman, adept at killing hares especially, and also foxes, deer and wild boar. Some of his hunting was conducted on horseback, but hare-hunting was often on foot as the hares were chased with hounds into carefully laid nets. Slaves assisted the netting, but young noblemen indulged in the chase personally. The pursuit was fun, and if wild boars were the prey, they could be dangerous, so prowess was highly respected.
    The physically fit aristocrat also competed in athletics, aristocracy’s supreme legacy to Western civilization. The researches of later Greek scholars fixed the start of their Olympic Games in what we calculate as 776 BC , and we can certainly think of them as blossoming during the eighth century, while being wary of too precise a starting-date. For a while, the Olympics were mostly contested by competitors from nearby states in southern Greece (the Peloponnese), but by
c.
600 BC their scope had become ‘Pan-Greek’, a status they retained for nearly a thousand years. Women, however, were not allowed to watch the Olympics where men competed in the nude (they did have their own little ‘games’, separately conducted in honour of the goddess Hera). The basic male events were running, boxing, throwing and wrestling. Almost no holds were barred, and boxing was carried out with thongs around the wrist, although not with the spiked gloves which Roman cruelty later introduced. Victors would inflict severe wounds, especially in the ‘all-in-victory’ (
pankration
) where kicking was only one part of the violent repertoire. There was nothing effete about the contestants, noble or not. They smashed teeth, limbs, ears and bones, occasionally to the point of death. ‘Gentlemanly’ is entirely the wrong description.
    These sports and games are an aristocratic legacy for three reasons. The athletic events were probably never confined to aristocratic entrants, but aristocrats (as in Homer’s description of games) certainly set the standards and were more likely to win in the early years: they had the most leisure in which to train and the greatest resources to pay for a healthy diet. More importantly, aristocrats patronized athletic contests at fellow aristocrats’ funerals, thereby supporting an infrastructure of local games on which the Olympics rested. Above all, nobles dominated the most spectacular Olympic events, those which they themselves had invented: horse racing and chariot racing. Theseevents spread the fame of the major games far and wide: Greek aristocrats are the founding heroes of the hippodrome and the racecourse, legacies as enduring as ‘democracy’ or ‘tragedy’. Noblemen owned the best horses, although they tended to hire skilled dependants to drive and ride them: one of the neglected heroes of Greek history is the horse Pherenicus who won at three major sets of games during an amazing