[quote]
In the ancient world, we must understand that leisure and luxury were at a premium, and frankly those with leisure and luxury, then as now, were more likely to skip the workout and head straight to the baths. True physical culture is almost always expressed by the military classes, the Greeks are not the sole proprietors of athletics nor were athletics very far removed from war and farming. [/quote]
about the spartans
“After they were twelve years old, they were no longer allowed to wear any undergarments, they had one coat to serve them a year; their bodies were hard and dry, with but little acquaintance of baths and unguents; these human indulgences they were allowed only on some few particular days in the year. They lodged together in little bands upon beds made of the rushes which grew by the banks of the river Eurotas, which they were to break off with their hands with a knife; if it were winter, they mingled some thistle-down with their rushes, which it was thought had the property of giving warmth.”
Plutarch wrote:
Lycurgus??s laws meant wealthy Spartans “could no longer spend their lives at home, lying on their couches and stuffing themselves with unwholesome delicacies, like pigs being fattened for slaughter. No longer could they ruin not only their minds but also their bodies, becoming so weak by lazy overindulgence that they needed long sleep, warm baths, and about as much care as if they were constantly sick.”
also in athens, when the democracy etablished, the rich people had to come up for every poor citizen, for food, meetings, and even things like going to theatre, so that every citizen wheather poor or rich, is like the same.
You dont see that anymore in todays “democracys”.
That shows something about the difference in mentallity, I dont think weahlty famiies were lazy and aristocratic at all.
Okay, Ancient Greece was always small, still is.
thats it, no more off topic from my side.
[quote]dknoerzer wrote:
The idea of their diet and training not necessarily taking into consideration longer life expectancies is interesting, not that I’m trying to incite an argument as to whether that is true or not. I was in Turkey for a month last fall, and apparently, perhaps due in part to their Mediterranean diet, they have higher rates of liver disease. My guide was in his late thirties and facing some health problems of this sort himself.[/quote]
Any idea what especially could cause these?
Can you give a link to that, find that interesting.
I would be interested in reported workouts or at least methods from back then, but I cant found, we will never know.
The only things I find that lead me to the conclusion that ancient people in general were incredibly all round “fit”, are things like the run from athens to sparta, Pheidippides, 250km in under 36h, which was later called spartathlon.
But thats logical in a time wihtout cars, planes and “industrial” civilization.