Cheating in sport
Extracts from memoirs and diaries, chosen by Ian Irvine
Ian Irvine
The way we were
The Emperor Nero also cheated at sport
© STORMS MEDIA GROUP / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
Pausanias in his 2nd century AD guide to Greece mentions cheating at the Olympic Games:
“On the way to the stadium at Olympia there is a stone terrace on which stand bronze images of Zeus. These were paid for with the fines imposed on athletes who wantonly violated the rules of the games. The first six were set up in the 98th Olympiad after Eupolus, a Thessalian, bribed his opponents in the boxing ring—Agetor, an Arcadian, Prytanis of Cyzicus, and Phormio of Halicarnassus, the last of whom had been victorious in the preceding Olympiad…
Pausanias describes another athlete, Callippus of Athens, caught cheating at the pentathalon by trying to bribe his opponents. A fine was imposed, but “the Athenians disdained to pay the money and boycotted the Olympic Games. Only when the god at Delphi declared that he would deliver no oracle on any matter to Athenians until they paid the fine was the matter resolved.”