POLIS

gymnastics were the most necessary elements of the education of the youth of Athens. Each of the above subjects was taught by a special teacher.

ATHENS

Although education was neither compulsory nor public, the state supervised and regulated the proper functioning of the individual schools of education in Athens. The lawsuit was addressed to all the boys of the Athenian citizens but not to the girls and the slaves. Parents sought the harmonious development of their children, giving importance to music and gymnastics. So from a very early age the Athenians sent their children to the children's mill, to the arena, to learn the techniques of wrestling and to strengthen their body. Later, teenagers exercised physically in the city's public gyms, the gymnasiums. There he was involved in wrestling, pancratium, boxing, road, jumping, javelin and discus throwing and various other activities and games.

Through letters, music and gymnastics, the Athenians sought to cultivate the mind and body, aiming for a harmonious whole, where a strong mind coexisted within a strong body.

PAN-HELLENIC GAMES

The pan-Hellenic holy struggles were one of the institutions of antiquity that helped as much as anyone else in the coherence and communication between the Greeks. These struggles gave the Greeks the opportunity to remember their common characteristics (language, religion, origin) and to forget for a while what separated them. Greeks not only from mainly Greece, but also from the coasts of Pontus, the cities of Central Asia, the colonies of Lower Italy and North Africa came to watch or take part in these games. The winners, in addition to the symbolic wreath, enjoyed honors, privileges and, above all, the respect of their fellow citizens. The games that emerged as pan-Hellenic and sacred were: Olympia, Pythia, Isthmia, and Nemea. The Olympia, which was held "in the most beautiful place in Greece", were the most

important games of Hellenism and overshadowed with their glamor every other competition event. football, basketball, volleyball, water polo, handball and other team sports have been of interest to billions of people around the world for several decades. However, they are not a modern "invention", since in antiquity team sports were widespread and attracted the attention of all those involved in sports.

Despite the fact that the great prizes were enjoyed by the winners of individual sports and especially those of athletics, boxing and wrestling, nevertheless there have been sports for a long time, which if we analyze them today, we see that they are the forerunners of many team sports. Of course, we should not forget that the sports programs of the Panhellenic holy games did not include team sports. The ancient Greeks engaged in sports mainly for their entertainment and together with various exercises were means of improving their physical abilities and the development of virtues, such as courage, courage and readiness.

At that time, the balls, that is, the games that were played with the ball and embodied the sports, were especially loved and preferred by the people, as in the gymnasiums there were the bowling alleys which were places where the athletes played ball. It was very popular in Sparta, as the Spartans were the first to apply it, as it perfectly matched their way of life, their cruelty and their strict upbringing in the basic stage of their physical education. The teenagers of Sparta, in fact, entering the male age (19-20 years old) were also called spheres. We should not ignore the many references of Plato in the spheres, while it was a particularly beloved sport for the Macedonian kings and Alexander the Great. In his book, the medical coach Galinos highlights the superiority of the balls over the rest of the team sports.

The love for the spherical acquires a timelessness in antiquity. The ball was originally made of various threads and later of sewn leather strips, which were filled with bristles or feathers. It was soft and elastic. Children's spheres were painted in diferent colors. Back then, the most well-known ball games were feninda or harpoon, where players

pretended to throw the ball to someone while throwing it to others (in a way it looks like handball). Episkyros or Epikinos was played by young people aged 17-18 and is the forerunner of rugby. Kerritizein (horn was the stick) was played with the use of a stick and is the forerunner of field hockey. It was also the sky, where the players threw the ball high and it was won by whoever jumped higher and caught it (there is little resemblance to basketball in jambol or even claiming the ball on the racket). We should not even overlook the fact that there was a rupture, in which the players hit the ball on the ground with their hands and counted the number of bounces.

In Ancient Greece, the variety of sports activities was interesting. There were unrewarded team sports, such as bowling, for fun and physical improvement. However, most of them and many team yard games that children and teenagers used to play for fun were and are the forerunners of many team sports that exist today, and became a pole of attraction for millions of athletes. In Ancient Greece, in addition to children, adults and women participated in sports. There a large number of such games, without unfortunately having sufficient knowledge of the rules. However, analyzing the balls, we can easily see that there are many similarities, with many team sports. And this emphasizes even more how important were playing games and sports to Ancient Greeks and how they afected modern sports, games and the Olympic Games.

THE ANCIENT OLYMPIC GAMES

The ancient Olympic Games (Ὀλυμπιακοὶ ἀγῶνες, "Olympiaki agones") were a series of athletic competitions among representatives of citystates and one of the Panhellenic Games of Ancient Greece. They were held in honor of Zeus, and the Greeks gave them a mythological origin. The first Olympic Games are traditionally dated to 776 BCE.[1] They continued to be celebrated when Greece came under Roman rule, 2nd century BCE, until the emperor Theodosius I, who having been converted to Christianity, banned pagan festivals. He banned the Olympics in CE 394 as part of the campaign to impose Christianity as the State religion of Rome. [2] The games were held every four years, or Olympiad, which became a unit of time in historical chronologies. During the celebration of the games, an Olympic Truce was enacted so that athletes could travel from their cities to the games in safety. The prizes for the victors were olive leaf wreaths or crowns. The games became a political tool used by city-states to assert dominance over their rivals. Politicians would announce political alliances at the games, and in times of war, priests would ofer sacrifices to the gods for victory. The games were also used to help spread Hellenistic culture throughout the Mediterranean. The Olympics also featured religious celebrations. The statue of Zeus at Olympia was counted as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Sculptors and poets would congregate each olympiad to display their works of art to would-be patrons. The ancient Olympics had fewer events than the modern games, and only freeborn Greek men were allowed to participate,[3] although there were victorious women chariot owners. As long as they met the entrance criteria, athletes from any Greek city-state and kingdom were allowed to participate. The games were always held at Olympia rather than moving between diferent locations as is the practice with the modern Olympic Games. [4] Victors at the Olympics were honored, and their feats chronicled for future generations.