May 25, 2024 by Francoise Fontanelle
The Romans considered infantry combat more noble, the corps of archers were provided by their allied troops.
© Archers of Rome
Brice Lopez, founder of the Acta association, will wear the costume of the Greek messenger Phidippides to carry, at a run, to schools and colleges around Grand, a message intended for young people. A seasoned sportsman and specialist in ancient and medieval sports, he invites us to dive, via experimental archaeology, into
the practice of sport in Antiquity.
Acta, the message of Phidippides
©Acta
Phidippides,
the famous mes-
wise, would have
covered 42 km
to announce to the Athenians,
victory against the Persians
to battle
of Marathon.
From Monday May 27 to Wednesday May 29, Brice Lopez, alias Phidippidès, will join Grand in Neufchâteau to speak to schoolchildren and college students. “The message that I will convey to young people is a message of peace, sharing and health. But also the need to think of sport as a cultural activity that goes beyond the idea of a performance reserved for an elite. The performance is certainly interesting, but it does not sum up the sport. There are more Sunday athletes than professional athletes. The role of sports federations is to make sport accessible to all. To pursue a health and well-being objective, and to spread the values of friendship, pride and pleasure. Values long erased by competition, which today must be brought back to the fore. »
Experience the games on a grand scale!
Three weeks before the start of the Paris 2024 Games, the Grand amphitheater will take a leap into the past and vibrate to the rhythm of ancient disciplines.
“During these demonstrations, we will compare the way these disciplines were practiced in Antiquity and their modern form. Not to judge the superiority of one or the other, but to show, through the continuities and discontinuities that we can observe in History, that sport is always linked to culture. Indeed, societies practice sports in different ways due to the singularities of their respective cultures. »
Javelin throwing, discus throwing, long jump with dumbbells, as practiced in the ancient pentathlon, but also boxing and wrestling will be on the program. Disciplines about which we have many misconceptions, particularly about the violence of boxing matches. Also discover harpastum, a ball sport very widespread in the Roman Empire.
“Seeing us practice makes people want to move and participate. Also, secondly, we put them into action by offering them workshops where they can learn in a fun way about the disciplines as they existed in Antiquity. Having fun is important. The game has always been part of a very broad cultural practice of which sport is a part.
This will be an opportunity to talk about sport/health, medicine, and to imagine what sport could be in the Roman world and in a spa town as important as that of Grand where it was practiced on a daily basis. We will therefore make numerous trips back and forth between the modern world and the ancient world; and the subjects are numerous. We will also discuss the history of women’s sport. »
Long jump with dumbbells, a discipline very different from modern practice…
Demonstration of ancient discus throwing…
© Acta
Romae Sagittarii, Archery in Roman Antiquity
Thomas Deschamps and his association Romae Sagittarii (Roman Archers) will be present throughout the weekend of June 1 and 2 to share a little-known aspect of Roman history: the life and profession of an archer.
“We are going to offer reconstructions based on archaeological elements with the aim of presenting to the general public the face of archery in the Roman era. That is to say from the Gallic War, in the 1st century AD, to the fall of the empire in the 5th century. Archery is a little-known subject. This weapon, considered by the Romans as “the coward’s weapon”, remained the poor relation, leaving the Legion to take pride of place in the demonstrations. However, this weapon has been present in all battles, which are often decisive, so we decided to put it back into the spotlight by creating the Romae Sagittarii association in 2017. I am a historian by training and passionate about archeology. I have gathered extensive documentation from the excavations of a Roman fortress located in present-day Syria on the banks of the Euphrates. Doura Europos is a very preserved site, as it was never occupied after the Persian conquest. Nicknamed “the Pompeii of the desert”, it was not excavated until late, in the 1920s – 1930s. Archaeologists found all of the archers’ equipment there: their clothing, jewelry, accessories, arrowheads, pieces of bows, etc.
It is from these sources that I drew the information that allowed me to recreate the weapons and costumes that we will be able to discover in Grand. This will also be an opportunity to talk about combat formations, to explain how the bow was used, but also to discuss archery in general.
In a first animation, we present an archers’ camp made up of two tents, as they were during the Roman era. We will present a lot of material reconstructed from archaeological plates and iconographic models: arrowheads, bows, quivers and accessories of Roman archers.
We will install a shooting range where visitors will be able to interact freely with us and watch us shoot with copies of Roman bows, composite bows reconstituted with wood, bones, tendons and fish skin glue. This subject being very broad, we will be able to discuss many things on this lesser known facet of ancient Roman society.
We will also offer an introductory archery workshop. Visitors will be able to test ancient shooting techniques, try bows without sights that produce instinctive shots and learn different string grip techniques, for example. We all carved a little bow and arrow in our childhood and this will be, for many people, an opportunity to learn things and bring this little madeleine back to life…”
An article produced in partnership with Tandem Magazine, to consult HERE.
2024-05-25 05:31:42
#Grand #Cultural #Olympiad #event #missed
