The Greek island of Thasos is located in the northern part of the Aegean Sea, near the Thracian coast, and its capital, also called Thasos, is located in the north of the island. It was founded around the year 680 BC by settlers who came from the island of Paros.
One of the most famous athletes of antiquity lived there during the 5th century BC, who reached his greatest glory between 480 and 460 BC. His name was Theagenes of Thassos and he stood out, mainly, in pankration and pugilism. We know of his life through Pausanias, Athenaeus of Naucratis, Lucian of Samosata, and Plutarch.
Pausanias echoes in the last book of his Description of Greece, written in the second century AD, from the legend of the Thasians, according to which Theagenes would have been the son, not of his mortal father, but, through tricks often attributed to the gods, of Hercules himself. So strong must he have been, and so strong must be the memory that the islanders had of him seven centuries later.
Pausanias, Description of Greece VI-11
At that early age he was also known for his voracity and immense appetite, which led him to devour oxen by himself, as a kind of Obelix (whose figure, if you think about it, seems based on Theagenes). The fact is that those from Thassos had to solve the problem that the boy and his great strength represented, and for this they entrusted him to the care of a coach who would teach him how to channel his energy in sport.
It worked and Theagenes won the boxing competition at the 74th Olympiad in 484 BC (Eutimo, another famous athlete whose statue at Olympia has been found). He also won the pankration competition, but the judges determined that he had mistreated Euthymus in his previous victory and disqualified him by fining him one talent, which he paid at the 76th Olympiad in 480 BC (another version says that he was so exhausted from fighting Euthymus that he was fined for presenting himself to the pancratium in such conditions).
So it came to pass that the pancracy prize was awarded to Dromeo of Mantinea, the first as far as we know, who is considered to have won it without a fight.
Pausanias, Description of Greece VI-11
Two years earlier, in 486 BC, he had won the double in boxing and pankration at the Isthmian Games. At the Pythian Games he triumphed in boxing three times, in 482, 478 and 474 BC he had nine victories at the Nemean Games and a total of ten at the Isthmian Games.
Pausanias says that in the homeland of Achilles, in Phthia (Thessaly) he performed a great feat for an athlete heavy like him, win the dolic the race of approximately 5,000 meters that was usual in the Panhellenic Games.
But at Phthia, in Thessaly, he gave up these two exercises (pankration and pugilism) and thought only of becoming famous in the race among the Greeks. He was victorious in the dolicho, and he did so, I think, to compete with Achilles, thus wanting to win in the homeland of the bravest of heroes.
Pausanias, Description of Greece VI-11
In total, according to Pausanias, Theagenes won 1,400 victories throughout his life. Plutarch attributes only 1,200 to him and further says that most were of little importance. But the most curious thing is that his fame spread over time due to an event after his death.
The Thasians had erected a statue to him. An old rival, who had never managed to defeat him, came every night to beat her with sticks, until one night the statue collapsed on him, killing him.
It turns out that in Thasos there was a law that ordered everything to be thrown into the sea, including things and objects that, when falling, would have killed someone. The statue was tried and condemned, and consequently thrown into the sea. It seems that a period of bad harvests and drought then began and, after consulting the oracle of Delphi, they recovered the statue, returning it to its original place.
The drought ended and Theagenes began to be revered as a healing god. Interestingly, the base of this statue was found in the agora of Thasos, on which a catalog of victories is engraved.
The Thasians, who have moved her to the place where she was originally, offer their sacrifices to her as if to a deity. I know that statues of Theagenes have been erected in many other places in Greece, and even among the barbarian peoples: the people of these different countries worship him, and believe that he provides health for the sick.
Pausanias, Description of Greece VI-11
Sources
Description of Greece (Pausanias) / Encyclopedia of World Sport (David Levinson, Karen Christensen) / Arete: Greek Sports from Ancient Sources (Stephen G.Miller) / Wikipedia.
