The GOAT

Let me tell you of the greatest athlete of all time. Not Mark Spitz. Not Simone Biles. I speak instead of Theagenes of Thasos, son of Timosthenes. What we do know about him is astonishing. In 480BCE, in the 75th Olympiad Games, he won the crown for boxing a man named Euthymos. In the 76th Olympiad he won the pankration, a sport with two basic rules: no eye gouging and no Spartans. But two Olympic victories wouldn't make anyone the greatest athlete ever. According to records, he won three victories in the Pythian Games, nine victories in the Nemean Games and ten victories in the Isthmian Games. Over a 22 year career, he won 1400 competitions, not only with fighting, but in foot races as well.

But, such victories are just a number; what makes Theagenes The GOAT is what happened after he died. He was such a great, and well known, athlete, that a bronze statue was erected of him in Thasos. Allegedly, according to a single source, some dude who lost too many fights with Theagenes came up to the statue one night and started beating it. He must have hit the bronze too hard because, allegedly, it fell over and crushed him to death. The man's sons took the statue to court for murder, under something called Apsychon Dike, which stated that if an unjust death had occurred, than someone or something could be held accountable for it. The argument was that Theagenes was such a good boxer he should have known better than to kill his opponent. (I don't buy this argument, since death was possible in ancient boxing and pankration fights. It wasn't the goal, but it could happen if someone wouldn't tap out. It's why Spartans were banned from the pankration; they would never quit unless they were dead or unconcious. I think that this addition to the story was added much later, since it's not included in Pausanias' account.)

The statue was found guilty and dropped into the Mediterranean Sea. Later on, famine and plague struck Thasos and, after consulting the Oracle, were told that Theagenes was unjustly punished and that he would have to be allowed to return to Thasos. His statue was fished out of the sea. The current location of the bronze is unknown.

The Greek historian Pausanias wrote the following: (DESCRIPTION OF GREECE 6. 1 - 18, TRANSLATED BY W. H. S. JONES)

[6.6.5] This river then, according to tradition, was the father of Euthymus, who, though he won the prize for boxing at the seventy-fourth Olympic Festival was not to be so successful at the next. For Theagenes of Thasos, wishing to win the prizes for boxing and for the pancratium at the same Festival, overcame Euthymus at boxing, though he had not the strength to gain the wild olive in the pancratium, because he was already exhausted in his fight with Euthymus.

[6.6.6] Thereupon the umpires fined Theagenes a talent, to be sacred to the god, and a talent for the harm done to Euthymus, holding that it was merely to spite him that he entered for the boxing competition. For this reason they condemned him to pay an extra fine privately to Euthymus. At the seventy-sixth Festival Theagenes paid in full the money owed to the god, . . . and as compensation to Euthymus did not enter for the boxing-match.

[6.11.4] The achievements of Theagenes at the Olympian games have already – the most famous of them – been described in my story, how he beat Euthymus the boxer, and how he was fined by the Eleans. On this occasion the pancratium, it is said, was for the first time on record won without a contest, the victor being Dromeus of Mantineia. At the Festival following this, Theagenes was the winner in the pancratium.

[6.11.5] He also won three victories at Pytho. These were for boxing, while nine prizes at Nemea and ten at the Isthmus were won in some cases for the pancratium and in others for boxing. At Phthia in Thessaly he gave up training for boxing and the pancratium. He devoted himself to winning fame among the Greeks for his running also, and beat those who entered for the long race. His ambition was, I think, to rival Achilles by winning a prize for running in the fatherland of the swiftest of those who are called heroes. The total number of crowns that he won was one thousand four hundred.

[6.11.6] When he departed this life, one of those who were his enemies while he lived came every night to the statue of Theagenes and flogged the bronze as though he were ill-treating Theagenes himself. The statue put an end to the outrage by falling on him, but the sons of the dead man prosecuted the statue for murder. So the Thasians dropped the statue to the bottom of the sea, adopting the principle of Draco, who, when he framed for the Athenians laws to deal with homicide, inflicted banishment even on lifeless things, should one of them fall and kill a man.

[6.11.7] But in course of time, when the earth yielded no crop to the Thasians, they sent envoys to Delphi, and the god instructed them to receive back the exiles. At this command they received them back, but their restoration brought no remedy of the famine. So for the second time they went to the Pythian priestess, saying that although they had obeyed her instructions the wrath of the gods still abode with them.

[6.11.8] Whereupon the Pythian priestess replied to them:– "But you have forgotten your great Theagenes." And when they could not think of a contrivance to recover the statue of Theagenes, fishermen, they say, after putting out to sea for a catch of fish caught the statue in their net and brought it back to land. The Thasians set it up in its original position, and are wont to sacrifice to him as to a god.

[6.11.9] There are many other places that I know of, both among Greeks and among barbarians, where images of Theagenes have been set up, who cures diseases and receives honors from the natives. The statue of Theagenes is in the Altis, being the work of Glaucias of Aegina.