Posted on 04/07/2012 9:49:40 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
A newly translated inscription, dating back about 1,800 years, reveals that Oinoanda, a Roman city in southwest Turkey, turned to a mixed martial art champion to recruit for the Roman army and bring the new soldiers to a city named Hierapolis, located hundreds of miles to the east, in Syria.
His name was Lucius Septimius Flavianus Flavillianus and he was a champion at wrestling and pankration, the latter a bloody, and at times lethal, mixed martial art where contestants would try to pound each other unconscious or into submission.
Flavillianus proved to be so successful as a military recruiter that it was decreed that he be made a "cult figure in the band of heroes" after he died, with each tribe of the city erecting statues in his honor. The inscription, written in Greek, was engraved on the base of a statue found in Oinoanda's agora (a central public space) and would have been erected by the people of the city. Discovered by a team in 2002, it wasn't until now that researchers translated and published it.
...Nicholas Milner, a researcher with the British Institute at Ankara, who published the translation... explained that in the Roman Empire, this sort of "heroisation" is very rare.
The inscription hails Flavillianus as being a "champion athlete," and, from other inscriptions found at Oinoanda, researchers know that the two sports he won championships in were wrestling and pankration.
Pankration was such a bloody sport that it had only two known rules: no eye-gouging and no biting. Aside from these restrictions, anything was fair game. Philostratos, an ancient writer who lived around the same time as Flavillianus, wrote that pankration competitors are skillful in different types of strangulation.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Flavillianus excelled at two sports, wrestling and pankration, winning victories in Athens, Argos and Neapolis. Both of these sports have roots in ancient Greece. [CREDIT: Timothy R. Nichols | Shutterstock]
A new inscription reveals that a Roman city in Turkey, Oinoanda, turned to a mixed martial art champion named Lucius Septimius Flavianus Flavillianus to recruit and deliver soldiers for the empire's army. It is written in Greek. [CREDIT: Photo by Nicholas Milner, British Institute at Ankara]
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Ioannus Claudius Vandamicus?
In WWII Uncle Sam used all sorts of celebrities, athletes and movies stars alike, to sell war bonds and drum up support for the military.
“His name was Lucius Septimius Flavianus Flavillianus”
Which has long since been americanized to “Chuck Norris”
As long as John Bones Jones knocks out Rayshaud Evans, I just don’t care. I wouldn’t be terribly upset if Evans is too egotistical to tap and get’s a broken something for his trouble. Pankration sounds less like a technique and more like a disorder.
No eye gouging and no biting. One wonders why they even bothered to have those two rules, given what else would’ve been allowed.
Interesting, though. I’d never heard of Pankration.
That must mean they could make their opponent wear panties on their heads!!! Egad!!!
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