The Greeks of the Classical era believed that physical fitness and mental clarity were two sides of the same coin. A good citizen was virtuous in mind and in body; training was a civic duty, rather than a lifestyle choice.
Greek people in general, as well as the vast majority of people in the ancient world, had to work a lot harder for their livelihood than we do today. People were in better shape because they had more physical labor just to survive. Few Greeks could survive as professional athletes.
419–423 BC), ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes summed up the ideal traits of his male peers as “a gleaming chest, bright skin, broad shoulders, tiny tongue, strong buttocks, and a little prick.” Historian Paul Chrystal has also conducted research into this ancient ideal.
The Greeks were fixated with the human body, and to them the perfect body was an athletic body. They believed their gods took human form, and in order to worship their gods properly, they filled their temples with life-size, life-like images of them.
It was your job to take care of your family, provide for your family, make all the decisions for your household, and make sure your home was stable and under control at all times. Ancient Greek men were the head of their households.
Gender Roles
Greek society has been traditionally male dominated. There has been quite a masculine ideal of men cast as the strong provider for the family. Many Greek men today continue to feel that it is their responsibility to be the provider and breadwinner for their family, as society is still quite patriarchal .
Ancient Greece: 800 BC - 146 BC
Considered a reflection of the gods and heroes immortalised in Greek mythology, the ideal male body in ancient Greece was muscular, thin-waisted, and generally very lean.
Greek philosophers separated the body and the energy of the body into separate but equal and interacting categories. Aristotle defined the energy which gives the body its movement as the soul. The soul and the body are therefore linked but can remain separate entities.
The ancient Greeks believed that mental and physical health were interrelated as they had found that the body and mind should be in harmony.
Ancient Greek females also had body ideals to follow, softly shapen with rounded buttocks, long, wavy hair and a gentle face. In a time where many lived in poverty, to be larger and to carry extra fat on your body showed that you had wealth and could afford to eat to your satisfaction.
As mentioned before in Perett's book, In Your Face: The New Science of Human Attraction, women show a stronger attraction toward men with a figure consistent with the ideal hunting physique: strong shoulders, narrow waists, and broad chests and shoulders.
You have broad shoulders and a well-developed chest. Your waist and hips are narrower but not disproportionately. The Trapezoid is a well-proportioned healthy figure and one of the most desirable body shapes for men.
According to the ancient Greeks, the ideal male physique should have these measurements: the arms should be 2.5 times the circumference of the wrist, the calves 1.9 times the ankle size, the thighs 1.75 times the knee, the shoulders 1.6 times the waist, and the neck 2.5 times the wrist.
A philosophical ideal of ancient Greeks who believed that each person should have a harmonious blend (sometimes called balance) of physical, mental, and spiritual aspects. From: Greek ideal in The Oxford Dictionary of Sports Science & Medicine »
For the Greeks a beautiful body was considered direct evidence of a beautiful mind. They even had a word for it - kaloskagathos - which meant being gorgeous to look at, and hence being a good person.
The Greeks made important contributions to philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. Literature and theatre was an important aspect of Greek culture and influenced modern drama. The Greeks were known for their sophisticated sculpture and architecture.
The Greeks idealized physical fitness and mental discipline, and they believed that excellence in those areas honored Zeus, the greatest of all their Gods. One legend about the origin of the Olympic Games revolves around Zeus. It was said Zeus once fought his father, Kronos, for control of the world.
The ancient Greeks held that there were four cardinal body fluids (or "humours"), and four primary and opposite fundamental qualities (hot, cold, wet, dry). Each humour was correlated with a particular mental state or temperament (blood, sanguine; black bile, melancholy; phlegm, phlegmatic; and yellow bile, choleric).
The Ancient Greeks revered naked, athletic, well-defined perfection but knew this was unlikely to exist in the real world.
Most ancient Greeks anticipated that the soul left the body after death and continued to exist in some form, but an expectation that good would be rewarded and evil punished in the afterlife was not central to their beliefs.
In the thought of Plato and Aristotle, however, there was a clear philosophical conception of the soul as an entity that is somehow distinct from the body and is also the seat of functions like thought, perception, and desire.
What are the Greek beliefs about the human being and the human body? The Greeks believed that the human body is something that should be celebrated. They especially admire the athletic and idealized human body. This admiration is shown through the fact that both men and women are depicted in the nude in art.
They believed a perfect body was the idealized body, all part of their humanist belief system. Back then, they were so into it they even sculpted their armor with rippling pecs and muscles.
Greek women had virtually no political rights of any kind and were controlled by men at nearly every stage of their lives. The most important duties for a city-dwelling woman were to bear children--preferably male--and to run the household.
Men would serve the polis – state – while the domain of women was the oikos – the household. The women's quarters of a house, the gynaikon, were located on the upper floors, and wives were expected to bear and raise children and undertake domestic duties.