Abstract des Autors

As the title reveals, this is a paper that investigates the ethical and religious attitudes associated with the phenomenon of hero-athletes. On the grounds of literary and archaeological evidence, only 25% of the names of Olympic victors is known.1 From this very small percentage, only fourteen athletes have received heroic cultic honours, whereas three out of the fourteen heroized athletes were further worshipped as gods. The structure of this paper is focused on the following two questions: (i) Why were some and not all the athletes heroized? and (ii) Why were athletes with transgressive behaviour worshipped? In order to unravel these questions in depth, I limit myself to the study of seven exceptional athletes who provide fruitful insights about the conceptual function of the worship of hero-athletes in the Classical and Hellenistic periods. These athletes are: Diagoras of Rhodes, Oibotas of Dyme, Hipposthenes of Sparta, Kleomedes of Astypalaia, Diognetos of Crete, Theogenes of Thasos, and, Euthykles of Locri.