ABSTRACT
After sailing more than 400 miles from Potidaea, the decorated 40-year-old son-of-a-brick-mason did a curious thing: he headed with dispatch to a house of wrestling. Not a WWE smackdown extravaganza, mind you, but a local gymtechnically a palaestra-to get back in touch with old friends, familiar places, and catch up on a lot of hometown gossip. The heroic warrior had been away nearly two years from his beloved Athens, so what better meeting place than a local gymnos, where young, naked, and olive-oiled bodies on display mingled easily with thoughts of the civic and philosophic?1
