More than 2,500 years ago, the ancient Greek athlete Arrhichion achieved one of the most extraordinary victories in the history of the Olympics when he was crowned champion after he had already died.
Arrhichion (also Arrhachion) of Phigalia in Arcadia was one of ancient Greece’s leading pankration athletes. He had already won the brutal combat event at two consecutive Olympic Games when he returned to Olympia in 564 BC seeking a third title to cement his fame. Records compiled from ancient sources place his victories in 572, 568, and 564 BC. His third victory, however, would also be his last.
What was pankration, the game Arrachion died for, during the Olympics in ancient Greece?
Pankration was among the most demanding events of the ancient Olympic Games, combining elements of wrestling and boxing and allowing techniques such as holds, joint locks, and chokes. During Arrhichion’s final contest at the 54th Olympiad, his opponent managed to trap him by wrapping his legs around the Greek athlete while applying pressure to his neck.
The ancient traveler and geographer Pausanias, who recorded the story centuries later in his Description of Greece, wrote that Arrhichion was being suffocated but continued fighting (Original: Ἀρραχίων τε τὴν ψυχὴν ἀφίησιν ἀγχόμενος…). In the decisive moment of the contest, Arrhichion managed to dislocate his opponent’s toe. The pain was apparently so severe that the other athlete surrendered. Arrhichion, however, had already suffered fatal injuries from the choke.
Pausanias’ account describes the remarkable scene that ensued. Although Arrhichion was dead, his opponent had conceded the contest, prompting the officials from Elis, responsible for the Olympic Games, to recognize Arrhichion as the winner. They crowned his corpse and proclaimed him Olympic victor (Ἠλεῖοι δὲ ἐστεφάνωσάν τε καὶ ἀνηγόρευσαν νικῶντα τοῦ Ἀρραχίωνος τὸν νεκρόν). This remains one of the most shocking stories from the ancient Olympics, with an athlete receiving the greatest sporting honor of his era when he was no longer actually alive to witness it.
Arrhichion’s victory illustrates just how different the ancient Olympic Games were from their modern counterpart. There were no gold medals for champions. Instead, victors at Olympia received a wreath made from the sacred wild olive tree, while the prestige of an Olympic victory could bring enormous fame to both the athlete and his home city.
When Pausanias visited Phigalia centuries later, he saw a statue of Arrhichion the pankratiast standing in the city’s agora, evidence of the lasting place the athlete held in local memory.
Other ancient traditions also commemorated the ancient Greek athlete Arrhichion, and surviving records identify him as a three-time pankration champion of the Olympics. Yet it was the extraordinary manner of his final victory that ensured his name survived for more than two millennia.
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