The last discipline of the pentathlon at the olympic games was the so called "pankration" (allfight). It was a no rule -fight club like - fight to the death if a) no opponent resigns or b) no one goes K.O (loses his senses). Many of the competitors was told to better not come home without a victory....calel wrote: Sidenote: the only reference I have found towards fights to the death concerning Old Greek culture is that of more ritual sacrifices during 'funeral games', where the sacrified were more than likely to have been slaves. It is very likely gladiatorial fights in the Roman Empire were adopted from either the Etruscan and Campanian culture who were supposedly fond of 'bloodshed'.
there is a "t" too much in the name for to translate "war". war=polemos in ancient and modern greek.calel wrote: I'll have to agree with Faa that the Fyros culture seems to have more of a link with the Greco-Ptolemaic (Ptolemaios means warlike in ancient Greek, go figure ) culture than it would with the Roman. It's emperor's names, the names of it's cities, the public baths, academy and agora, the architecture and city-design (well, mainly Pyr).
beside these notes , agree to fyros - ptolemaic connotation.