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THE  PANATHENAEA

THE NORTH FRIEZE : ACR (slab 17). An “apobate”: an athlete that jumps off and on a moving chariot. The Apobates’game was one of the most ancient; it has been instituted by Erechtheus and conceived according to the model of Athena’s fight against the giants; the conqueror won the oil, extracted from the sacred olive-trees and preserved in panathenaic amphorae. For the Greeks, sport had a religious function, the gymnastic competitions took place in the shrines in honour of a god.