Milo or Milon of Croton () was a famous

ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

athlete from Croton, which is today in the

Magna Graecia Magna Graecia refers to the Greek-speaking areas of southern Italy, encompassing the modern Regions of Italy, Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania, and Sicily. These regions were Greek colonisation, extensively settled by G ...

region of southern Italy. Milo was a six-time winner at the

Olympics The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a variety of competit ...

, once for boys' wrestling in 540 BC at the 60th Olympics and later five times for wrestling at the 62nd to 66th Olympics. He continued competing long after what would have been considered a normal Olympic athlete's prime, and would have been over 40 years of age by the 67th Olympiad. He also attended many of the Pythian Games. His historicity is attested by many classical authors, among them

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

, Pausanias,

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...

Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

Vitruvius Vitruvius ( ; ; –70 BC – after ) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work titled . As the only treatise on architecture to survive from antiquity, it has been regarded since the Renaissan ...

Epictetus Epictetus (, ; , ''Epíktētos''; 50 135 AD) was a Greek Stoic philosopher. He was born into slavery at Hierapolis, Phrygia (present-day Pamukkale, in western Turkey) and lived in Rome until his banishment, when he went to Nicopolis in ...

, and the author of the ''

Suda The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; ; ) is a large 10th-century Byzantine Empire, Byzantine encyclopedia of the History of the Mediterranean region, ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas () or Souidas (). It is an ...

'', but there are many legendary stories surrounding him.

Diodorus Siculus Diodorus Siculus or Diodorus of Sicily (; 1st century BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek historian from Sicily. He is known for writing the monumental Universal history (genre), universal history ''Bibliotheca historica'', in forty ...

wrote in his history that Milo was a follower of

Pythagoras Pythagoras of Samos (; BC) was an ancient Ionian Greek philosopher, polymath, and the eponymous founder of Pythagoreanism. His political and religious teachings were well known in Magna Graecia and influenced the philosophies of P ...

who commanded the Crotonian army which defeated the Sybarites in 511 BC, while wearing his Olympic wreaths and dressed like

Heracles Heracles ( ; ), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a Divinity, divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of ZeusApollodorus1.9.16/ref> and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptive descent through ...

in a lion's skin and carrying a club: Milo's death, said to have occurred by wolves or a lion whilst his fingers were trapped in a tree stump he was trying to help someone split, became a popular subject in art in late

Italian Renaissance sculpture Italian Renaissance sculpture was an important part of the art of the Italian Renaissance, in the early stages arguably representing the leading edge. The example of Ancient Roman sculpture hung very heavily over it, both in terms of style and t ...

; it continued to around 1900 and allowed the sculptor to show his skill in a dramatic anatomical pose, being a more compact equivalent of the Roman ''

Laocoön and His Sons The statue of ''Laocoön and His Sons'', also called the Laocoön Group (), has been one of the most famous ancient sculptures since it was excavated in Rome in 1506 and put on public display in the Vatican Museums, where it remains today. The st ...

''.

Feats of strength

Ancient sources and legends report that Milo took great pleasure in showing off his strength. He had a number of feats he would perform, such as holding out his arm with his fingers outstretched and challenging people to attempt to bend his little finger, standing on a greased iron disk and challenging people to push him off it, and holding a

pomegranate The pomegranate (''Punica granatum'') is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub in the family Lythraceae, subfamily Punica, Punicoideae, that grows between tall. Rich in symbolic and mythological associations in many cultures, it is thought to have o ...

in one hand and challenging others to take it from him; nobody ever succeeded, and the fruit was never damaged despite him holding it very tightly. In what would become his most famous feat of strength, Milo trained in the off-years by carrying a newborn calf on his back every day until the Olympics took place, by which time he would be carrying a four-year-old cow on his back; he then carried the adult cow the length of the stadium before killing, roasting, and eating it.

Death

Legend has it that Milo's penchant for showing off his strength was his eventual undoing. In 511 BC, he traveled the countryside and met a villager who was struggling to split a tree stump with a hammer and wedges. Milo excitedly asked the man if he could attempt to split the wood with his bare hands; the villager, honored by his offer, went off to get food while Milo worked. Milo immediately tried to pull the stump apart by inserting his fingers in the crack where the villager had driven the wedges, but as he pulled the stump open, the wedges fell out and trapped his fingers. Without the wedges to hold the crack open, Milo could not free his fingers from the stump, and instead opted to wait for the villager to return. The legend says that Milo, unable to defend himself, was then killed by wolves or a lion before the villager returned.Diodorus. ''The Historical Library of Diodorus the Sicilian'', 1814 (Original from the New York Public Library).

Statue

Bibliography

References

External links

Web Gallery of Art
Depictions of Milo of Croton by Vittoria, Puget, Falconet, and Suvée {{DEFAULTSORT:Milo 6th-century BC births Year of birth unknown 6th-century BC Greek people Ancient Olympic competitors Ancient Crotonian athletes Ancient Greek wrestlers Ancient Pythian athletes Pythagoreans of Magna Graecia Year of death unknown