In College I took Greek and then Roman History at a public university which was much more open about facts in history than the Christian school I had gone to. It was then that I began to piece together how the Western World became so homophobic. After 330 B.C. the Greeks conquered the Eastern Mediterranean (including present day Israel). They overlaid it with sexually liberal ideas and their brand of individuality. This Hellenic sexual freedom — including nude wrestling, nude boxing and nude no-holds-barred fighting or pankration — was quickly adopted by young Jewish males of course, but was found repulsive by Jewish elders. Writings in the later Old Testament directly state this, especially referencing the practice of not getting circumcised. An uncircumcised penis would definitely be better for nude wrestling I think.
Each city had a place for wrestling, called a . Some large cities had several palaestrae. Wrestlers trained and competed in the nude. The sport was the first added to the (in 708 B.C) that was not a . Two ancient Greek wrestlers that are remembered today are Leontiskos of Messene and . Leontiskos is infamous for winning the Olympics after breaking his opponent’s fingers, and Milo is famous for winning five Olympic championships. Wrestling was a popular subject for Greek , , and .
