Cliopolitan: The Sport of War

Thursday, June 2, 2011

The Sport of War

Even though the semester has ended, I’m still pondering Laws of War—and not just in the Middle Ages. There’s a Matrix-like quality to this—once you become aware of these patterns, you see them everywhere! Not surprising, since man has been at war pretty much constantly throughout the course of recorded history. Heck, the very first work of literature is about a war!

Then Ares roared like a trumpet, as loud as nine thousand men could shout, aye, ten thousand men in the turmoil of battle! Trojans and Achaians alike trembled to hear the roar of the insatiate God of War!

And of course the Bible is chock-FULL of warfare—David and Goliath, Judah Maccabee the Rock Star...

…even the endgame, Armageddon, is a battle scenario. (Interestingly Armageddon is a placename—Megiddo is the name of an ancient city.) We tend to see war as this random, chaotic force of obliteration but there are recognizable, distinct patterns which emerge again and again, and not just in history.

These patterns are perhaps most apparent in our sports culture—most forms of organized sports tend to be team vs. team, facing each other on opposing fields, much like the classic pitched battle. You can see this in basketball, soccer, even tennis, but the classic sports metaphor for war is football, which shares the:

terminology (blitzes, bombs)
strategy (front lines, flanking maneuvers)
tactics (artillery vs. infantry)

as well as protective armor. What is a running game but an updated version of medieval jousting, with the players functioning as both destrier and knight? Football fans are even referred to as weekend warriors! And their latter-day woadwood would do any Celtic warrior proud.

William Wallace, Woad Warrior…

I’ve found that reading Froissart’s Chronicles has brought a whole new appreciation to the playoffs.

And—cheerleaders, that peculiarly American contribution to team sports. We love them, we fear them, we live vicariously through grrrlpower Kristen Dunst movies. (Full disclosure—I was never a cheerleader (3-sport varsity athlete here!) but I always thought it would be fun.) But, you ask, how do cheerleaders fit into the football-as-war scenario? Well, although women couldn’t actually fight in medieval battles* they did have a military function in chivalry—as an audience for the knight, to spur him to greater deeds, literally to see him off as he marched off to war. Interestingly the first cheerleaders were actually men, so this possible parallel with medieval women has actually developed over time. Of course nowadays cheerleaders are not content to merely watch and applaud--they take the field in their own right.

They even have a castle!

*Joan of Arc was clearly the ass-kicking and name-taking exception.

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Three cities in Italy...

Each had their unique charms—the decadent, serpentine beauty of Venice, infernal Naples with its buried poisons—but Rome, old, old Rome affected me the most. Walking along the banks of the Tiber up which sailed pirates and apostles and queens, standing atop Capitoline Hill and observing the Temple of Saturn where the ancients prayed, and the Coliseum where they died. Keats’s room overlooking the Spanish Steps, where he breathed his last. The ecstasy of Bernini’s fountains and plazas, culminating in the literal embrace of St. Peter’s Square. Every street was a poem dense with meaning, an opportunity to close my eyes and realize—those people were here. These are the stones upon which they walked, this is the air they breathed, the water they drank. We were here. We lived, loved, died here. We are just like you.

This is why I study history—to hear those voices from generations ago, millennia ago. People change so little; history teaches the same lessons again and again. The past illuminates the present. And the lessons are manifest in other disciplines; art, drama, literature, music, philosophy, all contribute to this continuum. A few years ago I performed the role of Helen in Trojan Women and in preparation I reread The Iliad. Afterward I thought—this work appeared 2800 years ago, and the story takes place some 500 years before that. And yet it could be told today. A wife runs off with another man. Young men are dazzled by the glamour of conquest. A father mourns his son. We were here.

As the title indicates, I write about history. But I can't ignore Clio's fellow Muses--Calliope, Melpomene, Thalia, their sister musicians. So--also poetry. And theater, and music. My favorite periods are the Middle Ages, the English Renaissance, and the American post-WWII era, but I also have a fondness for ancient civilizations.

I have a B.A. in English/music and am currently studying history at Columbia to prepare for grad school. Comments are welcome but I reserve the right to delete/ban trolls.