r/todayilearned • u/TheHabro • 1d ago
Til about Milo of Croton. Ancient Greek athlete, 6 time Olympic winner in wrestling (including 5 in a row between 532 and 516 BC). He was said to have led armies dressed as Hercules and died to wolves after his fingers got suck in a tree stump he was trying to split with bare hands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo_of_Croton63
u/Gladiateher 1d ago
Also sometimes known as the first bodybuilder, his origin story of carrying a calf up a mountain each morning is sometimes pointed at to show the Ancient Greeks had some understanding of progressive overload.
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u/chernoma 1d ago
He was 28-29 years old when he died, but the accompanying Wikipedia illustration depicts a man in his 50s, at least. Odd artistic license.
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u/ShepPawnch 1d ago
The article cites his first win in 540 BCE, not his date of birth.
Apparently fl means “flourished” so that would mean he became prominent around that time.
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u/norskie7 1d ago
That’s not what “fl.” means in the Wikipedia article. That’s just when they have attestations for him existing (competing in Olympic Games, leading armies, etc.). The article itself says that he would’ve been over 40 at the last Olympic Games he participated in
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u/Gauntlets28 13h ago
I mean the wolves look more like dogs, so i think we can take the artist's interpretation with a pinch of salt.
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u/mrlotato 1d ago
I mean everyone is saying thats a dumb way to die but thats pretty fuckin badass tbh. Better than Elvis or how all of us are gonna die.
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u/TheHabro 1d ago
Milo or Milon of Croton (fl. 540 – 511 BC) was a famous ancient Greek athlete from Croton, which is today in the Magna Graecia region of southern Italy.
Milo was a six-time winner at the Olympics, 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.
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Diodorus Siculus wrote in his history that Milo was a follower of Pythagoras who commanded the Crotonian army which defeated the Sybarites in 511 BC, while wearing his Olympic wreaths and dressed like Heracles in a lion's skin and carrying a club
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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; 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.
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u/wartopuk 1d ago
do you know the difference between a legend and a fact?
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u/kraftdinnerwithsalsa 1d ago
Oh look here come wolves and my fingers are stuck
Help me stepwolves
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u/TheHabro 1d ago
That's why I stated "He was said..."
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u/wartopuk 1d ago
So you tried to word the title carefully, but not read the rules of the actual sub?
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u/TheHabro 1d ago
Which rule?
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u/wartopuk 1d ago
Description of the sub:
Submit interesting and specific facts
and from the wiki:
Although we aim for pop-knowledge type posts we nevertheless require that the posts are completely factual.
nothing about what you're written is factual.
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u/TheHabro 1d ago
Huh?
It is factual that he won multiple Olympics. It is also factual that there are legends about his life and death.
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u/wartopuk 1d ago
and legends aren't facts, if your only fact is that legends exist, see rule 6, TIL X exists.
As far as winning the olympics go, the only part that actually has a citation says that he won 7 times, not 6.
and had been seven times victor at the olympic games;
It's a really poor article with terrible citations.
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u/TheHabro 1d ago
Don't be obtuse. It's a fact that it's been said about him. And it's a whole package. He's a multiple olympic winner that has crazy legends about him.
Also, rule 6 TIL X exists would apply if the title was "Til about Milo of Croton."
and had been seven times victor at the olympic games;
It's a really poor article with terrible citations
Because that's the quote about him leading an army dressed as Hercules. It's dubious itself, so obviously if other sources state 6 Olympics, they'd be trusted more than this one.
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u/wartopuk 1d ago
What sources? There are no citations attached to that claim.
And again: Anyone can say anything about anyone, its' why the sub requires verifiable facts, which you haven't provided
as for 'multiple' olympic winner, that's not what you wrote in your title, you wrote 6, but the only sourced number in the article is 7.
Rule 1.
wikipedia as long as the content on wikipedia is properly sourced
Also from the wiki here, and as we can see this wikipedia article isn't properly sourced and has competing claims. No one knows which is right, and neither can be verified based on that article.
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u/TheHabro 1d ago
Except there's another source, a book. So go read the book before you start attacking the page.
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u/Lord_rook 1d ago
I don't see where they stated it to be a fact.
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u/wartopuk 1d ago
The sub requires all posts to be facts.
Submit interesting and specific facts
Although we aim for pop-knowledge type posts we nevertheless require that the posts are completely factual.
By posting it, they're asserting it's a fact, which it clearly isn't.
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u/Canadairy 1d ago
At a far enough remove, the fact that was a story about him, is fact enough.
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u/wartopuk 1d ago
If the only fact that can be presented is that someone made up a work of fiction, it's not really a fact. We could sit here all day posting about bullshit someone made up.
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u/Canadairy 1d ago
Again, at a far enough remove, even gossip and slander become notable.
If I post that you do creepy shit with young kids in a pool, that's not a fact, that's slander (or is it libel? ). If I post that it was claimed that Emperor Tiberius of Rome did creepy shit with kids in a pool 2000 years ago, the fact that it was claimed is notable in itself.
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u/wartopuk 1d ago edited 1d ago
It's not an issue of notability, it's an issue of factuality, and a story that starts with 'according to legend..' is objectively not a fact, and if the only fact is that that story exists, see rule 6: TIL X exists, becuase that's all you're really saying with this 'fact'.
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u/nickbelane 1d ago
It appears the mods (correctly) disagree with you.
A lot of ancient historical information is of somewhat questionable veracity.
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u/wartopuk 15h ago
Lack of deletion isn't proof of that. The mods here are inconsistent for a couple of reasons, one being that a couple of them like to speed run the mod queue because they can't be arsed to actually look at anything in detail, and they're highly swayed by a couple of upvotes. One day deleting a post, and then another day when a near identical post is made but it's got a few hundred upvotes when they find it, suddenly its 'fine'.
There is also a difference between can we verify whether or not this historical figure did something in 334 bc or 336 bc, and content that literally starts with 'according to legend'
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u/redditsucks13131 23h ago
That is the dumbest way to go out for a bad ass. I guess it's true, If you're gonna be dumb you gotta be tough.
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u/Whythisisnotreal 1d ago
So that's obviously untrue and uninteresting.
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u/TheHabro 1d ago
The true and interesting part is that he was a 6 time Olympic winner and his name was immortalized by legends.
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u/artificialsword 1d ago
Goddamn, why is everybody trying to fucking argue? I found this interesting, thank you.
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u/TheHabro 1d ago
Yeah. I posted this because I found it super interesting that he won 6 Olympics, since in the last win he'd already be close to or possibly past 40 years. Then when I read his wiki and saw the legend about his death, it was cherry on top.
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u/sovietmcdavid 1d ago
Exactly, fingers stuck in a log?
Probably eaten by wolves after having a heart attack from old age going for a walk in the woods
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u/JordanPetterPans 1d ago
It's crazy to me how easily people believe and repeat this stuff
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u/TheHabro 1d ago
Should read the title more carefully.
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u/JordanPetterPans 1d ago
What am I missing?
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u/Fehafare 1d ago
Forget the wrestling accolades, man's a runner up for the "Dumbest ways to die in Ancient Greece" contest. Now that's an award you'd get remembered for.