This clip is from the film "Ben Hur," a Hollywood spectacle painted on the broadest of canvases. At one point, contestants from throughout the Roman empire compete in the chariot race. For students in Classics 207, this clip illuminates the perils inherent in
agones, in ordeals or contests; this footage makes very real and apparent the peril that an athlete faces in the midst of testosterone-laden men and horses.
As in its Iliadic counterpart in Book 23, the ordeal (or ritual) of the game takes place around a
sêma, the point of greatest danger for the contestant. In the Iliad, Nestor counsels Antilokhos to exercise the greatest caution at this juncture: "mind the stone (the turning point, the
sêma), or you will wound your horses and break your chariot into pieces, which would be sport for others but confusion for yourself." (23.324).
What a hero leaves behind after death is his sêma, his (or her!) sign or symbol It is that earthy remnant that acts as a catalyst (or a warning) for those making decisions (kriseis) as they experience competition or struggle.
