Abstract

Wihout any doubts the city – from the Greek polis to the urban aglomeration – constitutes one of the maximum manifestations of human culture. In fact, the Greeks already saw in the polis the condition of possibilities for a men civilization, or what’s the same, the ideal place for the formation f the citizens. Aristoteles leaves everything clear enough in his Politics. the city is the telos of civilization, with which his vision of men as a zoon politikon is justified. In consequence, out of the city remains disorder and barbarians, so one of the most severe punishments applied to someone who broke the laws of the polis was precisely the condemn to ostrascism, in other words, living away from his original city, sentence applied to Socrates, who decided to take his life before accepting it. With this record it seems logic that one of the most precious merits by the citizens of the respective polis was, precisely, the fact of representing them in the Olympic Games and obtain victories that, apart from showing his personal greatness, gives prestige to the name of the city.