ancient Olympic Games

ancient Olympic Games, quadrennial athletic event that was held in Olympia, Greece, from 776 bce to about 393 ce. It was part of a religious festival that honoured Zeus, and the name Olympics was derived from Mount Olympus, home of the Greek gods. The Games were a central part of Greek life, and major affairs, including wars, were often scheduled so as not to interfere with the event. In the early centuries of the ancient Olympics, the contests took place on one day, but the Games were later spread over four days, followed by a fifth devoted to the closing-ceremony presentation of prizes and a banquet for the champions.

Although the Olympics ended in the late 4th century ce, they continued to attract interest. In the late 19th century, concerted efforts began to revive the Games, and in 1896 the first modern Olympics were held, in Athens.

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ancient Greek civilization: The Olympic Games

Origins

Just how far back in history organized athletic contests were held remains a matter of debate, but it is reasonably certain that they occurred in Greece almost 3,000 years ago. However ancient in origin, by the end of the 6th century bce at least four Greek sporting festivals, sometimes called “classical games,” had achieved major importance: the Olympic Games, held at Olympia; the Pythian Games at Delphi; the Nemean Games at Nemea; and the Isthmian Games near Corinth. Later, similar festivals were held in nearly 150 cities as far afield as Rome, Naples, Odessus, Antioch, and Alexandria.

Of all the games held throughout Greece, the Olympic Games were the most famous. Held every four years between August 6 and September 19, they occupied such an important place in Greek history that in late antiquity historians measured time by the interval between them—an Olympiad. The Olympic Games, like almost all Greek games, were an intrinsic part of a religious festival. They were held in honour of Zeus at the sacred site Olympia by the city-state of Elis in the northwestern Peloponnese. The first Olympic champion listed in the records was Coroebus of Elis, a cook, who won the sprint race in 776 bce. Notions that the Olympics began much earlier than 776 bce are founded on myth, not historical evidence. According to one legend, for example, the Games were founded by Heracles, son of Zeus and Alcmene.

Events

At the meeting in 776 bce there was apparently only one event, a footrace that covered one length of the track at Olympia, but other events were added over the ensuing decades. The race, known as the stade, was about 192 metres (210 yards) long. The word stade also came to refer to the track on which the race was held and is the origin of the modern English word stadium. In 724 bce a two-length race, the diaulos, roughly similar to the 400-metre race, was included, and four years later the dolichos, a long-distance race possibly comparable to the modern 1,500- or 5,000-metre events, was added. Wrestling and the pentathlon were introduced in 708 bce. The latter was an all-around competition consisting of five events—the long jump, the javelin throw, the discus throw, a footrace, and wrestling.

Boxing was introduced in 688 bce and chariot racing eight years later. In 648 bce the pankration, a kind of no-holds-barred combat, was included. This brutal contest combined wrestling, boxing, and street fighting. Kicking and hitting a downed opponent were allowed; only biting and gouging (thrusting a finger or thumb into an opponent’s eye) were forbidden. A contest ended when one of the fighters acknowledged defeat or was rendered unconscious. In some cases, competitors died during matches.

Between 632 and 616 bce, events for boys were introduced. And from time to time further events were added, including a footrace in which athletes ran in partial armour and contests for heralds and for trumpeters. The program, however, was not nearly so varied as that of the modern Olympics. There were neither team games nor ball games, and the athletics (track and field) events were limited to the four running events and the pentathlon mentioned above. Chariot races and horse racing, which became part of the ancient Games, were held in the hippodrome south of the stadium.

In most events, the athletes participated in the nude. Through the centuries, scholars have sought to explain this practice. Theories have ranged from the eccentric (to be nude in public without an erection demonstrated self-control) to the usual anthropological, religious, and social explanations, including the following: (1) nudity bespeaks a rite of passage, (2) nudity was a holdover from the days of hunting and gathering, (3) nudity had, for the Greeks, a magical power to ward off harm, and (4) public nudity was a kind of costume of the upper class. Historians have grasped at dubious theories because, in modern Western societies, which were long dominated by Jewish and Christian mores, to compete nude in public seems odd, if not scandalous. Yet ancient Greeks found nothing shameful about nudity, especially male nudity. Therefore, the many modern explanations of Greek athletic nudity are in the main unnecessary.

The Olympic Games were technically restricted to freeborn Greeks. Many Greek competitors came from the Greek colonies on the Italian peninsula and in Asia Minor and Africa. Most of the participants were professionals who trained full-time for the events. These athletes earned substantial prizes for winning at many other, preliminary festivals, and, although the only prize at Olympia was a wreath or garland, an Olympic champion also received widespread adulation and often lavish benefits from his home city.

Women and the Olympics

Although there were no women’s events in the ancient Olympics, several women appear in the official lists of Olympic victors as the owners of the stables of some victorious chariot entries. In Sparta, girls and young women did practice and compete locally. But, apart from those in Sparta, contests for young Greek women were very rare and probably limited to an annual local footrace. At Olympia, however, the Herean festival, held every four years in honour of the goddess Hera, included a race for young women, who were divided into three age groups. Yet the Herean race was not part of the Olympics (they took place at another time of the year) and probably was not instituted before the advent of the Roman Empire. Then for a brief period girls competed at a few other important athletic venues.

The 2nd-century-ce traveler Pausanias wrote that women were banned from Olympia during the actual Games under penalty of death. Yet he also remarked that the law and penalty had never been invoked. His account later incongruously stated that unmarried women were allowed as Olympic spectators. Many historians believe that this inconsistency resulted from an error a later scribe introduced while copying this passage of Pausanias’s text. Nonetheless, the notion that all or only married women were banned from the Games endured in popular writing on the topic, though the evidence regarding women as spectators remains unclear.

Politics at the Games

While an athletic event, the Olympics often had a political aspect. Military conflicts between Greek city-states were not uncommon, and the Olympics offered a refuge from violence and promoted peace. As part of the Olympic truce (Ekecheiria), Olympia was free from warfare, and athletes participating in the festival were allowed safe passage through all the city-states. Nonetheless, the contests often became proxy battles between city-states, and it was not unusual for alliances between city-states to be announced during the festival.

Demise of the Olympics

Greece lost its independence to Rome in the middle of the 2nd century bce, and support for the competitions at Olympia and elsewhere fell off considerably during the next century. The Romans looked on athletics with contempt: to strip naked and compete in public was degrading in their eyes. However, the Romans realized the political value of the Greek festivals, and the emperor Augustus staged games for Greek athletes in a temporary wooden stadium erected near the Circus Maximus in Rome and instituted major new athletic festivals in Italy and in Greece. The emperor Nero was also a keen patron of the festivals in Greece, but he disgraced himself and the Olympic Games when he entered a chariot race, fell off his vehicle, and then declared himself the winner anyway.

Romans neither trained for nor participated in Greek athletics. Roman gladiator shows and team chariot racing were not related to the Olympic Games or to Greek athletics. The main difference between the Greek and Roman attitudes is reflected in the words each culture used to describe its festivals: for the Greeks they were contests (agōnes), while for the Romans they were games (ludi). The Greeks originally organized their festivals for the competitors, the Romans for the public. One was primarily competition, the other entertainment. The Olympic Games were finally abolished about 394 ce by the Roman emperor Theodosius I or his son because of the festival’s pagan associations.