The Ancient Olympic Games

Written by Gillian Hammerton

Photography by trexcali

The Olympic Games was the greatest and most glorious of all the Panhellenic festivals of ancient Greece and reached their zenith in the 6th and 5th centuries BC.

Though it is unknown how distant the games go, the Iliad describes the funeral games of Patroclus showing that they were known to Homer, a feature of Ionian life in the ninth century and understood in antiquity. The most widely accepted date for the inception of the Ancient Olympics is 776 BC based on inscriptions recording the winners of a foot-race held every four years. The first Olympic champion listed in the records was Coroebus of Elis, a cook, who won the sprint race in 776 BC.The games of 776 BC lasted just one day and included foot races, boxing and wrestling. Under the influence of the tyrant Pheidon of Argos, the games were enlarged and reorganized to include chariot races and horse races. However, foot races the length of the stadium remained the main event.

In 472 BC, the program was developed and extended. The first of the five days was spent in sacrifices to the gods and general particulars of the festival such as the oaths of fair dealings by the contestants and judges. The second day featured the pentathlon (running, jumping, javelin and discus throwing, and wrestling), the chariot races and single horse races. The contests for young boys occurred on the third day, returning on the fourth day to men’s foot races, jumping, boxing, wrestling, pankration (a blend of boxing and wrestling with almost no rules, save disallowing biting and the gouging out of the opponents eyes) and a final race for men wearing full armour. The festival ended on the fifth day with sacrifices in the morning and a final banquet in the evening where the victors were entertained.
Competition was not for money, but for glory, the sense of being a wonder, the token of which was a crown from the sacred olive tree.The victorious athletes were honoured, feted, and praised. Their deeds were heralded and chronicled so that future generations could appreciate their victories. A victorious athlete brought great honour to his home city. The prize for victory was a chaplet of wild olives; however, the main reward for the victor was on his return home in triumph when he would lay his Olympian crown in the main temple of his city.

The games were dedicated to the worship of Zeus and held on the sacred grove of Olympia, Altis, under the wooded mound of Cronus where the river of Cronus flows into the Alpheus. Outside the sacred place was a stadium, the hippodrome, the baths and other accommodation for visitors.
By the fifth century BC, the festival came around in a cycle of four years where athletes and horses thronged to the banks of the Alpheus from all corners of the Greek world to compete in the contests. Participation in the games was open to all males who spoke the Greek language hence contestants and spectators came from all parts of the ancient world. To facilitate the guarantee of safe passage for all travellers a general truce was declared binding interstate relationships, while during the celebrations a sacred truce was observed and the territory of the games was held to be inviolable, never to be broken, infringed, or dishonoured and all struggles against the participating city-states were postponed until after the completion of the games.

The festival created a centre where Greeks from all corners of the world could exchange ideas and promote the glory and unity of Greece. Thousands assembled in temporary encampments and to the spectate the greatest athletes in the Greek speaking world, but they also came to hold a market, exchange goods and hear the rhetoric of great orators .A succession of great thinkers and orators such as Gorgias from Sicily, the Athenian democrat Lysias and Isocrates the Athenian speech maker led eventually to providing a natural political forum for the expression of new ideas.

Despite the magnificence and enduring appeal of the Olympics the ancient games were an unpleasant environment where unruly slaves were threatened with attending when whipping was an insufficient punishment. The games took place in the height of summer and until 150 AD there was no reliable water supply, people would collapse from heatstroke. Athletes arrived one month before the games, and during training could not drink alcohol. After exercise the athletes cleaned themselves by rubbing oil over their bodies and scraping the mix of oil, sweat and dirt off with a special instrument called a strigil.
The Olympic site was small and very limited. There was no hygiene. The river was the latrine and the source of daily water. There were large sacrifices to the gods and a hundred cattle were assembled from the local countryside and penned, ready to be killed, with the resultant smell of excrement, blood and burnt flesh with the consequent proliferation of flies. For five days rubbish and rotten food and human waste caused stench, fever and diarrhoea. Few of the spectators bathed and there was little sanitation. On the first day of the games, live animals were sacrificed to Zeus Apomyios, (the Averter of Flies), thus attracting those very flies in their swarms.

Though the competition games were wonderful entertainment, the stadium provided no seating and despite the sweltering summer heat and the scant shade, the spectators were prevented from wearing hats by religious edict. The philosopher Thales perished from dehydration in the Olympic festival meadow.
The best athletes from all over the Greek speaking world attended and produced an unforgettable spectacle. The games began with the essential sacrifices to please the Gods, for a winner was only by divine interception. However, competition was ruthless with athletes competing on behalf of their cities by peaceful means, the aggression of war without the weapons. There were frequent casualties and occasionally fatalities.

                                    The Discobolus: An ancient Olympic discus thrower

Only citizens were allowed to compete in the games, and only the men and boys could enter the ancient Olympics because Olympia was dedicated to Zeus and hence a sacred area for men.  All women were excluded from the site even as spectator with the exception of the priestess in the Temple of Zeus, who lit the oil lamps. The punishment for a woman being caught in the Olympia during the festival was to be hurled from the cliff of Mount Typeo. The only exception was the priestess of Demeter, goddess of fertility, who was given a privileged position next to the Stadium altar. Pausanias tells the story of Callipateira, who broke this rule to see her son at the Games. “She, being a widow, disguised herself exactly like a gymnastic trainer, and brought her son to compete at Olympia. Peisirodus, for so her son was called, was victorious, and Callipateira, as she was jumping over the enclosure in which they keep the trainers shut up, bared her person. So her sex was discovered, but they let her go unpunished out of respect for her father, her brothers and her son, all of whom had been victorious at Olympia. But a law was passed that for the future trainers should strip before entering the arena.” (Pausanias 5.6.8ff.)
Beauty and aesthetics play an iconic role in the Olympic festivals, tied in with abstinence. Athletes were always seen as interestingly beautiful. Beauty of flesh, beauty of ideas, beauty of philosophy. Greeks discovered nudity, part of the Greek aesthetic idea of beauty. As Plato said in the Republic, classical Greeks, unlike barbarians, were not ashamed to appear in the nude. It was held to improve performance and safety and adhered to the aesthetic dimensions .Exceptionally because of the leather throngs attached to the horses, chariot driver were allowed to be clothed .Only citizens were permitted to be naked and slaves were forbidden.

The Vaison Diadoumenos: Athlete tying a ribbon around his head. Photo: Tilemahos Efthimiadis
The ancient Olympics were rather different from the modern Games. There were fewer events, and only free men who spoke Greek could compete. That aside, athletes from any country or city-state were allowed to participate and the Games were always held at Olympia rather than alternating to different locations as is the tradition.But in both ancient and modern Games, the victorious athletes are honoured, and heralded so that future generations could appreciate their accomplishments.

Roman Emperor Theodosius’ decided to rid the now Christian Empire of what he deemed to be destabilising pagan rituals.He saw the  Olympics as a religious festival because the events were dedicated to the Gods of Ancient Greece, with Zeus the main focus,  purpose being to give thanks to the gods through a celebration of human ability, gifted to them by Zeus himself. It  was this  religion aspect that brought an end to the Ancient Olympics,because of  the  Theodosius’ determination to ban all such pagan festivals which he held to be undermining  Christian structures of authority.

Though the ancient religious focus has not remained part of the Modern Olympics, the founding factors of the Ancient games are still present, indeed were the inspiration for the reformation of the Games in the 19^th century. The ethos of peaceful co-existence in the form of the  truce, enacted throughout Ancient Greece  allowing representatives of the city-states to travel and compete in the games is also reflected. This coming together of people under the flag of peace, suspending conflict in order to celebrate together the achievements and abilities of mankind was the exact inspiration for  and remains the guiding principal of the Modern Olympic Games.

The Ancient Olympic Games by gillian hammerton

                                        The Ancient Olympic Games

The Olympic Games was the greatest and most glorious of all the Panhellenic festivals of ancient Greece and reached their zenith in the 6th and 5th centuries BC.

Though it is unknown how distant the games go the Iliad describes the funeral games of Patroclus showing that they were known to Homer, a feature of Ionian life in the ninth century and understood in antiquity. The most widely accepted date for the inception of the Ancient Olympics is 776 BC based on inscriptions recording the winners of a foot-race held every four years. The first Olympic champion listed in the records was Coroebus of Elis, a cook, who won the sprint race in 776 BC.The games of 776 BC lasted just one day and included foot races, boxing and wrestling. Under the influence of the tyrant Pheidon of Argos, the games were enlarged and reorganized to include chariot races and horse races, however, the foot races the length of the stadium remained the main event.

In 472 B.C., the program was developed and extended. The first of the five days was spent in sacrifices to the gods and general particulars of the festival such as the oaths of fair dealings by the contestants and judges. The second day featured the pentathlon (running, jumping, javelin and discus throwing, and wrestling), the chariot races and single horse races. The   contests for young boys occurred on the third day, returning on the fourth day to men’s’ foot races, jumping, boxing, wrestling, pankration (a blend of boxing and wrestling with almost no rules, save disallowing biting and the gouging out of the opponents eyes) and a final race for men wearing full armour. The festival ended on the fifth day with sacrifices in the morning and a final banquet where the victors were entertained.

Competition was not for money, but for glory, the sense of being a wonder, the token of which is a crown from the sacred olive tree.The victorious athletes were honoured, feted, and praised. Their deeds were heralded and chronicled so that future generations could appreciate their victories. A victorious athlete brought great honour to his home city. The prize for victory was a chaplets of wild olives , however, the main reward for the victor was on his return home in triumph when he would lay his Olympian crown in the main temple of his city.

The games were dedicated to the worship of Zeus and held on the sacred grove of Olympia, Altis, under the wooded mound of Cronus where the river of Cronus flows into the Alpheus. Outside the sacred place were stadium, the hippodrome, the baths and other accommodation for visitors.

By the fifth century B.C., the festival came around in a cycle of four years where athletes and horses thronged to the banks of the Alpheus from all corners of the Greek world to compete in the contests. Participation in the games was open to all males who spoke the Greek language hence contestants and spectators came from all parts of the ancient world. To facilitate the guarantee of safe passage for all travellers a general truce was declared binding interstate relationships, while during the celebrations a sacred truce was observed and the territory of the games was held to be inviolable, never to be broken, infringed, or dishonoured and all struggles against the participating city-states were postponed until after the completion of the games.

The festival created a centre where Greeks from all corners of their world could exchange ideas and promote the glory and unity of Greece. Thousands assembled in temporary encampments and to the spectate the greatest athletes in the Greek speaking world, but they also came to hold a market, exchange goods and hear the rhetoric of great orators .A succession of great thinkers and orators such as Gorgias from Sicily, the Athenian democrat Lysias and Isocrates the Athenian speech maker led eventually to providing a natural political forum for the expression of new ideas.

Despite the magnificence and enduring appeal of the Olympics the ancient games were an unpleasant environment where unruly slaves were threatened with attending when whipping was an insufficient punishment. The games took place in the height of summer and until 150 A. D. there was no reliable water supply, people would collapse from heatstroke. Athletes arrived one month before the games, and during training could not drink alcohol. After exercise the athletes cleaned themselves by rubbing oil over their bodies and scraping the mix of oil, sweat and dirt off with a special instrument called a strigil.

The Olympic site was small and very limited. There was no hygiene. The river was the latrine and the source of daily water. There were large sacrifices to the gods and hundred of cattle were assembled from the local countryside and penned, ready to be killed with the resultant smell of excrement, blood and burnt flesh with the resultant proliferation of flies. For five days rubbish and rotten food and human waste caused stench, fever and diarrhoea. Few of the spectators bathed and there was little sanitation. On the first day of the games, live animals were sacrificed to Zeus Apomyios (the Averter of Flies), thus attracting those very flies in their swarms.

Though the competition games were wonderful entertainment the stadium provided no seating and despite the sweltering summer heat and the scant shade, the spectators were prevented from wearing hats by religious edit. The philosopher Thales perished from dehydration in the Olympic festival meadow.

The best athletes from all over the Greek speaking world attended and produced an unforgettable spectacle. The games began with the essential sacrifices to please the Gods, for a winner was only by divine interception. However, competition was ruthless with athletes competing on behalf of their cities by peaceful means, the aggression of war without the weapons. There were frequent casualties and occasionally fatalities.

                                         
                                        The Discobolus : An ancient Olympic discus thrower

Only citizens were allowed to compete in the games, and only the men and boys could enter the ancient Olympics because Olympia was dedicated to Zeus and hence a sacred area for men.  All were woman excluded from the site even as spectator with the exception of the priestess in the Temple of Zeus who lit the oil lamps. The punishment for a woman being caught in the Olympia during the festival was to be hurled from the cliff of Mount Typeo.The only exception was the priestess of Demeter, goddess of fertility, who was given a privileged position next to the Stadium altar. Pausanias tells the story of Callipateira, who broke this rule to see her son at the Games. "She, being a widow, disguised herself exactly like a gymnastic trainer, and brought her son to compete at Olympia. Peisirodus, for so her son was called, was victorious, and Callipateira, as she was jumping over the enclosure in which they keep the trainers shut up, bared her person. So her sex was discovered, but they let her go unpunished out of respect for her father, her brothers and her son, all of whom had been victorious at Olympia. But a law was passed that for the future trainers should strip before entering the arena." (Pausanias 5.6.8ff.

Beauty and aesthetics an iconic role in the Olympic festivals, tied in with abstinence. Athletes were always seen as interestingly beautiful. Beauty of flesh, beauty of ideas, beauty of philosophy. Greeks discovered nudity, part of the Greek aesthetic idea of beauty. As Plato said in the Republic, classical Greeks, unlike barbarians, were not ashamed to appear in the nude. It was held to improve performance and safety and adhered to the aesthetic dimensions .Exceptionally because of the leather throngs attached to the horses, chariot driver were allowed to be clothed .Only citizens were permitted to be naked and slaves were forbidden.
                                       

                                               Diadoumenos : Athlete tying a ribbon.


The ancient Olympics were rather different from the modern Games. There were fewer events, and only free men who spoke Greek could compete that aside, athletes from any country or city-state were allowed to participate and the Games were always held at Olympia rather than alternating to different locations as is the tradition .But in both ancient and modern Games, the victorious athletes are honored, and heralded so that future generations could appreciate their accomplishments.

Roman Emperor Theodosius’ decided to rid the now Christian Empire of what he deemed to be destabilising pagan rituals.He saw the  Olympics as a religious festival because the events were dedicated to the Gods of Ancient Greece, with Zeus the main focus,  purpose being to give thanks to the gods through a celebration of human ability, gifted to them by Zeus himself. It  was this  religion aspect that brought an end to the Ancient Olympics,because of  the  Theodosius’ determination to ban all such pagan festivals which he held to be undermining  Christian structures of authority.

Though the ancient religious focus has not remained part of the Modern Olympics, the founding factors of the Ancient games are still present, indeed were the inspiration for the reformation of the Games in the 19^th century. The ethos of peaceful co-existence in the form of the  truce, enacted throughout Ancient Greece  allowing representatives of the city-states to travel and compete in the games is also reflected. This coming together of people under the flag of peace, suspending conflict in order to celebrate together the achievements and abilities of mankind was the exact inspiration for  and remains the guiding principal of the Modern Olympic Games.