Three thousand years ago, the ancient Greeks introduced a new sports competition. There were many athletic contests in ancient Greece, but this one was different. For a start, this competition honored the mighty Zeus, ruler of all Greek gods, so it included not only sports, but religious celebration as well. For the next thousand years, it attracted the best athletes from Greek city-states, from places as far away as modern-day Ukraine, Egypt, and Turkey.
The first of these contests took place in the Elis region of Greece, at a sacred spot called Olympia, in 776 BC. The competition was so successful that the Greeks continued to hold similar events every four years. They called these competitions the Olympic Games. So why were the Games so special?
Exercise was very important in the ancient Greek world. The Greeks believed in a well-rounded education, emphasizing exercise for the body as well as the mind. Moreover they believed that men should stay in shape in case they had to serve in the army. To promote health, every Greek city had a gymnasium and a wrestling school called a palaestra. These places were so important to each community that they also became social centers, where citizens could meet to discuss politics or listen to educational lectures.
The Olympics celebrated the importance of fitness in Greek society by providing a forum for the best athletes to come together and flaunt their skills. These people proudly represented their local communities. If someone from Athens, for example, won an event, he brought honor to his entire city-state.
The Olympic Games also had some political benefits for the Greeks. In the months before the Games started, messengers went from city to city announcing the dates of the event and that the Olympic Truce was to begin. The Olympic Truce stated that anyone involved in the Games must be allowed safe passage to Olympia, even through hostile enemy territory. The Olympic Games brought together residents of numerous city-states, allowing them to discuss politics, make alliances, and even negotiate peace.
Meanwhile athletes were training hard for the upcoming games with their coaches. Each city selected its best athletes to travel to Elis one month ahead of the Games to train on site, where they stayed in huge tents. During this period Olympic officials, who chose which athletes qualified to compete, evaluated all hopeful contestants. Those selected competed individually, not as part of a team, and competition was limited to Greek men.
Slaves, foreigners, and unmarried women could only participate as spectators. They joined the thousands of Greek men who traveled from far away to see the Games. As many as fifty thousand spectators and merchants attended the Games, camping outside under the stars. Married women, however, were prohibited from viewing the Games. If one was caught on the grounds, she was thrown off a nearby mountain as punishment!
The Olympic Festival began with an opening ceremony in a temple. This rite included the sacrifice of one hundred heads of cattle to honor Zeus. Afterwards poets and playwrights presented their works, the crowds cheered, and the Games began.
All events took place either in the stadium or the hippodrome, a track for racing horses. The very first Olympic Games lasted only three days, but by the fifth century BC, they had been extended to five days. The spectators sat on the ground, while officials watched from tents. At first the main event was a footrace, but over time more competitions were added, such as boxing, wrestling, and chariot racing.
The events back then were a little different from their modern counterparts. Boxing, for example, had no rule against hitting an opponent while he was down. The footrace sometimes became so violent that the athletes were forced to wear helmets and carry shields. Another modern development is uniforms; in the ancient Olympics, athletes competed totally nude. They did this because the Greeks had a deep appreciation for the human body and believed that displaying it was a tribute to Zeus.
Another difference between the ancient and modern Olympics is that there was only one winner in each eventㅡthere was no second or third place─and he received an olive branch as his prize instead of a medal. This may not seem like much, but a victorious athlete could live off his achievements for the rest of his life. His hometown might reward him with food, cash, honorary appointments, or leadership positions in the community. Greek writers, poets, and sculptors also recorded his story, so that his victory was never forgotten.
One such athlete was the boxer Melankomas of Caria, a town in modern Turkey. He won the boxing event in 49 AD. He was famous not only for his magnificent body and good looks, but also for his unusual fighting technique. Melankomas did not strike his opponents; rather, he wore them out by skillfully dodging their blows. It was said that he could fight all day long without tiring, even in the Greek heat.
Another legendary athlete of the ancient world was Milo of Kroton, who was from what is now Italy. He won the wrestling event at six Olympic Games between 540 BC and 516 BC. Milo enjoyed showing off his unrivaled strength and control. He would hold a piece of fruit in his hand and challenge people to take it away from him. Even though he held the fruit so tightly that no one could take it, he never damaged it. Another of his favorite tricks was to tie a string around his head, hold his breath, and break the string with the veins bulging out of his forehead!
Theagenes of Thasos became famous at the age of nine. One day, as he was walking home from school, he noticed a bronze statue of a god in the marketplace. For some inexplicable reason, Theagenes broke the statue off its base. The story of a young boy who could break bronze with his bare hands was talked about everywhere. When he was older, Theagenes competed in the Olympics and easily won the boxing prize.
Other athletes were remembered for less honorable reasons. Even though all contestants in the Games took an oath to Zeus that they would abide by the rules, some did not keep this promise. One infamous cheater was Eupolus of Thessaly, who bribed other boxers in the 98th Olympics. In the 112th Olympics, Callippus of Athens gave money to all the other athletes in his race to let him win. Cheating was punished; dishonest athletes had to pay huge fines. With this money, statues of Zeus were erected along the road that led to the stadium, with the names of the cheats inscribed on their bases. To get to the stadium, the athletes had to walk past all the statues, which reminded them of what not to do.
The Olympic Games were so important in the ancient Greek world that time was not measured in years, but in Olympiads. One Olympiad is the amount of time between each Olympic Game, four years. Things changed, however, in 146 BC, when the Romans conquered Greece. They did not worship Zeus, the Romans were Christian. In 393 AD Roman Emperor Theodosius I abolished the Olympic Games because they did not want their citizens celebrating a pagan god.
It wasn’t until the late nineteenth century that people started to think again about organizing an international sporting event and reinvented the Olympic Games. Today, almost two thousand years after the original Games ended, athletes from most countries in the world participate in the modern Olympics, a tribute to the lasting influence of the Ancient Greek heroes, their traditions, and eternal spirit.