Page 64 - All About History - Issue 53-17

Ancient Olympics

The

Ancient

Olympics

The origins of these spirited events revealed

Written by David Stuttard

The Festival
very four years from 776 BCE to around BCE the winner was proclaimed. He was a local
425, competitors and spectators flocked baker called Coroebus, that year’s only victor, for
E to a sanctuary in southern Greece to the foot race was the only contest. The Olympic
participate in one of the most extraordinary Games began as one Olympic game.
events of the ancient world. It was a festival in So it remained for two generations, but
honour of Zeus, king of the gods, who ruled from 724 BCE other events were introduced,
from the snow-capped peaks of Mount Olympus and the reputation of the festival began to
far to the north. Indeed, it was from Olympian spread. Coincidentally, this was a time of new
Zeus that the location of the sanctuary was beginnings for the Greeks, as many mainland
named: Olympia. cities sent shiploads of citizens to plant new
The festival had humble origins. In its early settlements in foreign lands from Marseilles in
years, participants came mainly from Elis, the west to Byzantium in the east, and from
David the city just under 65 kilometres away that Cyrene in Libya to Epidamnus in modern
stuttard controlled the sanctuary. On the morning Albania. As the Greek footprint expanded,
following the August full moon, they sang Greeks felt a growing need to maintain, or create,
David is a writer,
lecturer, dramaturg hymns, chanted prayers, and sacrificed oxen a cultural identity. The 5th century BCE historian
and author of Power to Zeus, burning the bones and fat on the altar Herodotus writes that what united them was
Games: Ritual And as an offering before cooking the meat for that “kinship in blood and speech, the shrines of
Rivalry At The Ancient evening’s banquet. As the mouth-watering gods, the sacrifices that we have in common,
Greek Olympics – a aromas filled the air, many of those present and the similarity of our lifestyle”. He might
book focusing on made their way a little to the east, stripped down have added ‘competitiveness’, because inspiring
the 416 BCE Olympic to their loincloths — only from 720 BCE were almost every Greek was the advice given to
games. His biography competitors naked — and, while the rest looked Achilles in the Iliad, a poem like the Olympics
of Alcibiades, from
Harvard University on, raced back to the finishing line near the altar. with its roots in the 8th century BCE: “Always to
Press, hits the shelves The distance, around 180 metres, was called in be best and to surpass all others”.
in Spring 2018. Greek a ‘stade’, the origin of our word ‘stadium’. As the Iliad, with its tales of bravery
In 30 seconds the race was over, and in 776 culminating in funeral games for Patroclus, was
64