Page 66 - All About History - Issue 53-17

Ancient Olympics

Mythology

All classical accounts of the Olympics’ origins
involved mythology. Some maintained that it
was at Olympia that Zeus defeated his father
Cronus and assumed control of gods and mortals.
Others claimed that Heracles established the first
Games to celebrate his victory over the local King
Augeas, who had refused to pay the hero for one
of his twelve labours, cleansing the royal stables.
Still others disagreed. For them, the founder
of the Games was Pelops, an Ionian prince from
Phocaea (modern Foça in Turkey). Learning
that the wealthy Greek King Oenomaeus was
offering his daughter, Hippodamia, in marriage
to whomever beat him in a chariot race, Pelops
was determined to win. Even though he
possessed a team of magical horses, a gift from
Devotees of the most brutal of the god Poseidon, he took no chances. He bribed
sport, pancratists break the rules
forbidding biting and eye-gouging the chariot technician, Myrtilus, to remove
the lynch pins from Oenomaeus’ wheels and
“Olympia was now attracting substitute them with wax replicas. As the wheels
rotated ever faster, the friction made these lynch
not just athletes but the rich pins melt; the chariot collapsed and Oenomaeus
was dragged to an excruciating death. However,
and influential” instead of honouring his side of the agreement
(to let Myrtilus sleep with Hippodamia), Pelops
threw him off a cliff. But Myrtilus’ ghost haunted
fuelling the Greeks’ imagination, the setting Meanwhile, as the numbers of attendees Pelops, and the only way he could appease it
where they could locate themselves as the true swelled, others were attracted, too: not just was by performing funeral games – the first
heirs of the heroes of the Trojan War was fast merchants hoping to make valuable sales, but Olympic Games.
becoming recognised as Olympia and, although writers such as Herodotus, who read his Histories The influence of all three foundation myths
other sports-related festivals sprang up — notably from the portico of Zeus’ temple; artists such as were felt at Olympia. Dominating the Altis was
at Delphi, Corinth and Nemea — the Olympics Zeuxis, the inventor of trompe l’oeil, who wafted a magnificent Temple of Zeus, within whose
reigned supreme. By the 6th century BCE, round Olympia in a cloak advertising his name incense-laden inner chamber was a stunning
competitors were arriving from all over the in golden letters; and poets like the praise-singer statue of the seated god wearing the olive crown,
Greek world and, when in the early 5th century Pindar, eager to win commissions from victorious awarded to victorious athletes. Created in a
mainland Greeks successfully fought off the athletes. Although the far-seeing orator Isocrates specially built onsite workshop by the Athenian
Persian invasions while Sicilian Greeks defeated used the panhellenic gathering to make heartfelt sculptor Pheidias, it was 12 metres high and
the Carthaginians and Etruscans, it was at pleas for Greek unity in the face of strong faced in gold and ivory, the only one of the
Olympia that they made offerings of thanks. aggressors, they fell on deaf ears. At the battle Seven Wonders of the Ancient World located
As the festival’s status grew, the Games of Chaeronea in 338 BCE, Philip II of Macedon on Greek soil. Such was its numinous beauty
expanded to cover five days. At the same time, defeated the mainland Greek states and marked that even the 2nd century Stoic philosopher
new opportunities to display power through his victory by erecting his ‘Philippeion’ — a round Epictetus enthused that “people would consider
sacrifice and banquets meant that Olympia was temple containing statues of himself and his it a great misfortune to die without ever seeing
now attracting not just athletes but the rich and family — at Olympia next to the Temple of Hera,
influential as well as kings and politicians eager wife of Zeus.
Wrestler Milo of Croton won
to strut the international stage, hold high-level Under the Roman Empire the Olympics five consecutive Olympics
conferences and negotiate high-profile deals. continued to thrive, though occasionally an before being savaged
Many were keen to compete in the chariot race, emperor might bend the rules. In 67 CE, Nero not to death by wolves
the Games’ most expensive event. Among them only rescheduled the Games to allow him to take
was Alexander I, King of Macedon, whose people part, he also tried to show his prowess by driving
many considered not to be pure Greeks. In 504 his own ten-horse chariot. But nothing went to
BCE, he successfully proved his eligibility by plan. His biographer Suetonius records: “He fell
tracing his ancestors back to the Peloponnesian from his chariot and was helped back in, but he
city of Argos. Almost a century later in 416 BCE, could not continue and gave up before the end.
the Athenian playboy politician Alcibiades too Even so he won the victor’s crown.”
used the Olympic chariot race to proclaim his At last Christianity put paid to the Olympic
wealth and power by entering an unrivalled Festival. After all, it was in honour of a pagan
seven teams. Unsurprisingly he won, and to god. Outlawed in 391 by the Christian Emperor
celebrate he entertained the spectators to a Theodosius, the Olympics struggled on for
banquet, paid for in part by his wealthy backers another 30 years, but by 425 the Games were
from the Aegean islands of Chios and Lesbos. no more.
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