The AncientThe AncientOlympic GamesOlympic Games

The AncientThe AncientOlympic GamesOlympic Games

The Greeks invented athletic contests and held them in honor of their gods.

•The Isthmos Games were staged every two years at the Isthmos of Corinth.

•The Pythian Games took place every four years near Delphi.

•The most famous games were those at Olympia, a town in south- western Greece. These took place every four years.

During the Olympic Games, which were were held from 776 B.C. to A.D. 393, all fighting stopped. No matter how long or how fiercely a battle had raged, every soldier in the battlefield put down his weapons and traveled to Olympia to compete in or watch athletic games designed to honor Zeus and the other Greek gods.

Zeus

Once in Olympia, the participants were no longer soldiers at all, but athletes.

The word athlete is from ancient Greek and means "one who competes for a prize" and was related to two other Greek words, athlos meaning contest and athlon meaning prize.

Ancient Olympia: reconstruction

The first day of the festival was devoted to sacrifices. On the second day, the foot-races, the main event of the games, took place in the stadium, a rectangular area enclosed by sloping banks of earth.

The Stadium

For seven days before and seven days after the Games (and for the period of the Games, of course), no fighting was allowed. Fighting would have been considered disrespectful to the gods.

The Olympic TruceThe Olympic Truce

Soldiers were allowed to travel safely from the battlefields to the Olympic Games without fear of being attacked by anyone.

Why did this happen?

Historians have found several reasons:

1. The most important reason is that the Olympic Games were a religious festival. The Greeks considered it their religious duty to attend the Games, and duty to their gods was more important than duty to their city-states, which were fighting the wars in the first place.

2. Many of the best athletes were soldiers whose commanders would not want them to leave the fighting. With the truce in place and the fighting halted, these soldier-athletes were free to compete in the Games and then return to the fighting when the Games had finished

Since war was so much a part of life in ancient Greece, victorious soldiers came to be heroes for their city-states and role models for the young.

Not all athletes were soldiers, though.

Holding the Olympic Games and showcasing the athletic talents of men who were not soldiers allowed city-states to celebrate heroes and role models who might not be the best fighters.

The athletes competed for themselves, not their city-states. For example, if Demetrius of Corinth won the running race, then he was celebrated as Demetrius--just Demetrius--not Demetrius of Corinth. This was to make sure that battlefield prejudices didn't spill onto the Olympic athletic fields.

The Olympics of ancient Greece weren't exactly the worldwide spectacle that we have today:

-only Greeks took part

-there were only nine events

Stadium entrance

1. 1. BoxingBoxingThose who boxed wore a sort of glove made of straps of soft ox-hide. They didn't fight people of similar weight; opponents were chosen at random. Boxing matches had no time limit and ended only when one boxer held up his hand or fell to the ground.

2. 2. DiscusDiscusThe throwers of the discus originally threw a circular stone and then later a disc made of iron, lead, or bronze.

The movements and techniques of ancient discus throwers were very similar to those of today's athletes.

3. 3. EquestrianEquestrian EventsEventsHorse racing took place in a hippodrome, a large stadium that contained a racetrack very much like today's track and field ovals. The athletes would ride in war chariots that were rigged for either two or four horses.

A second type of horse-race involved riders rather than chariots.

4. 4. JavelinJavelin The Ancient Olympic Games featured two kinds of javelin events: •throwing for distance•throwing at a target (for which an athlete would throw from horseback at a specific distance).

5. 5. JumpingJumpingThis was long jump only, and the main difference in ancient times was that the jumper carried a weight in each hand. He would swing these weights as he ran down the ramp, jump, then release the weights just before he landed. All of this was designed to increase the distance of the jump.

halteres

6. 6. PankrationPankrationThis was a sport that has been lost. It was a combination of boxing and wrestling that was extremely rough. The only things outlawed were biting and gouging out an opponent's eyes!

Athletes didn't wear boxing gloves, but they could hold an opponent with one hand and hit him with another, unlike in boxing. Two versions of the pankration were offered. In the first,whoever hit the ground first lost; in the second, whoever lost consciousness first lost.

Soldiers were usually very good at this sport, and it was not unusual for pankration athletes to be seriously injured or even die.

7. 7. PentathalonPentathalonThis event combined five other events:

-discus -javelin -long jump -running -wrestling The pentathalon showcased the all-round athlete.

8. 8. RunningRunningThe three running races were usually very popular. The three distances were 200 m, 400 m, and a long-distance race of 1400 to 1800. Various running races took place, including one in which athletes wore armor.

9. 9. WrestlingWrestlingThis, too, was similar to wrestling today. The object was to get an opponent to fall to the ground. The first man to fall three times lost. Hitting, as in boxing, was not allowed, nor was biting or gouging eyes. Tripping was allowed, however. Also, no weight classes were involved, meaning that the smallest man might have to take on the largest man.

All of the athletes were men, of course, as was always the case in ancient Greece. All of the men competed nude, so women weren’t even allowed to be spectators(in case it offended their delicate eyes!!)

However, along with the athletic contests held at ancient Olympia, there was a separate festival in honor of Hera (the wife of Zeus). This festival included foot races for unmarried girls.

Female Athlete

It took 1503 years for the Olympics to return.

The first modern Olympics were held in Athens, Greece, in 1896. The man responsible for its rebirth was a Frenchman named Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who presented the idea in 1894. Coubertin

Today’s Olympics include all countries, both sexes, and too many sports to count. Not much like ancient Greece.

Unfortunately, the Olympic Peace doesn’t exist today either.

BibliographyBibliographyAncient Greece: www.ancientgreece.com

Archaeonet: www.archaeonet.nl

Greek Sports: www.hellenism.net

Greek Travel Destinations: www.greeceathensaegeaninfo.com

Social Studies for Kids: www.socialstudiesforkids.com

Story of the Ancient Olympics: http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/Olympics/olympicorigins.shtml