Olympic Games
Sacrifice of 100 oxen, or the public whipping of athletes caught cheating, or a race in full body armor. Here in the Olympics, Athletes competed au naturel, examined the entrails of sacrificed animals to see if they prophesied victory, and were rewarded only for winning an event.
There were an estimated 40,000 spectators, and probably as many hangers-on, like vendors, writers, artists, prostitutes, and their shepherds. The Sports to the olympics is one part of a grand, all-consuming extravaganza. It was first and foremost a religious event, held on the most sacred spot in the ancient world. It had this incredible aura of tradition and sanctity.
Summary
Here in the Olympics, Athletes competed au naturel, Dueling city states would declare truces so that their athletes could take part in the olympics. 5 % of free men trek to the temple of Zues. Events included Sprinting. Wrestling. Chariot racing. Pankration. While only men were allowed to join the olympics- there was a festival for female athletes. Dedicated to Hera. In the hoplitodromia, or race in armor, a field of 25 athletes ran two lengths of the 210-yard-long (192-meter-long) stadium at Olympia wearing bronze greaves and helmets and lugging shields that may have weighed 30 pounds. Contestants in the target javelin event hurled javelins at a shield fixed to a pole while galloping on horseback, a standard military practice documented by the historian Xenophon. Chariot races with teams of two and four horses were incredibly dangerous and popular events. War chariots were used centuries before Mycenaean civilization, and the four-horse chariot race was one of the oldest events in the games. Only the wealthy could afford the expense of maintaining horses and a chariot. And while the owners of chariots claimed the glory of any victories, they generally hired charioteers to face the risks of competition for them. Crashes were common, spectacular, and often deadly, with the most dangerous moment usually coming at the narrow turns at each end of the stadium. What the Hellenes called “heavy” events were also closely connected to combat. Boxing, wrestling, and a combination of the two called pankration all rewarded strength and tactical cunning. Boxers wore thin gloves made of leather thongs and fought on the open ground, which made it impossible to corner an opponent and extended the length of fights. If a bout dragged on for hours, the boxers could agree to exchange undefended blows—a pugilistic equivalent of sudden death. The king of the Greek gods was also honored by lavish sacrifices of oxen and dedicatory statues. The pile of accumulated ash from centuries of sacrifices stood 23 feet (seven meters) tall. On the opening day of the games, athletes swore an oath before Zeus, “Keeper of Oaths.” The brothers, fathers, and trainers of the athletes took the oath as well, promising to uphold all the rules and guaranteeing that they had been training for at least 10 months.Preparation
Athletes had to appear at the [nearby] city of Elis a month before the games. This was the first Olympic village. There, they had to submit to a grueling training regime designed to weed out those who weren't up to Olympic standards. While there was no shame in dropping out before the games, athletes who dropped out during the actual games were humiliated. There is a story of one huge wrestler showing up for training. As soon as he took his clothes off, all the other athletes dropped out because they all knew they couldn't beat this guy. 1)The Importance of Religion and Rituals in the Ancient Olympic Games- These songs were usual based in religion or myth
- rituals dominated the lives of the athletes before the games
- The Olympics was as much a festival for the gods (mainly Zeus), as it was for the athletics
- Other examples of games being shaped by the patron of their respective cities were the games in Delphi (Apollo), and Corinth (Posiedon).
- Another ancient Olympic tradition was the choral singing at the opening ceremony
- Each polis sent a group of young men to compete against each other.
- The Opening Ceremony started with the procession from Elis to Olympia lead by the Hellanodikai (judges)
- Whereas, we think of a sacrifice as giving up something in order to achieve or receive something else, the Greeks treated sacrifice very differently.
- A sacrifice in ancient Greece involved killing one of your own domestic animals and giving a part of it to the gods or one god in particular.
- If you wanted to compete, you would have to go the training camp at Elis and train with the other athletes for ten months to prove that you were worthy to compete
- During the Olympics, the sacrifices were mainly directed towards Zeus, the king of the gods as he was the main God in the Olympics.
Were the Atletes on a special Diet?
Some of the dietary fads in antiquity were probably no more logical than what we see today. The traditional diets were very simple: olives, bread, feta cheese, and a reasonable amount of meat. But one wrestler went on an all-fig diet. Doctors would tell athletes they shouldn't eat pork that had been raised on certain berries. There were a lot of performance-enhancing potions floating around. Lizard's flesh, eaten a certain way, for example, became magic.Spectators
To be a spectator at the Olympic Games was an incredibly uncomfortable experience. It makes modern sports fans seem like a pretty flaky bunch. First of all, if you came from Athens, you had to walk 210 miles [340 kilometers] to get to the site. Olympia is in the middle of nowhere. It's a beautiful place, very idyllic. But it's basically a collection of three temples and a running track, with one inn reserved for the wealthy. The organizers had it pretty easy in ancient times. They only had to chase a few sheep and cattle off the running track and temples. Everyone just turned up and had to look after himself. If you're rich, you put up a tent and you had servants. But the rank-and-file spectators plunked down anywhere. In the high summer it was incredibly hot. The two rivers that converge at Olympia dried up. Nobody could wash. There was no drinking water, and people collapsed from heat stroke. There was no sanitation, so the odors were quite pungent. Once you got into the stadium, there were no seats, only grassy banks. The word stadium comes from the Greek stadion, which means "a place to stand." But it was an incredible atmosphere with an amazing sense of tradition. People were standing on the very hill where Zeus wrestled his father.The Games
The Athletes who won here were as close as you could get to being a demigod in the mortal world. You would gain incredible prestige and wealth from an Olympic victory. You never had to work again. Officially, the winner was given an olive wreath. But your home city would give you piles of money, honors like front seats at the theater, lifetime pensions, vats of olive oil, maybe even priesthood. Your name would be passed down from generation to generation. You became part of the very fabric of history.Non-Combat Events
Chariot Race
It was the most aristocratic event. It was also very violent. It was the Indianapolis 500 of antiquity. If you've seen the Charlton Heston version of Ben-Hur, it gives you a very good idea of the nail-biting tension that was invoked by this event. It was very dangerous, with crashes between chariots and chariots veering off the course and into the audience. They would go 12 laps around the stadium. The tight corners were the most dangerous part. There were usually 40 chariots in the race. In one race, with 21 chariots starting, only 1 finished. That gives you an idea of just how dangerous this race was.Marathon
The ancient games didn't actually have a marathon. The three-mile [five-kilometer] dolichos was the longest running event in the early ancient games. The marathon is a Victorian invention, based on a story about the Battle of Marathon. A courier, Philippides, who fought in the battle, dashed from the battlefield to bring news of the Greek victory to Athens. Once there, he collapsed and died. The 26.3-mile [42.3-kilometer] distance from Marathon to Athens is the length of the modern marathon races around the world. At the games they put a layer of sand over the running track to soften it, but it was still very rough. The ancient Greeks just had harder feet. When you're running around with no shoes all your life, they become like a hobbit's, probably. One unusual thing was that there was no oval running track. Everyone was running back and forth on this straight running track that looks like an airstrip. They had turning posts at the ends. You would go around with a group, which offered plenty of opportunities to accidentally trip people.Pentathlon
They started out with the discus, which was followed by the long jump, which was considered the most aesthetically pleasing, which was a big deal to the Greeks. Athletes jumped from a standing start, and it was done to flute music. Then there was the javelin event, followed by a sprint and a wrestling match. The guys who were best at the pentathlon wouldn't be the best at the specialty events, but people would admire their versatility and great skill.COMBAT EVENTS
The combat events on the fourth day were very popular with the rank and file. The wrestling was similar to today's Greco-Roman wrestling. But the boxing was more exotic. Guys pummeled each other to the head using their fists with leather thongs wrapped around them. Body blows were actually forbidden. There were no rounds and no weight restrictions. here are vivid tales of people's faces being pummeled to a bloody pulp. One boxer didn't want to give his opponent the satisfaction of knocking out his teeth, so he swallowed them all. The third combat sport, the pankretion, is the most exotic to us. The only thing banned was eye gouging. Anything else goes. Bone breaking was common. One guy became known as "Mr. Digits," because he would break his opponent's fingers. Strangulation was encouraged. To win, the other person had to submit, so you really had to knock the person out. And you're doing this in the nude, so people are going for the groin. It would have been an extremely uncomfortable event.There were no team sports.
No, the Greeks were very individualistic. Athletes represented themselves first and their city-state second. There was no second place in the ancient games, no Victorian ideals of a handshake and gentlemanly slap on the back for a game well played. If you lost, you'd scamper home through the back streets. Your mother wouldn't even talk to you.Sporting event for women.
Yes, it was kind of a second string of the festival. The [women's] games were held at Olympia and dedicated to Zeus's consort Hera. The young women ran in short tunics with their right breast exposed as an homage to the Amazon warrior women, a race of female super warriors that was believed to have cauterized their right breasts so as not to impede their javelin throwing. In Sparta there were women wrestling. There's a great story of a Roman senator traveling from afar to see these Spartan women, who were legendarily beautiful and muscular. He got so excited that he jumped in the ring. We don't have any records of whether he won or lost.Rules
Moratorium
Perhaps the most inspiring ancient ideal was the moratorium on war during the games, a sacred truce that allowed travelers to safely get to the games. But the ancient Greeks were not as idealistic as to try to stop all wars. They just didn't want anything that interfered with the operation of the games. If you wanted to have a war in Sicily, the truce wouldn't stop you at all.Cheating
The judges were concerned that athletes would use performance-enhancing potions. But even more popular was placing curses on your opponents. There are stories of athletes veering off course [or] not being able to make it out of the starting blocks. Then there is corruption, example, when the boxer Eupolus gets caught bribing his opponents to throw matches. He's fined a massive amount. But it happens again and again. Having said that, the Olympics was cleanest of all games. Cheating was an irresistible temptation for some. Dishonest wrestlers rubbed themselves with olive oil so they could slide from their opponent’s grasp. Bribing judges or even fellow competitors were other documented methods of cheating.Punishment
Punishment would be public whipping of athletes caught cheating and Violators paid a fine of silver to the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. Those caught were not only publicly whipped and fined, and their shame was immortalized on inscribed statues lining the route athletes walked to enter the stadium.Festivities
Prostitution
Prostitution was rampant. Women were brought in from all over the Mediterranean. It's been said that a prostitute could make as much as money in five days during the Olympics as she would in the rest of the year.Boozing
Yes, you find the first sports bars in ancient Greece. Normally the Greeks didn't get terribly drunk. But this was like five days of living it up. People didn't sleep much at all. Students would organize these symposia that turned into drunken orgies.Did the games make any money?
The local farmers and producers certainly made a lot of money, but not the organizers. They didn't charge for entrance. They were aristocrats who weren't in it for the money but for the prestige of organizing the most important events in ancient Greece.History
Anchor Jump
Here
The Games were named for their location at Olympia, a sacred site located near the western coast of the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece. Their influence was so great that ancient historians began to measure time by the four-year increments in between Olympic Games, which were known as Olympiads.
Founding the Olympic Games As for the Olympic Games, the most learned antiquarians of Elis say that Kronos (Cronus) was the first king of heaven, and that in his honour a temple was built in Olympia by the man of that age, who were named the Golden Race. When Zeus was born, Rhea entrusted the guardianship of her son to the Daktyloi (Dactyls) of Ida, who are the same as those called Kouretes (Curetes). They came from Kretan (Cretan) Ida--Herakles (Heracles), Paionaios (Paeonaeus), Epimedes, Iasios (Iasius) and Idas. Herakles being the eldest, matched his brothers, as a game, in a running-race, and crowned the winner with a branch of wild olive, of which they had such a copious supply that they slept on heaps of its leaves while still green. It is said to have been introduced into Greece by Herakles from the land of the Hyperboreans, men living beyond the home of Boreas (the North Wind) . . . Herakles of Ida, therefore, has the reputation of being the first to have held, on the occasion I mentioned, the games, and to have called them Oympiakos (the Olympics). So he established the custom of holding them every fifth year, because he and his brothers were five in number.
Daktylos Heracles?
HERAKLES (Heracles) was the leader of the Daktyloi (Dactyls), five daimones who founded the Olympic Games in the age of Kronos (Cronus). He and his brothers were probably more specifically connected with the race in armour, one of the oldest Olympic events. Like the Kouretes (Curetes) the Dakytloi were depicted as armoured youths. The Daktylos Herakles was identified with the hero of the same name--Herakles son of Zeus and Alkmene--who eventually superceded him as the reputed founder of the Olympic Games. Women even to this day take their incantations from this god and make amulets in his name, on the ground that he was a wizard and practised the arts of initiatory rites; but they add that these things were indeed very far removed from the habits ofhte Herakles who was born of Alkmene."Founding the Olympic Games As for the Olympic Games, the most learned antiquarians of Elis say that Kronos (Cronus) was the first king of heaven, and that in his honour a temple was built in Olympia by the man of that age, who were named the Golden Race. When Zeus was born, Rhea entrusted the guardianship of her son to the Daktyloi (Dactyls) of Ida, who are the same as those called Kouretes (Curetes). They came from Kretan (Cretan) Ida--Herakles (Heracles), Paionaios (Paeonaeus), Epimedes, Iasios (Iasius) and Idas. Herakles being the eldest, matched his brothers, as a game, in a running-race, and crowned the winner with a branch of wild olive, of which they had such a copious supply that they slept on heaps of its leaves while still green. It is said to have been introduced into Greece by Herakles from the land of the Hyperboreans, men living beyond the home of Boreas (the North Wind) . . . Herakles of Ida, therefore, has the reputation of being the first to have held, on the occasion I mentioned, the games, and to have called them Oympiakos (the Olympics). So he established the custom of holding them every fifth year, because he and his brothers were five in number.
Comments