The Ancient Olympic Games

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The AncientOlympic Games
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• The Greeks invented athletic contests and held
  them in honour 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.

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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
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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.
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Ancient Olympia reconstruction
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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
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The Olympic Truce
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.
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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
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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.

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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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1. Boxing
Those 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.
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2. Discus
The 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.
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3. Equestrian Events
Horse 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.
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A second type of horse-race involved riders
rather than chariots.
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4. Javelin

• 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).

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5. Jumping
This 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
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6. Pankration
This 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!
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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.
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Soldiers were usually very good at this sport,
and it was not unusual for pankration athletes to
be seriously injured or even die.
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7. Pentathalon
This event combined five other events
-discus
-javelin -long jump
-running
-wrestling The pentathalon
showcased the all-round athlete.
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8. Running
The 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.
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9. Wrestling
This, 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.
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All of the athletes were men, of course, as was
always the case in ancient Greece. All of the
men competed nude, so women werent even allowed
to be spectators
(in case it offended their delicate eyes!!)
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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
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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
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Todays Olympics include all countries, both
sexes, and too many sports to count. Not much
like ancient Greece.
Unfortunately, the Olympic Peace doesnt exist
today either.
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Bibliography
Ancient 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.upe
nn.edu/new/Olympics/olympicorigins.shtml