The Ancient Olympiads: 776 BC to 393 AD

By James Lynch

Beginning with a single running race on the plains of Olympia, Greece, the original Olympic Games endured for almost twelve centuries and grew to become one of the most important cultural achievements of the ancient world. The Ancient Olympiads: Bridges to the Modern Era, the first volume in The Olympic Century series, tells the story of the ancient Games, from their founding in 776 B.C. to their dissolution in 393 C.E. by the Roman Emperor Theodosius.

Legend holds that the Olympics were founded by Heracles (Hercules to the Romans), son of the god Zeus, but classical historians believe they were actually a religious festival celebrating the physical ideal. The book explores how the Games grew from simple running contests into a range of events designed to test the strength and fighting skills of young men from the city states of ancient Greece. Every four years a truce was called so that athletes would gather at Olympia to compete in javelin, discus, wrestling, running and chariot racing, with the winners receiving an olive branch in recognition of their achievement. The book discusses how this ancient celebration of sport encouraged physical fitness, spread culture and learning and helped to promote peace throughout the region, and how these ideals live on in the Modern Olympic Movement.

Juan Antonio Samaranch, former President of the International Olympic Committee, called The Olympic Century, “The most comprehensive history of the Olympic games ever published”.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Warwick Press Inc.
• Release date: Nov 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781987944006

Book preview

THE OLYMPIC CENTURY

THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE MODERN OLYMPIC MOVEMENT

VOLUME 1

THE ANCIENT OLYMPIADS

&

BRIDGES TO THE MODERN ERA

by James M. Lynch

W

Warwick Press Inc.

Toronto

Copyright © 1996 WSRP

The Olympic Century series was produced as a joint effort among the International Olympic Committee, the United States Olympic Committee, and World Sport Research & Publications, to provide an official continuity series that will serve as a permanent on-line Olympic education program for individuals, schools, and public libraries.

Published by:

Warwick Press Inc., Toronto

www.olympicbooks.com

1st Century Project: Charles Gary Allison

Publishers: Robert G. Rossi, Jim Williamson, Rona Wooley

Editor: Christian D. Kinney

Art Director: Christopher M. Register

Picture Editor: Lisa Bruno

Digital Imaging: Richard P. Majeske

Associate Editor, Research: Mark Brewin

Associate Editor, Appendix: Elsa Ramirez

Designer: Chris Conlee

Staff Researchers: Brad Haynes, Alexandra Hesse, Pauline Ploquin

Copy Editor: Harry Endrulat

Indexer: Melinda Tate

Venue Map Artist: Dave Hader, Studio Conceptions, Toronto

Endpaper Design: Diane Myers

Fact Verification: Carl and Liselott Diem Archives of the German Sport University at Cologne, Germany

Statistics: Bill Mallon, Walter Teutenberg

Memorabilia Consultants: Manfred Bergman, James D. Greensfelder, John P. Kelly, James B. Lally, Ingrid O’Neil

Office Staff: Diana Fakiola, Brian M. Heath, Edward J. Messier, Brian P. Rand, Robert S. Vassallo, Chris Waters

Senior Consultant: Dr. Dietrich Quanz (Germany)

Special Contributors Volume 1: Dr. Wolfgang Decker (Head of the Classics Department, Deutsches Sportoschule, Cologne), Dr. Stephen Miller (Head of the Classics Department, University of California, Berkeley), Dr. Joachim K. Rühl (Head of Middle Ages Department, Deutsches Sportoschule), Dr. Ulrich Sinn (Head of the Archeological Institute, Würtzburg University), and Dr. Nicholas Yalouris (Classicist, University of Athens)

Special Consultants: Walter Borgers (Germany), Ian Buchanan (United Kingdom), Dr. Karl Lennartz (Germany), Wolf Lyberg (Sweden), Dr. Norbert Müller(Germany)

International Contributors: Jean Durry (France), Dr. Fernand Landry (Canada), Dr. Antonio Lombardo (Italy), Dr. John A. MacAloon (U.S.A.), Dr. Jujiro Narita (Japan), C. Robert Paul (U.S.A.), Dr. Roland Renson (Belgium), Anthony Th. Bijkirk (Netherlands), Dr. James Walston (Ombudsman)

All rights reserved. No part of The Olympic Century book series may be copied, republished, stored in a retrieval system, or otherwise reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without the prior written consent of the IOC, the USOC, and WSRP.

eBook Conversion: eBookPartnership.com, United Kingdom

The Olympic Century - 24 Volume Series: 978-1-987944-24-2

Volume 1 Print ISBN: 978-1-78301-652-5

Volume 1 eBook ISBN: 978-1-98794-400-6

CONTENTS

Foreword

I

Humans, Heroes, And Gods

II

Embracing the Ideal

Essay: The Sacred Circuit

III

Olympia’s New Masters

IV

Restoring the Ideal

Appendix

Combined Chronology

Acknowledgments

Photo Credits

Bibliography

Index

FOREWORD

by Juan Antonio Samranch

(7th IOC President, 1980-2000)

It is my pleasure to invite you to join the adventure of The Olympic Century book series, the official history of the modern Olympic movement. This monumental and original work took an international team over 20 years of dedicated effort to achieve. It is the most important single reference source ever produced on the Olympic Games and celebrates not only the diversity of the Olympic movement but, most importantly, the on-going achievements of Olympians whose performances at the Games continue to inspire and challenge each new generation to seek out and find the excellence within their daily lives.

The use and purpose of The Olympic Century was anticipated from the earliest days of the movement by none other than Baron Pierre de Coubertin (2nd IOC president, 1896-1925) and his founding colleagues. As the charter members of the IOC debated the methods of reviving the ancient Olympic Games to modern use, they concluded that the governing body of this new festival of sport would have to perform three different but vital functions - 1) create the Games 2) form sports federations and national Olympic Committees and alliances with each 3) develop an educational outreach program to continually teach the values of Olympism.

In the first 25 years of the Olympic movement, the IOC, in mincing steps, was able to accomplish its first two goals. The quadrennial cycle of Games was established; international sports federations and national Olympic Committees were founded worldwide. The third goal, that of a permanent education program which would serve students and teachers, became nearly impossible to realize for lack of resources.

When he retired from the IOC in 1925, Baron de Coubertin opened the Olympic Institute in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he drafted early classroom curriculum materials and experimented with seminars focused on the pedagogies of sport and the Olympic movement. The worldwide depression eventually forced him to close the institute in 1932, but much of what Coubertin attempted to accomplish was incorporated in the work of the International Olympic Academy at Olympia, Greece, which opened in 1961, and at special academies sponsored by many national Olympic committees each summer.

The publication of The Olympic Century fulfills Coubertin’s educational dream and opens the ideals of the Olympic endeavor to the widest possible audience, serving as an easily-accessible starting point for Olympic education in the classrooms and the libraries of the world. Internet supported by on-line grade- and age-specific core curriculum guides, lesson plans, and a master index, The Olympic Century series makes it possible for Olympic studies to be taught anywhere and anytime in the world.

All those associated with the Olympic movement, which repeatedly and regularly touches all our lives, join me in enthusiastically recommending The Olympic Century series as the perfect starting point for all teachers, students, writers, and individuals who seek to learn the valued human lessons the Olympics inspire.

July 17, 2001

Below: Diagoras of Rhodes, ancient Olympic boxing champion, is borne by his sons, newly crowned Olympic champions.

HUMANS, HEROES, AND GODS

ANCIENT GREECE

The crowd parted respectfully as the old man strode down the walkway leading from the sanctuary to the stadium. Reverent whispers passed among the elated throng, It’s him, it’s Diagoras. Tall, handsome, and ramrod straight, the old man modestly acknowledged the compliments that showered down on him from all sides. He was the perfect picture of grace and dignity, as befitting the feats that had made him a living legend.

He was Diagoras of Rhodes, great-grandson of a king, inspiration to poets, paradigm of human virtue and humility, greatest boxer of his day, and—most importantly—Olympic champion. Sixteen years earlier, in 464 BC, Diagoras had won the coveted olive crown for boxing at the 79th Olympiad. He could also claim victories in several other important Games and competitions of the ancient Greek world among his achievements. But it was not the numerous laurels themselves that had given Diagoras his almost mythic status, but rather the way in which he competed and, by extension, lived his life.

Diagoras was celebrated for his scrupulous adherence to the rules and for his crowd-pleasing style of fighting. Never much for defensive maneuvers, he was always the aggressor, trading punches with an opponent without ever backpedaling. By fighting cleanly and bravely, he won both the applause and respect of his fellow Greeks. One of the most famous poets of the time, Pindar, was inspired to compose an ode in his honor: And now, with the music of flute and lyre alike I have come to land with Diagoras so that I may praise this straight-fighting, tremendous man who had himself crowned beside the Alpheios and near Castalia, as a recompense for his boxing. As to his character, Pindar noted that Diagoras walks a straight course on the road that hates arrogance. On his home island of Rhodes, people were so enamored of this native son that they conferred on him semi-divine status. Diagoras, so the myth spread, was in fact the product of a union between a mortal woman and the god Hermes. It was no wonder that the crowd at the stadium in Olympia on that late summer day in 448 BC was so thrilled just to be in the presence of the great man.

But the venerable hero had not returned to Olympia, the site of his greatest victory, to bask in past glory; he had come, rather, to watch his two sons compete in the 83rd Olympiad. Now, as the herald announced the start of the competition on day four of the five-day festival, Diagoras made his way past the stadium’s few stone benches that were reserved for the judges and honored guests—and where he certainly would have been welcomed. Instead, true to his unassuming nature, he seated himself on the earthen embankment with the rest of the spectators. Whatever pride he felt while watching the contests remained hidden behind his dignified countenance, even when the herald announced in a booming voice that echoed throughout the stadium, Damagetos, son of Diagoras, wins the boxing! and then a second time, Akousilaos, son of Diagoras, wins the pankration!

In victory, the sons could not contain their emotions. After receiving their olive wreaths, they ran to their father and placed their crowns upon his head. Hoisting Diagoras on their shoulders, the sons circled the arena as the crowd threw flowers and cheered wildly. Then, over the tumultuous acclaim, one strong voice rang out. A Spartan, worried that Diagoras’ fame had finally exceeded that which the gods allow for mortal men, called to him, Die, oh Diagoras! You cannot aspire to ascend Olympus! The words carried no rancor or envy, merely the fear that such individual greatness might tempt the wrath of the gods. Diagoras heard the warning, and then and there, perched on the strong arms of his champion sons, he lowered his head and breathed his last. Such a noble and yet humble end all but guaranteed that the legend of Diagoras would endure. In the sanctuary at Olympia, admirers from Rhodes erected a nearly 7-foot (2.13-meter) bronze sculpture of the boxing champion. Flanking this larger-than-life likeness stood statues of Damagetos, Akousilaos, and another son, Dorieas, a three-time Olympic pankration champion. Later, two more statues were added to the shrine for the grandsons of Diagoras, both of whom had followed in his illustrious footsteps and become victors at Olympia. Revered in life, honored in death, with two succeeding generations to match his achievements and carry on his glory, Diagoras had, by every measure of ancient Greek society, lived a perfect life.

The Greek civilization that fathered Diagoras and invented the athletic festival known as the Olympic Games was one of the greatest the world has ever seen. Ancient Greece left an extraordinarily rich and varied legacy that continues to inspire and enlighten artists and intellectuals of the modern world more than two thousand years later. The literary works of Homer, Sophocles, and Aristophanes still animate the minds of readers today, while the musings of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle are well-known to any first-year philosophy student. Two other Greek writers, Herodotus and Thucydides, are remembered as the world’s first historians. Mathematical principles formulated more than two millennia ago by Pythagoras and Euclid are still taught in geometry classes. Modern architecture often pays homage to Greece as testified by the many churches, theaters, and government buildings adorned with columns and porticos emulating the Greek style of temple construction. Numerous academic and scientific terms of Greek origin, like cosmos, planet, diameter, politics, and theology, still permeate our vocabulary. And even the treasured concept of democracy, now serving as the model form of government for most of the world today, first appeared in its rudimentary form in ancient Greece.

Below: The Acropolis, the 5th-century-BC hilltop shrine of Athens, endures as one of the greatest architectural achievements in the ancient world. Built over a 30-year period, it served as a center of worship for Athena, the city’s patron goddess, and stood as a symbol of the ascendency of Athens as the center of Greek culture.

Greek civilization was vibrant, far-reaching, and remarkably long-lived. Beginning in the second millennium BC, the inhabitants of the Greek mainland as well as scores of islands in the Aegean Sea developed a truly unique society that flourished for more than a thousand years. As time went on they spread out, founding settlements on almost every shore of the Mediterranean and throughout Asia Minor. Though separated by great distances, these city-states all remained fiercely Greek— all sharing the same language and a sense of national identity, as each was proud to demonstrate every four years by sending its local champions to the sacred Games at Olympia. In the 146 BC when Greece finally capitulated to the overwhelming power of the Roman Empire, its conquerors stood in awe of the majestic architecture of its cities such as Athens and the stunning beauty of Greek art. In fact, the Romans assimilated much of what they admired about Greek culture and claimed it for their own. That included the Olympic Games, which would continue for hundreds of years under the auspices of the Caesars, only to be suspended when the Empire became Christianized in the 4th century AD. Within a hundred years of the rise of Christianity in Europe, Greece itself would almost completely disappear both from maps and the memory of the world for many centuries to come, and the heroic ideal celebrated in sport at Olympia became a casualty with it. Athletic competition of a different sort—including blood sports—would continue throughout the Dark and Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Age of Enlightenment. But not until the 19th century would the contests of ancient Greece—together with long-delayed political independence for modern Greece—make a re-appearance.

Below: A mosaic tile floor, from a Roman villa discovered in Austria in 1815, uses the life of Theseus as a feature of its design. Theseus, the legendary Athenian hero, led one of the fullest lives in all of Greek mythology that included monster slaying in the labyrinth of Knossos, fantastic voyages on the Argo, and treacherous affairs of state.

The first great flowering of Greek culture occurred around 2,000 BC during the Bronze Age on the large island of Crete. The Minoan civilization produced highly skilled seafarers, engineers, and architects. They built a vast trading network that extended to all corners of the eastern Mediterranean Sea, bringing in not only a wealth of imported goods but also an artistic and cultural exchange with Egypt, Assyria, and the other great powers of that time. Rather than adopt hieroglyphs, cuneiform, or another existing written language, the Minoans developed their own script, now known as Linear A, which scholars have still not been able to decipher. They were by all accounts a rather peaceable culture, preferring trade to conquest and art over warfare. It was renowned throughout the ancient world for its dimensions, its elegance, and the decorative artworks that adorned its walls. But the most famous part of the building was the labyrinth constructed beneath it, which would later be celebrated in Greek myth as the lair of the monstrous, bull-headed Minotaur.

Below: The Palace of Knossos, as seen from the western entrance, was one of the first monumental structures created by the Minoans, who took their names from the legendary king Minos. The Minoans were an ancestral civilization of the Greeks that rose to prominence around 2,000 BC. Much of Knossos was destroyed after the eruption of a volcano on the nearby island of Santorini in 1,500 BC.

The Minoans were also enthusiastic athletes, practicing such sports as boxing, wrestling, and acrobatics. Many surviving Minoan works of art depict scenes of athletic competition. Wrestlers wore bronze helmets, while boxers fought bareheaded, the only equipment being the strap wrapped around the right hand. The absence of a referee from any of these illustrations indicates that the matches may have been brutal, no-holds-barred affairs. In addition to these traditional sports, forms of which appear in just about every culture, the Minoans created their own unique event that may have somehow evolved from the Minotaur myth: bull leaping. Artwork depicting this peculiar game shows young men and women vaulting over wild bulls by grabbing an animal’s horns and springing over its back. The purpose and rules of this death-defying pastime remain locked away in the unknown language of the undeciphered Linear A script.

Below: Sport in its most primitive form is depicted on this fresco from the east wing of the Palace of Knossos that shows an athlete leaping over a bull’s horns and flipping off the animal’s back. Bull iconography was prevalent in Minoan culture, though the purpose of the ritual remains a mystery.

Around 1,500 BC, the Minoan society was surpassed, and eventually vanquished, by another Bronze Age culture that had taken root on mainland Greece and whose foremost city was called Mycenae. The Mycenaeans were a more warlike people than the Minoans and had their own written language, today called Linear B. It is on Linear B tablets, which have been deciphered, that the names of Greek gods such as Zeus first appear. The Mycenaean culture produced some of the greatest heroes of Greek history and served as inspiration to the first literary genius of the Greek language. In his epic, the Iliad, the blind poet Homer recounts the story of the ill-fated king Agamemnon and the invincible Achilles, who leads the Greeks into battle against the Trojans for the return of the beautiful Helen. The Greeks thought of Achilles as a hero, the human image of divine perfection and the ideal role model of perfect youth. The exploits of another Greek warrior, Odysseus, and his 10-year return voyage to Ithaca after that war, form the basis of Homer’s second classic, the Odyssey.

Given their combative nature, it’s not surprising that the Mycenaeans adopted Minoan sports such as boxing, wrestling, and even bull leaping. Athletic contests, however, didn’t merely serve as entertainment. They often had an important role in Mycenaean religious rites. According to Homer, Achilles staged elaborate games as part of the funeral ceremony for his fallen comrade, Patroclus. And it was during this time that the link between heroic and athletic achievement, the concept of honest competition, and heroic victory as its own reward for doing one’s best –in other words, the founding principles of the Olympic Games—took hold in the Greek psyche.

Below: A 5th-century-BC Greek vase painting shows a scene from the Odyssey, an epic poem by the 8th-century-BC poet Homer, in which the hero Odysseus listens to the deadly song of the Sirens while safely lashed to the mast of his boat.

At one point in the Odyssey, Homer describes how Odysseus was guest of honor at a sport festival staged by the Phaiakians when he visited their island. During the contests one of his hosts pointedly says to him, I say that you know nothing of games, stranger. You are not an athlete. The distinguished veteran of the Trojan War took great offense at the remark, for the Greek word athlos literally means a competition for prize, hence the word athlete means one that competes for a prize. Offended by the Phaiakian insult, Odysseus puts on a demonstration of his considerable skill in the discus throw. They, in turn, magnanimously and quickly acknowledge that Odysseus is indeed an athlete.

Yet even with such mighty warriors and heroes in their ranks, the Mycenaeans succumbed to invaders from the north around 1,100 BC. These newcomers, the Dorians, brought the Iron Age to Greece, and the Mycenaeans’ bronze weapons proved no match for them. The Dorians swept through the entire mainland of Greece, founded the cities of Corinth and Sparta, and occupied the principal islands of the Aegean, including Crete and Rhodes. It was during the ensuing centuries that a national Greek identity began to emerge. The steep mountains, narrow valleys, and numerous islands that comprise Greece slowed travel and communication, making political hegemony nearly impossible. Instead, small, separate administrative units based on the polis— the Greek word for city—dotted the countryside. These city-states were like small independent countries that acted with complete autonomy, forged alliances, or waged war with each other as their own self-interest dictated. The inhabitants might think of themselves as Spartans or Thebans, but above this there was an overriding racial identity. They called their land Hellas and themselves Hellenes, after the mythic Helen, the original ancestor of all four of Greece’s ethnic groups: the Mycenaeans, or Achaeans, Dorians, Ionians, and Aeolians.

Below: Epic poems like Homer’s Iliad provided subject matter, like the battle between Hector and Achilles shown here, for numerous works of art in ancient Greece. In the poem, Achilles draws the wrath of the gods for mistreating Hector’s body after slaying him.

Separated geographically and politically, these Hellenes—the term Greek originated much later with the Romans—traced their genealogy to the same semi divine heroes. They developed a complex system of religious beliefs and worshipped the same gods. And they continued the already age-old practice of athletic contests, now with an added element of competition among the various city-states. Soon every polis had its own gymnasium and palaestra, which were schools to train the city’s youth both intellectually as well as athletically.

The many dialects of the Greeks’ common language were easily understood, simplifying commerce and communication between city-states. They succeeded so well that by the 7th century BC, increased trade and industry created population pressures that led to a great human exodus from the Greek mainland. Shiploads of Greek emigrants established colonies as far away as the eastern shoreline of the Black Sea, the southern coast of present-day France and east coast of Spain. So thickly strewn were the Greek settlements throughout Sicily and southern Italy that the area became known as Magna Graecia, Latin for Greater Greece. The Mediterranean became a center of Pan-Hellenic culture.

Wherever the Greeks settled, their city-states prospered. Great wealth accumulated in the hands of a few families, who eventually came to hold the reigns of political power as well.

These aristocrats (from the Greek words aristos, for best, and kratos, meaning power) theoretically ruled in the interests of the entire populace. In practice, however, the reigning nobility of many city-states tended to put their own self-interests first with little or no regard to the welfare of the rest of the population, a system that came to be known as oligarchy. Merchants and farmers, increasingly disgruntled by this perversion of government by the best citizens, pressed for change.

During the 6th century BC, a political transformation called the Age of Tyrants swept through the Greek-speaking world. Despite the negative connotations associated today with the word tyrant, in the ancient Greek context it meant simply someone who had seized power illegally, in this case from the despotic aristocrats. In fact, most tyrants were benevolent and popular rulers who