The Ancient Greek OlympicsToday's Olympic Games are based on what took place at Olympia, i
The Ancient Greek Olympics
Today's Olympic Games are based on what took place at Olympia, in Greece, nearly three millennia ago. What were the ancient Olympics like, and how different were they from those of modern times？
Origins
Traditionally it has always been said that the Games started at Olympia in 776 BC, about the time that Homer was born. But for several centuries before that date Olympia had been a cult(祭祀仪式) site for the worship of Zeus, a numinous (精神上的) location away from human dwellings, overlooked by a hill, with the sacred River Alph flowing through it.
What was it that caused people to change from honouring Zeus solely with dedicatory offerings, to honouring him through athletics？ Several factors seem to have been involved. One is the rise of the Greek polls(城邦), or city-state. As city-states in different locations grew, each wanted a means of asserting its supremacy, so would send representatives to Olympia to become supreme in physical competition.
Connected with this is the development of military training. The Games were an attractive means of getting men fit. Another factor is the traditional Greek view that the gods championed a winner, so by establishing a competition aimed at producing supreme winners, they were thereby asserting the power and influence on humans of the supreme god, Zeus.
Earliest Races
For the first 13 Olympics there was only one event, the stadium race, which was a running race up one length of the stadium. How long this race was is a matter for conjecture(猜想), as the ancient stadium, 192 meters long, visible at Olympia now, did not exist then.
Boxing, wrestling, and the pancration (the ' all-power' race, combining all types of physical attack) soon followed, along with the pentathlon (五项全能), and horse-and-chariot racing. A race while wearing armour was introduced in 520 BC, and even a mule race (in 500 BC, but it was not generally popular).
Religion and Politics
Religion pervaded the ancient Olympics. Zeus was thought to look down on the competitors, favouring some and denying victory to others. ' You could spur on a man with natural talent to strive to wards great glory with the help of the gods', says Pindar in a victory-ode. If an athlete was fined for cheating or bribery (human nature stays much the same over a few millennia) , the money exacted was used to make a cult statue of Zeus.
A grand sacrifice of 100 oxen was made to Zeus during the Games. Olympia was home to one of Greece's great oracles, an oracle to Zeus, with an altar to him consisting of the bonfire-heap created by burnt sacrificial offerings. As the offerings were burnt, they were examined by a priest, who pronounced an oracle -- an enigmatic and often ambiguous prediction of the future -- according to his interpretation of what he saw. Some athletes consulted the oracle to learn what their chances in the Games were. The Greeks tried to keep some aspects of politics out of the Olympics, but their efforts met then, as such efforts do now, with limited success. The Olympic truce was meant to lead to a cessation of hostilities throughout Greece, to allow competitors to travel and participate safely, but it was not al ways observed.
And it is clear from the victory odes of Pindar and Bacchylides that the Sicilian tyrants in the fifth century aimed to strengthen their grip on affairs by competing in the equestrian events at the Games, and by commissioning famous poets to compose and publicly perform. odes celebrating their victories.
Nakedness and Women
Sow naked, plough naked, harvest naked', the poet Hesiod (a contemporary of Homer) advises. He might have added ' compete in the Games naked' , for that is usually understood to be the standard practice among the ancient Greeks. Some dispute this, for although the visual evidence for it -- the
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