THE OLYMPIC GAMES
The Greeks were bound together by their language, by their religion,
and also by their great national games. The origin of these games is
still somewhat in doubt. They probably began as some kind of
religious ceremony in connection with burials, such as the Funeral
Games described by Homer that were held in honour of Patroclus. But
whatever may have been their origin, they were firmly established in
the earliest times of historic Greece.
Greece was never free for long at a time from warfare. The very fact
that the country was divided into so many small and independent
states bred jealousies and hatreds, and state was often at war with
state. This made it necessary that every Greek citizen should be
ready at any moment to take up arms in defence of his home, and so he
had to be physically always in good condition. This was brought
about by regular athletic training which was an important part of the
education of every Greek. It was considered just as bad to have an
ill-trained body as it was to have an ill-trained mind, and one
reason why the Greeks so despised the barbarians, as they called all
those who were not of {61} Greek race, was because the barbarian did
not train his body to the same extent, and because he loved so much
luxury.
All Greeks, then, received athletic training, and this training aimed
at developing a beautiful body, for it was believed that to run
gracefully was as important as to run swiftly, but though the Greeks
loved contests and competition and strove hard for the victory,
because they cared so much for grace of movement they did not lay
much stress on record-breaking, and so they kept no records of
exceptional athletic feats, which prevents us from knowing details of
some of their great athletic achievements.
Games were held in nearly every Greek city and were a source of great
pride to the citizens. The more important festivals were those held
in honour of Poseidon at Corinth and called the Isthmian Games, those
at Delphi which commemorated the slaying of the Python by Apollo and
called Pythian Games, and the greatest of all, held every four years
at Olympia in honour of Zeus, and known as the Olympic Games. These
games were the oldest in Greece and they were at all periods the most
important. The first were held, if tradition tells truly, before
Greece had begun her history, and the last long centuries after she
had ceased to be a free state. The first games in historic times
were held in 776 B.C. and the interval between each festival was
called an Olympiad. These Olympiads constituted the Greek calendar,
which took 776 B.C. as its starting point.
This great festival at Olympia was held in August {62} or September
and lasted five days. It was a national affair and Greeks from all
over the Greek world went to Olympia to take part in it. For a whole
month a truce was proclaimed throughout Greece, all warfare had to
stop, and all ordinary business and pleasure gave way to the greater
business of going to Olympia. The games were usually held from the
eleventh to the sixteenth day of this month of truce, the days before
and after being given up to the journey to and from Olympia. All
roads were declared safe for these days, and great was the punishment
meted out to any who dared molest the pilgrims to Olympia, for they
were going to pay honour to Zeus and were considered as specially
under his protection. Visitors thronged every road and they came
from every direction. They came from all the Peloponnesian states,
from Corinth, Athens and Thebes. They came from the far-off Greek
colonies, some from the shores of the Black Sea, looking almost like
the nomads with whom they came so much in contact; some from Ionia,
men clad in rich robes and of luxurious habits learnt from their
Oriental neighbours; others from the western colonies, from Italy and
Southern Gaul; and yet others, dark and warm-blooded men, from
distant Africa. Yet all were Greeks, bound together in spite of
their differences by the common ties of blood and religion. Some
were rich, and were accompanied by slaves who brought everything
necessary for their comfort, others were poor, who tramped the roads
footsore and weary, but sustained by the thought of the joys of the
festival when they reached their goal.
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The gathering together of so many visitors brought all kinds of
people to Olympia: merchants with rich and rare goods for sale, for a
regular fair was carried on during the festival, makers of small
statues hoping for orders to be placed in the temples, poets who
wanted to recite their poems, musicians ready to play on their lyres
to any who would listen, gymnastic trainers from all over Greece who
hoped to learn some new method that would improve their own teaching,
people of all and every kind. Only there were no women. The games
were considered too public a festival for it to be fitting for women
to be present, and the journey was too long and difficult for them to
undertake it. The women who lived near Olympia had a festival of
their own, when they, too, raced and were awarded prizes, but it was
at a different time from the great national festival.
There was no city at Olympia and but few buildings beyond the
temples, so when the throng of visitors arrived, the first thing they
did was to provide sleeping quarters for themselves. Certain people
were allowed to sleep in some of the porticoes of the buildings
connected with the temples, others had brought tents and a regular
camp arose. Booths of all kinds were erected in which the merchants
displayed their wares; friends and acquaintances from different parts
of Greece met and talked over all that had happened to them since
they last met. Many announcements, too, were made by heralds at this
time; the terms of treaties between different Greek states were
recited in public, for in those days of difficult communication
between states, such a {64} gathering as that at Olympia ensured that
news made public then would be widely spread amongst the different
states.
Then there were visits to be made to the great temple of Zeus and
sacrifices to be offered. From the middle of the fifth century B.C.
onwards every visitor to Olympia went reverently into the temple to
gaze at the great statue of Zeus.[1] This statue was said to be so
marvellously wrought that "those who enter the temple there no longer
think that they are beholding the ivory of India and gold from
Thrace, but the very deity translated to earth by Pheidias," and it
was said that to have made such a life-like image of the god, either
Zeus must have come down from heaven and shown himself in a vision to
Pheidias, or Pheidias must have gone up to heaven and beheld him
there.
The god is seated on a throne, he is made of gold and ivory, on
his head is a wreath made in imitation of the sprays of olive.
In his right hand he carries a Victory, also of ivory and gold;
she wears a ribbon, and on her head is a wreath. In the left
hand of the god is a sceptre curiously wrought in all the metals;
the bird perched on the sceptre is an eagle. The sandals of the
god are of gold, and so is his robe. On the robe are wrought
figures of animals and lily flowers. The throne is adorned with
gold and precious stones, also with ebony and ivory; and there
are figures painted, and images wrought on it.[2]
It is said that "when the image was completed Pheidias prayed that
the god would give a sign if {65} the work were to his mind, and
immediately, they say, Zeus hurled a thunderbolt into the ground."[3]
"Fare ye to Olympia," said an ancient writer, "that ye may see the
work of Pheidias, and account it a misfortune, each of you, if you
die with this still unknown." And so gracious and full of
loving-kindness was the face of the god, that
if any one who is heavy-laden in mind, who has drained the cup of
misfortune and sorrow in life, and whom sweet sleep visits no
more, were to stand before this image, he would forget all the
griefs and troubles of this mortal life.[4]
But what of the competitors in the games? They had all been at
Olympia for the last thirty days undergoing a final and special
training. Only men of pure Greek blood might compete, and no one who
had been convicted of any crime or who was guilty of any impiety or
disrespect to the gods. Each candidate had to prove that in addition
to his regular athletic training, he had received special training
for ten months before coming to Olympia. When they had practised for
the last time, the competitors were addressed by one of the officials
in charge. He said to them:
If you have exercised yourself in a manner worthy of the Olympic
Festival, if you have been guilty of no slothful or ignoble act,
go on with a good courage. You who have not so practised, go
whither you will.[5]
{66} The names of those who were to enter for the games were then
written up on a white board, and should a man withdraw after that, he
was branded as a coward. As soon as the competitor was finally
enrolled, a boar was offered in sacrifice to Zeus, and then he had to
take a solemn oath that he was a full Greek citizen, that he had
fulfilled all the conditions necessary for the games, that he would
abide by the rules of the contest, and that he would play fair, and
such was the spirit of honour and fairness in which the games were
played, that in more than a thousand years there appear the names of
only six or seven competitors who were guilty of breaking their oath.
The first day of the festival was given up to sacrifices and
processions. The different states always sent official
representatives to the Games, and these would make public entrance in
their chariots, richly arrayed and bearing costly gifts to place in
the treasury of the temple. The next three days were devoted to the
actual contests.
Long before the dawn on the first of these three days, every seat in
the stadium was occupied. It was situated at the foot of a hill, and
every available spot on the slope of this hill was used by the
spectators. Should anyone leave his place, even for an instant, it
would be lost, and there the spectators sat the whole day through,
until the sun went down. What refreshments they needed, they brought
with them. The sun beat down on their bare heads, for the Games were
in honour of Zeus and he was looked upon as present, and no one might
enter the presence of the Father of Gods and Men with covered head.
{67} Not until the setting sun gave the signal for the end of the
day's contests, did they hurriedly rush off to their tents and snatch
an hour or two of sleep before the coming of the dawn warned them to
rise and secure their seats for the next day's spectacle.
The contests probably took place in the following order: First, there
were the foot races: there were several of these varying in length
from two hundred yards to three miles. The shortest race of two
hundred yards was for a long time the race which brought greatest
honour to the winner. Then followed the pentathlon which consisted
of five contests: throwing the discus, throwing the spear, running,
jumping and wrestling, and the winner was required to have won three
out of the five. In the pentathlon, in particular, great importance
was attached to the gracefulness of every movement, and the jumping,
discus and spear throwing were generally accompanied by the music of
the flute. Then came what was later regarded as the greatest and
most exciting race of all, the four-horse chariot race. This was a
race that poets loved to describe. Homer tells us how the charioteers
all together lifted the lash above their steeds, and smote them
with the reins and called on them eagerly with words: and they
forthwith sped swiftly over the plain; and beneath their breasts
stood the rising dust like a cloud or whirlwind, and their manes
waved on the blowing wind. And the chariots ran sometimes on the
bounteous earth, and other whiles would bound into the air. And
the drivers stood in the cars, and the heart of every man beat in
desire of victory, and they called {68} every man to his horses,
that flew amid their dust across the plain.[6]
The boxing and wrestling matches came last, and these were the
roughest and fiercest of all the contests.
On the last day of the festival the prizes were awarded. They were
very simple, but more highly valued than greater honours could have
been. Each prize consisted of a wreath of olive, which had been cut
from a sacred olive tree with a golden knife by a boy especially
chosen for the purpose, and an old tradition required that both his
parents should be alive. These wreaths used at one time to be placed
on a tripod in the sight of all the people, later, a beautiful table
of gold and ivory was made for them. A herald announced the name of
the victor, his father's name and the city from which he came, and
then one of the judges placed the wreath on his head. This was the
proudest moment of his life, and though other rewards followed on his
return home, nothing ever quite equalled that glorious moment.
The last day of the festival was given up to sacrifices to Zeus,
followed by banquets and feasting which lasted late into the night.
Every kind of honour was shown the victors: poets wrote odes
celebrating their victories, and sculptors made models for statues of
them, for to every athlete who had won three victories was granted
the honour of being allowed to have his statue erected in the open
space outside the temple of Zeus.
[Illustration: DISCOBOLUS OF MYRON. 5th Century B.C. Vatican Rome.]
The festival over, the victors and their friends and {69} the great
throng of spectators returned to their homes. The victors were not
only proud on account of their own achievements, but for the glory
they had brought to their city. The news of the approaching arrival
of a victor was sent on ahead, and the day of his return to his
native city was always honoured by a public holiday. In some places
it was an old custom to pull down a part of the city wall and make a
special entrance, in order that he who had brought the city such
glory might enter by a path never before trodden by other men. Songs
of triumph were sung to greet him, and he was led to his father's
house along a road strewn with flowers. Rich gifts were presented to
him, and in every way he was treated as a man whom the city delighted
to respect and honour. At Athens the returning victors were honoured
by being allowed to dine thenceforth at the public expense in the
hall where the councillors and great men of the city took their meals.
Pausanias, the traveller to whom we owe descriptions of so much in
ancient Greece that has now perished, visited Olympia, and he tells
us that
many a wondrous sight may be seen, and not a few tales of wonder
may be heard in Greece; but there is nothing on which the
blessing of God rests in so full a measure as the rites of
Eleusis and the Olympic Games....
and Pindar, the Greek poet who has most often sung of the Olympic
Games, summed up the feelings of every victor in the words: "He that
overcometh hath, because of the games, a sweet tranquillity
throughout his life for evermore."
[1] See p. 47.
[2] Pausanias.
[3] Pausanias.
[4] Dion Chrysostom.
[5] From E. N. Gardiner: _Greek Athletic Sports and Festivals_.
[6] Iliad, XXIII.
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