Fall Asleep While Learning About The Ancient Olympic Games

In this episode of the I Can't Sleep Podcast, fall asleep while learning about the ancient Olympic games. These games have an interesting origin story but I wouldn't count on remembering much about them since you'll be asleep in ten minutes. But if you do make it through, what's the most interesting thing you learned about the ancient games?

Happy sleeping!

Transcript

Welcome to the I Can't Sleep Podcast,

Where I read random articles from across the web to bore you to sleep with my soothing voice.

I'm your host,

Benjamin Boster.

Today's episode is from a Wikipedia article titled,

Ancient Olympic Games.

The Ancient Olympic Games were a series of athletic competitions among representatives of city-states and were one of the Pan-Hellenic Games of Ancient Greece.

They were held at the Pan-Hellenic Religious Sanctuary of Olympia in honor of Zeus,

And the Greeks gave them a mythological origin.

The originating Olympic Games are traditionally dated to 776 B.

C.

The Games were held every four years,

Or Olympiad,

Which became a unit of time in historical chronologies.

They continued to be celebrated when Greece came under Roman rule in the 2nd century B.

C.

Their last recorded celebration was in A.

D.

393 under the Emperor Theodosius I,

But archaeological evidence indicates that some Games were still held after this date.

The Games likely came to an end under Theodosius II,

Possibly in connection with a fire that burned down the temple of the Olympian Zeus during his reign.

During the celebration of the Games,

The Akatheria,

An Olympic truce,

Was announced so that athletes and religious pilgrims could travel from their cities to the Games in safety.

The prizes for the victors were olive-leaf wreaths or crowns.

The Games became a political tool used by city-states to assert dominance over their rival city-states.

Politicians would announce political alliances at the Games,

And in time of war,

Priests would offer sacrifices to the gods for victory.

The Games were also used to help spread Hellenistic culture throughout the Mediterranean.

The Olympics also featured religious celebrations.

The statue of Zeus at Olympia was counted as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Sculptures and poets would congregate each Olympiad to display their works of art to would-be patrons.

The Ancient Olympics had fewer events than the modern Games,

And only free-born Greek men were allowed to participate,

Although there were victorious women chariot owners.

Moreover,

Throughout their history,

The Olympics,

Both ancient and modern,

Have occasionally become arenas where political expressions such as demonstrations,

Boycotts,

And embargoes have been employed by nations and individuals to exert influence over these sporting events.

As long as they met the entrance criteria,

Athletes from any Greek city-state and kingdom were allowed to participate.

The Games were always held at Olympia rather than moving between different locations,

Like the modern Olympic Games.

Victors at the Olympics were honored,

And their feats chronicled for future generations.

To the ancient Greeks,

It was important to root the Olympic Games in mythology.

During the time of the ancient Games,

Their origins were attributed to the gods,

And competing legends persisted as to who actually was responsible for the genesis of the Games.

These origin traditions have become nearly impossible to entangle,

Yet chronology and patterns have arisen that help people understand the story behind the Games.

Greek historian Pausanias provides a story about the dactyl Heracles,

Not to be confused with Hercules who was the son of Zeus and joined the Roman pantheon,

And four of his brothers Paeoneus,

Epimetes,

Iasias,

And Idas,

Who raced at Olympia to entertain the newborn Zeus.

He crowned the victor with an olive wreath,

Which thus became a peace symbol,

Which also explains the four-year interval bringing the Games around every fifth year,

Counting inclusively.

The Olympian gods,

So named because they lived permanently on Mount Olympus,

Would also engage in wrestling,

Jumping,

And running contests.

Another myth of the origin of the Games is the story of Pelops,

A local Olympian hero.

Onamas,

The king of Pisa,

Had a daughter named Hippodamia,

And according to an oracle,

The king would be killed by her husband.

Therefore,

He decreed that any young man who wanted to marry his daughter was required to drive away with her in his chariot,

And Onamas would follow in another chariot and spear the suitor if he caught up with them.

Now the king's chariot horses were a present from the god Poseidon,

And therefore supernaturally fast.

The king's daughter fell in love with a man called Pelops.

Before the race,

However,

Pelops persuaded Onamas' charioteer Myrtilus to replace the bronze axle pins of the king's chariot with wax ones.

Naturally,

During the race,

The wax melted,

And the king fell from his chariot and was killed.

After his victory,

Pelops organized chariot races as a thanksgiving to the gods and as funeral games in honor of King Onamas,

In order to be purified of his death.

It was from this funeral race held at Olympia that the beginnings of the Olympic Games were inspired.

Pelops became a great king,

A local hero,

And he gave his name to the Peloponnese.

One later myth attributed to Pindar states that the festival at Olympia involved Heracles,

The son of Zeus.

According to Pindar,

Heracles established an athletic festival to honor his father Zeus after he had completed his labors.

The patterns that emerge from these myths are that the Greeks believed the games had their roots in religion,

That athletic competition was tied to worship of the gods,

And the revival of the ancient games was intended to bring peace,

Harmony,

And a return to the origins of Greek life.

The Olympic Games were held to be one of the two central rituals in ancient Greece,

The other being the much older religious festival,

The Eleusinian Mysteries.

Areas around the Mediterranean had a long tradition of athletic events.

Ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians depicted athletic scenes in tombs of kings and their nobles.

They did not,

However,

Hold regular competitions,

And those events that occurred were probably the preserve of kings and upper classes.

Egyptians' culture held gymnastics in high esteem,

With bull leaping,

Tumbling,

Running,

Wrestling,

And boxing shown on their frescoes.

The Mycenaeans adopted Minoan games and also raced chariots in religious or funerary ceremonies.

Homer's heroes participate in athletic competitions to honor the dead.

In the Iliad,

There are chariot races,

Boxing,

Wrestling,

A foot race,

As well as fencing,

Archery,

And spear throwing.

The Odyssey adds to these a long jump and discus throw.

Aristotle reckoned the date of the first Olympics to be 776 BC,

A date largely accepted by most,

Though not all,

Subsequent ancient historians.

It is still the traditionally given date,

And archaeological finds confirm approximately the Olympics starting at or soon after this time.

Archaeology suggests that major games at Olympia arose not in 776,

But probably around 700.

Christensen's important work on the Olympic vicar list shows that victors' names and details were unreliable until the 6th century.

Eli's independent state administered it,

And while the Eleans managed the games well,

There sometimes was bias and interference.

Also,

Despite modern allusions,

The famous Olympic truce only mandated safe passage for visitors.

It did not stop all wars in Greece or even at Olympia.

The historian Aphoros,

Who lived in the 4th century BC,

Is one potential candidate for establishing the use of Olympiads to count years,

Although credit for codifying this particular epic usually falls to Hippias of Elis,

To Eratosthenes,

Or even Timaeus,

Whom Eratosthenes may have imitated.

The Olympic games were held at four-year intervals,

And later the ancient historians' method of counting the years even referred to these games,

Using Olympiad for the period between two games.

Previously,

The local dating systems of the Greek states were used.

They continued to be used by everyone except historians,

Which led to confusion when trying to determine dates.

For example,

Diodorus states that there was a solar eclipse in the third year of the 113th Olympiad,

Which must be the eclipse of 316 BC.

This gives a date of mid-summer 765 BC for the first year of the first Olympiad.

Nevertheless,

There is disagreement among scholars as to when the games began.

According to the later Greek traveler Pausanias,

Who wrote in 175 AD,

The only competition held at first was the stadion,

A race over about 190 meters.

The word stadion is derived from this event.

Several groups fought over control of the sanctuary at Olympia,

And hence the games,

For prestige and political advantage.

Pausanias later writes that in 668 BC,

A fight in Navargos was commissioned by the town of Pisa to capture the sanctuary from the town of Elis,

Which he did and then personally controlled the games for that year.

The next year,

Elis regained control.

In the first 200 years of the games' existence,

They only had regional religious importance.

Only Greeks in proximity to Olympia competed in these early games.

This is evidenced by the dominance of Peloponnesian athletes in the victors' roles.

Greek sports also derived its origins from the concept that physical energy was being expended in a ritualistic manner,

In which Paleolithic age-hunting practices were turned into a more socially-englamorized function,

Thus becoming sport.

The Greeks in particular were unique in the regard that their competitions were often held in grand facilities,

With prizes and nudity that stressed the Greek idealism of training one's body to be as fit as their mind.

It is this ideology that athletic exceptionalism that resulted in theories claiming the Greeks were the inventors of sport.

Over time,

The Olympic Games gained increasing recognition and became part of the Panhellenic Games,

Four separate games held at two- or four-year intervals,

But arranged so that there was at least one set of games every year.

The other Panhellenic Games were the Pythian,

Nemean,

And Isthmian Games,

Though the Olympic Games were considered the most prestigious.

After the Roman conquest of Greece,

The Olympics continued,

But the event declined in popularity throughout the pre-Augustan era.

During this period,

Romans largely concentrated on domestic problems and paid less attention to their provinces.

The fact that all equestrian victors were from the immediate locality,

And that there is a paucity of victor statuses in the altis from this period,

Suggests the games were somewhat neglected.

In 86 BC,

The Roman general Sulla robbed Olympia and other Greek treasuries to finance a war.

He was the only Roman to commit violence against Olympia.

Sulla hosted the games in 80 BC as a celebration of his victories over Mithridates.

Supposedly,

The only contest held was the stadium race,

Because all the athletes had been called to Rome.

Under the rule of Emperor Augustus,

The Olympics underwent a revival.

Before he came to full power,

Augustus' right-hand man Marcus Agrippa restored the damaged Temple of Zeus,

And in 12 BC Augustus asked King Herod of Judea to subsidize the games.

After Augustus was declared a god by the Senate after his death,

A statue of his likeness was commissioned at Olympia.

Subsequent divine emperors also had statues erected within the sacred altis.

A stadium was renovated at his command,

And Greek athletics in general were subsidized.

One of the most famous events of Olympic history occurred under the rule of Nero.

He desired victory in all chariot races of the Panhellenic Games in a single year.

So he ordered the four main hosts to hold their games in 67,

And therefore the scheduled Olympics of 65 were postponed.

At Olympia,

He was thrown from his chariot,

But still claimed victory.

Nero also considered himself a talented musician,

So he added contests and music and singing to those festivals that lacked them,

Including the Olympics.

Nero won all of those contests,

No doubt because judges were afraid to award victory to anyone else.

After his assassination,

The Olympic judges had to repay the bribes he had bestowed and declared the Neronian Olympiad to be void.

In the first half of the second century,

The Philhellenic emperors Hadrian and Antionus Pius oversaw a new and successful phase in the history of the Games.

The Olympics attracted a great number of spectators and competitors,

And the victor's flame spread across the Roman Empire.

The Renaissance endured for most of the second century.

Once again,

Philosophers,

Orators,

Artists,

Religious proselytizers,

Singers,

And all kinds of performers went to the festival of Zeus.

The third century saw a decline in the popularity of the Games.

The victory list of Africanus ends at the Olympiad of 217,

Though Moses of Corinth's History of Armenia lists a boxing winner from as late as 369.

Excavated inscriptions also show the Games continued past 217.

Until recently,

The last securely datable winner was Publius Asclepius of Corinth,

Who won the pentathlon in 241.

In 1994,

A bronze plaque was found inscribed with victors of the combative events hailing from the mainland and Asia Minor,

Proof that an international Olympic Games continued until at least 385.

The Games continued past 385,

By which time flooding and earthquakes had damaged the buildings and invasions from barbarians had reached Olympia.

The last recorded Games were held under Theodosius I in 393,

But archaeological evidence indicates that some Games were still held.

Olympia lies in the valley of the Alpheus River,

Romanized as Alpheus,

In the western part of the Peloponnese,

Today around 18 kilometers away from the Ionian Sea,

But perhaps in antiquity half that distance.

The Altus,

As the sanctuary was originally known,

Was an irregular quadrangular area,

More than 180 meters on each side,

And walled,

Except to the north where it was bounded by the Mount Kronos.

It consisted of a somewhat disordered arrangement of buildings,

The most important of which are the Temple of Hera,

The Temple of Zeus,

The Pelopion,

And the area of the Great Altar of Zeus,

Where the largest sacrifices were made.

The name Altus was derived from a corruption of the Ilian word,

Also meaning the grove,

Because the area was wooded,

All of them plain trees in particular.

Uninhabited throughout the year,

When the Games were held,

The site became over-congested.

There were no permanent living structures for spectators,

Who,

Rich or poor,

Made do with tents.

Ancient visitors recall being plagued by summer heat and flies,

Such a problem that sacrifices were made to Zeus' avertor of flies.

The site's water supply and sanitation were finally improved,

After nearly a thousand years,

By the mid-2nd century A.

D.

But you may say there are some things disagreeable and troublesome in life.

And are there none at Olympia?

Are you not scorched?

Are you not pressed by a crowd?

Are you not without comfortable means of bathing?

Are you not wet when it rains?

Have you not abundance of noise,

Clamor,

And other disagreeable things?

But I suppose that setting all these things off against the magnificence of the spectacle,

You bear and endure.

Epictetus,

1st century A.

D.

The ancient Olympics were as much a religious festival as an athletic event.

The Games were held in honor of the Greek god Zeus,

And on the middle day of the Games,

One hundred oxen would be sacrificed to him.

Over time,

Olympia,

The site of the Games,

Became a central spot for the worship of the head of the Greek pantheon,

And a temple,

Built by the Greek architect Liban,

Was erected on the mountaintop.

The temple was one of the largest Doric temples in Greece.

The sculptor Phidias created a statue of Zeus made of gold and ivory.

It stood forty-two feet tall,

And was placed on a throne in the temple.

The statue became one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

As the historian Strabo put it,

The glory of the temple persisted on account both of the festal assembly and of the Olympian Games,

In which the prize was a crown and which were regarded as sacred,

The greatest Games in the world.

The temple was adorned by its numerous offerings,

Which were dedicated there from all parts of Greece.

Artistic expression was a major part of the Games.

Sculptors,

Poets,

Painters,

And other artisans would come to the Games to display their works in what became an artistic competition.

Poets would be commissioned to write poems in praise of the Olympic victors.

Such victory songs,

Or eponetions,

Were passed on from generation to generation,

And many of them have lasted far longer than any other honor made for the same purpose.

Pausanias claims that the destroyed Sicilian palace of Naxos would have been completely forgotten if not for its four-time Olympic champion,

Tisandros.

Pierre de Coubertin,

One of the founders of the modern Olympic Games,

Wanted to fully imitate the ancient Olympics in every way.

Included in his vision was an artistic competition modeled on the ancient Olympics and held every four years,

During the celebration of the Olympic Games.

His desire came to fruition at the Olympics held in Athens in 1896.

Power in ancient Greece became centered around the city-state in the 8th century BC.

The city-state was a population center organized into a self-contained political entity.

These city-states often lived in close proximity to each other,

Which created competition for limited resources.

Though conflict between the city-states was ubiquitous,

It was also in their self-interest to engage in trade,

Military alliances,

And cultural interaction.

The city-states had a dichotomous relationship with each other.

On one hand,

They relied on their neighbors for political and military alliances,

While on the other they competed fiercely with those same neighbors for vital resources.

The Olympic Games were established in this political context and served as a venue for representatives of the city-states to peacefully compete against each other.

The spread of Greek colonies in the 5th and 6th centuries BC is repeatedly linked to successful Olympic athletes.

For example,

Pausanias recounts that Cyrene was founded circa 630 BC by settlers from Thera and Spartan support.

The support Sparta gave was primarily the loan of three-time Olympic champion Chionas.

The appeal of settling with an Olympic champion helped to populate the colonies and maintain cultural and political ties with the city-states near Olympia.

Thus Hellenic culture in the Games spread while the primacy of Olympia persisted.

The Games faced a serious challenge during the Peloponnesian War,

Which primarily pitted Athens against Sparta,

But in reality touched nearly every Hellenic city-state.

The Olympics were used during this time to announce alliances and offer sacrifices to the gods for victory.

During the Olympic Games,

A truce,

Or Iksheria,

Was observed.

Three runners,

Known as spondophoroi,

Were sent from Elis to the participant cities at each set of Games to announce the beginning of the truce.

During this period,

Armies were forbidden from entering Olympia.

Political disputes and the use of the death penalty were forbidden.

The truce,

Primarily designed to allow athletes and visitors to travel safely to the Games,

Was for the most part observed.

Thucydides wrote of a situation when the Spartans were forbidden from attending the Games,

And the violators of the truce were fined 2,

000 myni for assaulting the city of Lepreum during the period of the Iksheria.

The Spartans disputed the fine and claimed that the truce had not yet taken hold.

While a martial truce was observed by all participating city-states,

No such reprieve from conflict existed in the political arena.

The Olympic Games evolved,

The most influential athletic and cultural stage in ancient Greece and arguably in the ancient world.

As such,

The Games became a vehicle for city-states to promote themselves.

The result was political intrigue and controversy.

For example,

Pausanias,

A Greek historian,

Explains the situation of the athlete Sotiris.

Sotiris,

At the 99th festival,

Was victorious in the long race and proclaimed a Cretan,

As in fact he was,

But at the next festival he made himself an Ephesian,

Being bribed to do so by the Ephesian people.

Before this act he was banished by the Cretans.

Apparently starting with just a single foot race,

Program gradually increased to 23 contests,

Although no more than 20 featured at any one Olympiad.

Participation in most events was limited to male athletes,

Except for women who were allowed to take part by entering horses in the equestrian events.

These events are recorded as starting in 632 BC.

Our knowledge of how the events were performed primarily derives from the paintings of athletes found in many vases,

Particularly those of the Archaic and Classical periods.

Competitors had access to two gymnasiums for training purposes,

The Zistas for the runners and pentathletes,

And the Tetragono for wrestlers and boxers.

For most of its history,

Olympic events were performed in the nude.

Pausanias says that the first naked runner was Orsippus,

Winner of the stadium race in 720 BC,

Who simply lost his garment on purpose because running without it was easier.

The 5th century BC historian Thucydides credits the Spartans with introducing the custom of publicly stripping and anointing themselves with oil in their gymnastic exercises.

Formerly,

Even in the Olympic contests,

The athletes who contended wore belts across their middles,

And it is but a few years since that the practice ceased.

The only event recorded at the first 13 games was the Stade,

A straight-line sprint of just over 192 meters.

The DLS,

Literally double pipe,

Or two-stade race,

Is recorded as being introduced at the 14th Olympiad in 724 BC.

It is thought that competitors ran in lanes marked out with line,

Or gypsum,

For the length of a stade,

Then turned around separate posts,

Camters,

Before returning to the start line.

Xenophanes wrote that victory by speed of foot is honored above all.

The third race,

The Dilichus,

Long race,

Was introduced in the next Olympiad.

Accounts of the race's distance differ.

It seems to have been from 20 to 24 laps of the track,

Around 7.

5 km to 9 km,

Although it may have been lengths rather than laps,

And thus half as far.

The last running event added to the Olympic program was the Hoplitodromus,

Or hoplite race,

Introduced in 520 BC,

And traditionally run as the last race of the games.

Competitors ran either a single or double dilos,

Approximately 400 or 800 m,

In full military armor.

The Hoplitodromus was based on a war tactic of soldiers running in full armor to surprise the enemy.

Wrestling,

Palae,

Is recorded as being introduced at the 18th Olympiad.

Three throws were necessary for a win.

A throw was counted if the body,

Hip,

Back,

Or shoulder,

And possibly knee,

Touched the ground.

If both competitors fell,

Nothing was counted.

Unlike its modern counterpart,

Greco-Roman wrestling,

It is likely that tripping was allowed.

Boxing was first listed in 688 BC,

The boy's event 60 years later.

The laws of boxing were ascribed to the first Olympic champion,

Anamastus of Smyrna.

It appears that body blows were either not permitted or not practiced.

The Spartans who claimed to have invented boxing quickly abandoned it and did not take part in boxing competitions.

At first,

The boxers wore hymens,

Long leather strips which were wrapped around their hands.

The pancreation was introduced in the 33rd Olympiad,

648 BC.

Boys' pancreation became an Olympic event in 200 BC,

In the 145th Olympiad.

As well as techniques from boxing and wrestling,

Athletes also used kicks,

Locks,

And chokes on the ground.

Although the only prohibitions were against biting and gouging,

The pancreation was regarded as less dangerous than boxing.

It was one of the most popular events.

Pindar wrote eight odes praising victors of the pancreation.

A famous event in the sport was the posthumous victory of Origen of Feghalia,

Who expired at the moment when his opponent acknowledged himself beaten.

Reviews

Nice work Benjamin wasn’t able to finish it because i fell asleep 😴 👍