For the modern plays, to see modern Olympic Games.  

The Olympic Games are a contest Sport yew penteteric (which takes place every four years) organized between the quoted Greek antiques in the honor of Zeus Olympien. They take seat for the first time in 776 av. J. - C. and perdurent during more than thousand years. One traditionally fixes the last plays in 393 a. J. - C., shortly after the edict of Théodose ordering the abandonment of the places of worships of the Greek religion.

They are known for us mainly by the Description of Greece of Pausanias, the vestiges of the archeological site of Olympie and the painting on vases. These testimonys return all to different periods: Pausanias writes in the middle of, whereas the stage of Olympie goes back at the latest to 350 av. J. - C. and that the vases representing of the athletic tests go back mainly from the end of sixth century BC and fifth century BC To more, part of these vases depict in fact the tests of the Athenian Panathénées . The interpretation of these testimonys must thus be carried out with precaution. Lastly, the historian can be based on a reconstitution of the Jeux Néméens organized on June 1st 1996 by the Company for the rebirth of the Néméens plays, which made it possible to test in practice various assumptions.

Mythical origin

The Greeks explain the origin of the Olympic Games by two competitor myths. In the first, told for the first time by Pindare, the Plays are founded by the hero Pélops. Arrived at the adulthood, he asks for the hand of Hippodamie, girl of the king Œnomaos. This one with the practice to organize a race of tanks the opponent to the applicants of his daughter; overcome are killed. Thirteen candidates already failed when Pélops made its request. The hero calls upon Poséidon, his old éraste, which entrusts a tank out of gold and dispach riders winged to him: Pélops gains the victory and the hand of the young girl. Phérécyde specifies that Hippodamie, éprise of the young man, make sabotage the tank of his/her father, who breaks during the race and causes the death of Œnomaos. Pélops then institutes the Olympic Games for expier this crime - the Oracle de Delphes explictement indicates it in one of its declarations.

In the second myth, Héraclès institutes the Plays in the honor of Pélops, its great-grandfather, as another passage of the oracle of Delphes attests some. Phlégon, one freed from Hadrian, reconciles two oracles while making of Pélops and Héraclès respectively the second and third founders of the Olympic Games, the first having been certain Pisos, éponyme of Pisa Elides of it, place where the Plays proceed.

History

See also: Chronology of the ancient Olympic Games

The first Olympic Games are famous to have taken seat in 776 av. J. - C. on the initiative of Iphitos, king of Élis. Pausanias writes as follows: “Iphitos, descendant of Oxylos, and contemporary of Lycurgue, which gave laws to Lacédémone, made celebrate plays with Olympie, renewed the Olympic festivals, and the truce of which the use had ceased. ” These first plays comprise only one test of race on foot (the stadion ), gained by some Coroebos, cook of his state.

The date of 776 av. J. - C. mark the beginning of the Olympic calendar, according to which the years are gathered in Olympiade S. Ainsi, the Greek victory of Salamine, in 480 av. J. - C., takes place for the Greeks the first year of the 75e Olympiad. Éléens consign starting from this date the name of the winners to all the tests in registers that Pausanias mentions on several occasions and who reached us; they stop in 277 a. J. - C.. Actually, it is probable that the Plays were even older, taking into account the abundance of the offerings of the geometrical time found in Olympie.

The Olympic Games are the first manifestation of the panhellenic Jeux which are held regularly in Greece, with cycles of two or four years. As from sixth century BC are created three other contests, the unit constituting the “period”:

• the Isthmian Plays with Corinth;
• the Plays Néméens with Némée;
• the Plays Pythiques with Delphes.

The last Olympic Games undoubtedly take place in 393: since 390, the emperor Théodose I {{er}}, under the influence of Ambroise, bishop of Milan, imposed the forced abandonment of the pagan places of worship.

Organization

Preparations

Élis is the city on the territory of which the town of Olympie is; it has thus the responsibility of organize the plays and plays the part of the modern Olympic village. Ten months before the beginning of the festivities, the authorities which supervise the Plays are installation. The most important magistrates are the hellanodices ( Ἑλλανοδίκαι / Hellanodíkai ), 10 starting from 348 av. J. - C. Vêtus of Crimson.

In parallel, the Olympic truce ( ἐκεχειρία / ekekheiría ) is proclaimed by heralds who traverse all Greece. This month is obligatorily devoted to the drive, the athletes measuring the ones with the others.

Sporting installations

Elect and Olympie are distant of 36 kilometers approximately as the crow flies. The result of the excavations does not allow a very good knowledge of Elect ancient, which is thus mainly known to us by description that in fact Pausanias at the time of its visit of the city. This one mentions a gymnasium comprising a track of competition and a track of drive, both shaded of Platane S, as well as a place called πλέθριον / pléthrion , which is used with the hellanodices to examine the athletes and to carry out the drawing lots. A second gymnasium, smaller, is called “tetragonal” (square) because of its form; it is reserved for the training of the athletes. A third accommodates the senate of Éléens; it is connected to the Thermes and the Agora, which bears the name of hippodrome, because Éléens are accustomed to involving their horses there. The building of the hellanodices is on the street which goes from the southern gantry to the agora.

Olympie is a city devoted to the plays. For as much, it is not deserted out of the competitions: the sanctuaries accommodate tourists and pilgrims. A specialized personnel (sacrificator, player of flute, dancers, cook, employee with wood) is permanently at the disposal of the latter for the sacrifices. Additional labor is engaged especially for the plays, in particular to give in state the installations: the stage is used of pasture or ground of ploughing except season; it should be arranged for the tests. It is thus necessary to clean the starting line ( βαλϐίς / balbís ), made up hones some slightly elevated and dug of two furrows to fix the point of the feet. The starting device strictly speaking ( ὕσπληγξ / hýsplex ) is a kind of barrier out of cord lowered at the time of the signal of the departure; its installation is temporary. The bálbis is probably also used as board for the Long jump basic and for the throws, disc and javelin. The stage also comprises at each end a single post around whose the runners must turn in the long races. In north, a rectangular stone platform accommodates the hellanodices. The west, an arched tunnel, that Pausanias calls the “Cachée entry”, makes it possible to the athletes to enter the stage. The track strictly speaking is turned over, sprinkled then rammed using road rollers, before being bleached with lime. The track of the long jump is also loosened. The Hippodrome is in a zone which was not excavated; one is unaware of this installation very, including his length and his width.

Opening ceremonies

Three days before the opening of the Plays, the athletes, their entourage and the magistrates go in procession in Olympie. The hellanodices deliver little before the arrival to a ritual purification, following what the procession goes to the wood of Altis, site of the sanctuary of Zeus, for a Hécatombe accompanied by hymns, then music and of dance.

On this date, the spectators are already present of number, forming a true village of tents around the crowned enclosure. The Plays are indeed the occasion of a kind of Foire where the spectators can be made predict the future, buy babioles, admire turns of magic and acrobatics. The public can also contemplate works of painters and sculptors come in the hope to find silent partners, and to listen to one of the many sophists or writers coming déclamer their last works - thus from Hérodote Gorgias, Lysias and Isocrate, of which the Panégyrique is especially made up for the occasion. If the slaves and Barbares can attend the Plays, the women are excluded from it. Pausanias specifies that prohibition aims at the only married women, but that appears not very probable: chaperonner would have needed the nonmarried young girls and women. Undoubtedly it with the participation of the young girls confuses in the sporting tests of the Héraia, reserved to the women, who take place not far, with Élis.

After the sacrifice, the athletes lend the Olympic oath in front of the statue of Zeus Horkios (parking oaths), located in the bouleutérion. They swear, says Pausanias, “that they will not violate of anything the established order in the Olympic Games (…), that they were exerted with the greatest care during ten months without interruption. ” They then classified by age bracket by the hellanodices: those which are old from 17 to 19 years form the category of the boys ( παῖδες ), those which are 20 years old and more that of the men ( ἄνδρες / ándres ). Thus, Hérodote tells that Alexandre I {{er}} of Macedonia, wanting to contribute to the race, sees its hellenity disputed by its rivals: after having proven that it is argien, it is admitted by the hellanodices.

The Plays always begin with the second full moon which follows the Solstice of summer. They last seven days.

Tests

Horse tests

The sporting tests start with the horse-races ( ἱππικοί ἀγῶνες / hippikoí agỗnes ). The first is the race of quadrigae ( τέθριππον / téthrippon ), during which the attachment must traverse 12 solo circuits, is approximately 14.000 meters. The competition is not very sporting since, with some exceptions, all the owners make run a jockey (generally a slave) in their place.

According to Xénophon and Plutarque, the king de Sparte Agésilas II encourages his/her sister Cynisca to align its own quadriga to prove that the victory is due not to the virile virtue ( ἀνδραγαθία / andragathía ), but with the only richness. The horses of Cynisca gain by twice the race, in 396 av. J. - C. and in 392 av. J. - C.. If it cannot receive its price in person, because of prohibition for the women to attend the tests, its statue is then set up in the sanctuary of Olympie, with this inscription:

My ancestors and my brothers were kings de Sparte.
Me, Cynisca, winner with a tank of fast horses,
I set up this statue. I declare being only the femme
from all Greece to have received this crown.

The horse tests also include/understand a race of tanks with two horses ( συνωρίς / sunóris ), which goes back to the beginning of fourth century BC; it comprises eight solo circuits, that is to say approximately 9.500 meters. The assembled race ( κέλης / kélês ) is older. There still, the riders are not the owners: they are young jockeys who ride bareback - without saddle nor clamps. It thus happens that the horse gains the race after having lost its rider.

Lastly, of the tests similar, but reserved for the foalta, are created not very front 300 av. J. - C. for the quadriga, in 268 av. J. - C. for the bige and in 256 av. J. - C. for the assembled race. It returns to the hellanodices to classify the horses in each category.

Gymnic tests

The other tests are qualified the “gymniques ones” ( γυμνικοί ἀγῶνες / gumnikoí agỗnes ) i.e., with the clean direction, “naked”, because the athletes contribute to it completely naked (including the head and the feet), as it is the standard for the sporting practice in ancient Greece since eighth century BC Thucydide allots the introduction of this practice to the Spartans and curiously presents it like a progress compared to the former use, inherited the Minoens, consisting in carrying a kind of grinding pants.

There the athletes rub themselves all of oil, invention allotted still to the Spartans; participants in the reconstitution of the Néméens plays in 1996 also testified that oil limited the water loss during the test.

The first of the gymnic tests is the Pentathlon, which is held on the stage. The discipline gathers five of them, in the order: the Race on foot, the Throwing the discus, the Long jump, the Throwing the javelin and the Fight. All the tests take place during the same day. We are unaware of how the winner is determined, even if it is certain that the winner of three of the tests gains the unit. The evening of this first test, night of full moon, a Hécatombe is offered on the furnace bridge of Zeus, entirely consisted of ashes and calcined remainders of the sacrifices of the year.

The first race is it δολιχός / dolikhós , a basic race which one finds in all the sporting events. In Olympie, it is long of 24 stages, that is to say 4200 to 4500 meters. It is followed of a test particular to the Olympic Games, it στάδιον / stádion which, as its name indicates it, is long of a stage - that of Olympie measures 192 meters. It is the shortest race of the Greek sport, which does not know the modern 100 meters. According to Pausanias, the competitors are sometimes so numerous that it is necessary to proceed to two eliminatory races. The stadion is followed by δίαυλος / díaulos , a long race of two stages.

After the races, one passes to the tests known as “heavy” ( βαρέα ἆθλα / baréa ãthla ), for which is necessary a special surface ( σκάμμα / skámma ), whose ground was loosened. The first is usually the Lutte ( πάλη / pálê ), very popular sport which gave its name to the Palestre ( παλαίστρα / will palaístra ), i.e. the complex of sporting installations with which each city is equipped. The goal is to project its adversary on the ground without being involved there oneself; the match disputes in three handles. Then pugilism follows ( πὐξ / púx or πυγμαχία / pugmakhía ), which is connected with the English Boxe 18th century. It consists in putting KB the adversary (or making it give up) in a single round; the blows are carried almost only to the head, which supports the high guard, tended arm. The last test is the Pancrace ( παγκράτιον / pankrátion ), a very brutal sport which also seeks the setting out of combat of the adversary, without another prohibition to put the fingers in the eyes of the adversary.

The race out of weapons ( ὁπλίτης δρόμος / hoplítês drómos ) closes the Olympic Games. The runners carry a Bouclier to the left arm, a Casque and, until in 450 av. J. - C., of the Cnémide S; they traverse two stages.

Honors and rewards

The first honors are decreed after each test. The name of the winner is proclaimed by the hero at the same time as the name of his/her father and that of the city for which it contributes. The city of Elect offer then a banquet with the academy with the whole of the winners. As for all the Greek plays, the athletes victorious (and fortunate) can order from a poet an ode of victory or épinicie, celebrating its exploit, which will be sung by a chorus lasting the banquet. We thus preserved fourteen odes at the Olympic winners of Pindare and four of Bacchylide. The olympioniques ones can also make set up in the sanctuary of Zeus a statue to their effigy.

Each winner, returned in his city, receives a monetary reward, a various revenue or exemptions. In Athens, the Olympic winner ( Ὀλυμπιονίκης / Olumpioníkês ) is maintained until the end its days to the Prytanée; it also receives a reward reached a maximum by Solon with 500 drachmas. Another city does not hesitate to cut down part of its walls to make enter its champion by a door by which no one other never passed before.

Glory that a city attracts itself which can be enorgueillir of one or more Olympic champions is considerable. As at the time modern, it is important for the major cities to assert the greatest number of possible victories. In this respect, Sparte cuts the lions share: the first champion known Spartan goes back to XVe Olympiad (720 av. J. - C.); on 81 known champions of this date with 576 av. J. - C., 46 are Spartiates, including 21 out of 36 winners of the stadion . On the other hand, Athens is much less better parcelled out with only 18 champions of 776 av. J. - C. with 399 av. J. - C. sporting chauvinism pushes sometimes with doubtful operations: it happens that an athlete is discharged by a city other than that in which he is originating. Pausanias thus mentions certain Astylos, champion of the stadion and diaulos for the account of Crotona, its birthplace, in 488 av. J. - C., then for the account of Syracuse the two Olympiads which follow; furious, Crotoniates withdraw the statue that they had dedicated to him in the sanctuary of Junon Lucinia and transform its house into prison.

It also happens that the athletes let themselves corrupt in spite of the oath which they lent. Those which are convinced of corruption are condemned to pay a fine. Pausanias mentions two groups of six statues of Zeus in Bronze, them Ζᾶνες / Zãnes , financed by this means; they are located close to the stage, on the way of the athletes, and are charged to recall them that “it is not at money price, but by the lightness of the feet and the strength of the body which one must deserve the victory with Olympie. ”

Ancient plays with the modern plays

Pierre de Coubertin, when he endeavors to give on foot the Olympic Games, takes as a starting point the plays of Antiquity to define the Olympic ideal. It is based on the historiography of the time, marked by work of John Mahaffy, Paul Shorey, Percy Gardner and E. Norman Gardiner. This last defends the thesis according to which the athletes were originally of rich person aristocrats, convergent for the beauty of the sport. This ideal would have been then corrupted to leave place, at the beginning of fourth century BC with professional athletes, earning their living by the competition. This idealized image was disputed by more recent historians, who propose the important sums that could gain the champions, and this as of the beginning of the Greek sporting events.