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Greek boys and young men and even girls loved all sorts of outdoor sports. They didn’t play football or baseball or basketball, but they ran and jumped and wrestled and boxed and threw the discus—a thing like a big, heavy dinner plate of iron.
From time to time matches were held in different parts of Greece to see who was the best in these sports.
The Big Meet, however, took place only once every four years at a place called Olympia in southern Greece, for all the winners from different parts of the country were here matched against each other to see who should be the champion of all Greece.
The time when the games were held was a great national holiday, for the games were in honor of the head god, Zeus, as the Greeks called him. People came from far and wide to see the games, much as they do now when a World’s Fair is held or a modern Olympics.
Only Greeks could enter this contest, and only those who had never committed a crime or broken any laws—as a boy or girl nowadays must have a clean record in order to be allowed to play on a college or school team. In ancient Greece, only men and boys competed in the Olympics.
If there happened to be a war going on at the time, and there usually was, so important was this holiday that a truce was declared, and everybody went off to the games. Nothing could be allowed to interfere with the games, and even war was not as important. “Business before pleasure!” When the games were finished, they started fighting again!
The Greek boys and young men would train for four years getting ready for this big event, and then nine months before the great day they would go to Olympia to train at an openair gymnasium near the field.
The games lasted five days and began and ended with a parade and prayers and sacrifices to the Greek gods, beautiful statues to whom were placed all about the field, for this was not only sport, but a religious service in honor of Zeus and the other gods.
There were all sorts of matches—in running, jumping, wrestling, boxing, chariot-racing, and throwing the discus.
Anyone who cheated would have been put out and never again allowed to take part. The Greeks believed in what we call being a good sport. A Greek didn’t brag if he won. He didn’t make excuses if he lost; he didn’t cry out that the decision was unfair.
The athlete who won one or more of these games was the hero of all Greece, and in particular of the town from which he came. The winner received no money prize but was crowned with a wreath made of laurel leaves. This he valued much more than an athlete nowadays does the silver cup or gold medal he may win. Besides receiving the laurel wreath, the winner had songs written to him by poets, and often statues were made of him by sculptors.
There were not only athletic matches but contests between poets and musicians to see who could write the best poetry or compose and play the sweetest music on a kind of small harp called the lyre. The winners of these contests did not receive a laurel wreath, but they were carried in triumph on the shoulders of the throng, as you may have seen the captain of a winning team picked up and raised aloft by his fellow-players after he has won.
Greek runner
Now, in Greek history the first event that we can be absolutely sure is true is the record of the winner of a footrace in these Olympic Games 776 years before Christ was born. From this event the Greeks began to count their history dates, as we do now from the birth of Christ. It was their Year 1.
The four years’ time between the Olympic Games was called an Olympiad. Up to this time, they had no calendar that gave the year or date, so 776 is the date of the first Olympiad. Greek history before that time may have been partly true, but we know much of it was mythical. Beginning with 776, however, Greek history is pretty much all true.
After a long while they stopped having the games, but in 1896 it was thought it would be a good thing to start them again. For the first time in over two thousand years, new Olympic Games were again held in 1896 A.D., not in Olympia, however, but in Athens. The games used to be held only in Greece. Now they are held each time in a different country. Only Greeks used to be allowed to take part. Now, however, athletes from almost all the countries of the world are invited to compete. Only men used to take part. Now women from all over the world compete also. War used to be stopped when the time for the games arrived. Now the games are stopped when war is on.
From what we have learned of the Spartans’ training, we might guess that they used to win most of the athletic prizes, and they did.
Do the Spartans still continue to win most of the prizes in the New Olympic Games?
No. Not even the Greeks now carry off the chief prizes, because Greece is just one small nation among many.
