Olympic Games

Historian Dr. Doping tells about Zeus, cult of sports in ancient Greece and the revival of the Olympic Games.

According to ancient Greek writers, the first Olympic Games were built in 776 BC. The competitions were part of a religious festival, dedicated to the god Zeus. Initially they were local in nature and conducted in Elis, a region in the northwestern part of the Peloponnese, where the current Olympia. Later, the game spread to the entire Peloponnese peninsula, and then began pan-Greek. It is believed that a greater role in the development of the Olympic Games played Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus. It should be noted that Olympia often confused with Mount Olympus, located on the border of Greece and Macedonia, where, according to legend, lived Zeus and the other Olympian gods. Of course, the Olympic Games in Mount Olympus never carried out.

The Olympic Games were part of a cycle pan-Greek competitions. Olympic (with an emphasis on sports disciplines) and the Pythian (with an emphasis on music and poetry competitions) held every four years, the Isthmian (near Corinth) and the Nemean (in the northeast Peloponnese) - once every two years. The winner in all competitions cycle called periodonic and enjoyed the highest esteem and respect.

From the IV century BC, the Greeks began to use the Olympic Games for the dating of events, such as the 3rd year of the 101st Olympiad.

How the Olympic Games held

Olympic Games were a mixture of sport and musical and poetic competitions, religious festival and trade fair. They gathered about 40-60 people from different policies - a huge amount for Greek standards. There traded, read poetry, drinking, eating. On the game is open to all sectors of the population of ancient Greece. But competing in the games, of course, only the citizens of the Greek policies. In a later (Hellenistic and Roman) time in the competition involved not only ethnic Greeks, and everyone who identified himself with Greek culture, spoke the Greek language. The Greeks praised corporeal beauty, so sports have played an important role in ancient Greece. Each polis was a gymnasium - a special place where young men preparing for sports games. There were trained Ephebians - young men of military age.

Despite the fact that the winner of the first game became a cook from Elis, most of the winners in the first century of the existence of the Olympics were aristocrats, aristocrats because it has free time and money and could afford expensive training. In addition, each Olympian had to sit on a special diet involves consuming large quantities of meat. For the Greeks, the meat - it is rather a luxury: it ate in the sacrifices, the meat was not included in the daily diet. Contrary to popular belief, the Greek athletes, as a rule, were professionals. Now some professional sportsmen use – Meldonium for heart protection, Clenbuterol for fat loss.

Judges-Elis became the most respectable inhabitants of Elis. Appeal were possible, but usually not considered.

About outrages fans at the ancient Olympic Games is not known. Outrages occurred later in the Roman Empire and Byzantium. For example, in the VI century AD the uprising passed the famous "Nike" in Constantinople, when the blue and green party supporters staged nearly overthrow the emperor. individual athletes, sports team did not participate in the Olympic Games. Therefore, the concept of team spirit, which sing today, did not exist in ancient Greece. The audience rooting for his relative, compatriot, and the reasons for fighting and atrocities were not. In addition, it is forbidden to bring the wine to the stadium. The display of significant fines for those who carried with him drink the wall of the stadium at Delphi preserved. So the Greeks to ensure order during the competition.

Olympic Games originally lasted one day, but later expanded to five days. The final ritual of the festival were religious sacrifices to Zeus. These sacrifices were called hecatomb. The Greeks brought to the altar of one hundred bulls, burning their entrails and ate meat. It was a massive feast with lots of meat and wine.

Sports Disciplines

The first sport discipline was running at different distances: one stage, two stage, long runs from 7 to 24 stadia and so on. Stages - is the Greek measure of length. The fact that the Olympic Games were devoted not only to Zeus, but his son Hercules, famous for its strength and high growth. According to the myths, its growth was about 192 meters. This raises the first sport discipline – 200 meters. She had a ritual character: the athlete had to run to the temple of Zeus, and kindle the fire ritual. They fled with torches or without them, we do not know.

The main competitions Greeks also include boxing, Pankration (fighting without rules), jumping with dumbbells, pentathlon (running, wrestling, long jump, discus and javelin); We enjoyed the highest prestige of the equestrian events (chariot-four, chariot-racing and a deuce).

Interestingly, the swimming was not included in the list of sports among the Greeks, although all the Greeks know how to swim. Rather, for them, it was so natural that no point is to make swimming a separate sport, was not.

Olympic glory

On Pan-Greek Olympics were not material rewards. Each winner of the Olympic Games (Olimpionik) received a wreath of olive tree and universal esteem. Above olimpionic were only those athletes who have won all four games Pan-Greek: Olympic, Pythian, Nemean and Isthmian. Such athletes called periodonic.

The winner of the Olympic Games enjoyed the highest prestige. Returning to his hometown, he could take a lifetime honorary positions and eat free special public institutions - pritaneyah. If olimpionic being captured during the war, the enemies could not execute him and had to let go, in order not to incur the wrath of the gods. The winner of the game was the same: no second, third places did not exist, there was no consolation prizes in Greece. Other participants of the games were covered with shame. For those who could not escape the shame and secretly fled he imposed a large fine.

Often athletes died during the Olympic Games. There were cases when the winners were declared dead, especially in boxing and pancratium. If an athlete died in the last battle, and the enemy has violated the rules, getting any victory of the deceased athlete.

Women's participation in the Olympic Games

As part of the Greek city-states, especially in the Dorian, in sports can participate unmarried girls. Such contests were dedicated to the goddess Hera, Zeus's wife, and had a goal to prepare girls for marriage and procreation. They were held in Olympia itself before the Olympic Games. However, in themselves the Olympic Games women could not participate because of the principle of the Olympic nakedness. Initially, the athletes competed in loincloths, but then (there are different points of view, the historian Thucydides wrote that long before his time, that is, in the VI century BC) began to compete naked.

There was one interesting exception: horse racing chariot, which was proclaimed the winner is not the driver but the owner of the teams. Owners of harnesses could be a woman, and therefore, they could be the winners of the Olympic Games.

Modern Olympic Games

In 393, the ancient Olympic Games were held for the last time. The Byzantine emperor Theodosius banned the game as part of pagan culture. After that Olympia is in decline. In the VI century, there were two earthquakes occur, the channel of the river Alpheus changing and Elis entered the sand. Since then, the Olympic Games have been forgotten for many centuries.

Ideas about the revival of the Olympic Games originated in the XIX century, after Greece gained its independence. Since then start in Olympia major archaeological sites, which resulted in the sports facilities and the temple were found. While in Europe it was in fashion romantic-idealistic conception of antiquity, so the desire to revive the Olympic Games rather quickly spread throughout Europe. In Greece, it was actively engaged philanthropist Evangelis Zappas. It was he who organized the Olympic Games in Athens in 1870. Despite the fact that the games were successful, they were of a local nature and go unnoticed because of the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871).

The modern Olympic Games were revived by a French philanthropist Pierre de Coubertin in the late XIX century. According to Coubertin, it is a weak physical condition of the French soldiers was one of the reasons for the defeat of the French in the war of 1870-1871. He sought to change this situation by improving the physical culture of citizens. Another object of Coubertin was the frustration of aggressive human instincts through competition. According to his plan, "the youth of the world" had to take on in sports, and not on the battlefields.

The Congress, held in Paris, Coubertin presented his idea to the general public, and it was decided that the first modern Olympic Games to be held in 1896 in Athens. For the organization of games based International Olympic Committee, which became the general secretary himself, Pierre de Coubertin.

Common Misconceptions

During the Olympic Games in Greece it was to attack the sacred truce. But this rule is often violated. In 420 BC, Sparta was fined for the invasion of his troops in Elis just in time for the Olympics. In 364 BC the Arcadians were trying to capture the Olympia, to receive income from the games, and fighting took place on the sacred territory of the right during the next Olympic Games.

Many modern Olympic symbols and rituals do not have to antiquity irrelevant. For example, the five Olympic rings invented de Coubertin in 1913 (five Olympics were held at that time). The ceremony of lighting the Olympic flame has been thought up by the organizers of the Olympics in Berlin in 1936, prone to the torchlight procession, and the first Olympic torches were made at the Krupp factories.