Ancient Greeks

Once every four years, men from all over Greece came to compete in a great athletic festival in Elis, in western Greece (The men wouldn't let women compete). This was called the Olympic games because the place was called Olympia. It was a religious festival to honor the Greek gods Zeus and Hera.

 When it was time for the games, the rulers of Elis sent out messengers all over Greece and to the Greek colonies around the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. They declared a truce throughout the Greek world for a month. No matter who you had a war with, you had to stop the war and let their athletes and performers go through your city- state safely to get to the Olympic Games.

 Each city-state paid for a few athletes from their city to travel to Elis. But if you had ever been a slave, or if you had ever done anything against the gods, then you couldn't be in the Olympics. And, the men had to swear that they had already trained for at least ten months. This meant that only men who were pretty rich could be in the Games, so they could afford to take so long off work, and also pay a trainer.

 Once all the men had arrived in Elis for the Olympic Games, they spent a month practicing and training together in a big palaestra, or gym, with a sand floor. They were only given fresh cheese and water at their meals, and they all ate together. They had to follow strict rules. Judges (also all men) watched the men train, and picked out only the best ones to actually run in the races.

 The Olympic Games began with religious sacrifices and choirs singing. City-states from all over sent choirs of young men to sing in the choir competitions. Most of the spectators were men too. Married women were not allowed to watch the Olympic Games, and it is hard to imagine that very many men chose to bring their young daughters.

 Each athlete went to the sanctuary of Zeus and sacrificed a pig to Zeus and a black ram to Pelops. Then it was time for the athletic contests. The tracks were laid out along the north bank of the river Ruphia, behind the temple of Hera and the sanctuary of Zeus that stood there. At the temple of Hera, they had an eternal flame, a fire that was never allowed to go out (kind of like the Olympic torch today).

 At first, the only athletic competition at the Olympics was a single short foot race, 170 meters long. (According to one story, that was how far Hercules could run on one breath.) For the first twelve Olympics, that's all there was. The whole thing was over in one morning, and most of the contestants seem to have been men from Elis or nearby city-states.

 In the footrace, men probably wore shorts called zomas, but they ran barefoot along the dirt track. Men who were watching sat or stood along the sides on the grass. For prizes, the Eleians first gave out tripods (they were like trophies), and then after the first seven Olympics they gave out branches from olive trees. (The branches were cut from Hera’s sacred grove with a gold sickle, by a boy whose parents were both living).

 About 724 BC the Eleians added two longer races. One was for 370 meters and the other one was 4400 meters (about three miles). A short time after this, about 720 BC, men began to run naked, to get more speed. Some people said the first man to run naked was a Spartan named Acanthus, but other people told different stories about it. For each race there were several heats, so the weaker runners could be eliminated.

 And they had a hoplite race, where the men ran in armor (in later times anyway, they actually only wore a helmet and carried a spear).

 Then in 700 BC, the Eleians added wrestling and the pentathlon to the Olympic Games. The pentathlon means five events. We only know what four of them were: they were running, javelin, discus, and jumping. And in 688 BC, the Olympic officials added boxing and chariot racing. Chariot racing was different from the other events, because the prize went to the owner of the horses, not to the charioteer. (This is still true in horse racing today). Of course the owners of these racehorses had to be very rich, to buy such good horses and train them. It was a big status symbol to race horses at the Olympic Games. PNM10M&feature=fvsrwww.youtube.com/watch?v=jpoKd PNM10M&feature=fvsr

 By this time, the games took up five whole days - two for religious ceremonies and three for the races and fights. Now people began coming from further away. And the games got richer, and money was invented, so they started to give prizes of money instead of just tree branches.