The festival as an event
Every four years, in the Greek month that fell in summer, thousands of visitors travelled to Olympia for a festival that combined sport, religion and a large public gathering. Accounts of the Olympic festival events come from a mix of sources: victory poems by Pindar, the travel writer Pausanias in the second century CE, inscriptions and the excavated site. Pausanias wrote long after the classical period, so his picture of the programme reflects Roman-era Olympia, and some details for earlier periods are reconstructed. This article follows the festival as a visitor might have met it. The wider role of the Games in Greek civic life is a separate matter.
Dating and organisation
The traditional date for the first Games is 776 BCE, based on victor lists compiled in antiquity. Archaeologists find evidence of cult activity at Olympia earlier than that, and historians generally treat 776 as a traditional marker rather than a fixed fact. The festival was run by the people of Elis, the nearby city that controlled the sanctuary. They appointed the judges and set the rules, and they were often in disputes with neighbouring states over the right to do so.
The truce and the journey
Before each festival, Elean heralds travelled through Greek states to announce the dates. The sacred truce (ekecheiria) was intended to guarantee that athletes, officials and spectators could travel to Olympia and home again. It protected the journey and the sanctuary, not the wider peace, and cities that broke it could be fined or excluded. Athletes arrived about a month early to train at Elis under supervision. The judges examined their qualifications: competitors had to be free men of Greek descent, and the boys’ events had their own age category.
The oath and the officials
At the sanctuary, athletes, trainers and judges swore an oath before a statue of Zeus Horkios, the god of oaths, promising to follow the rules. The judges were called Hellanodikai, meaning “judges of the Greeks”. They were chosen from the people of Elis, and their number changed over the centuries, reaching ten in the later period. They wore purple robes, assigned athletes to contests by lot, enforced the rules and could fine or flog offenders. Their decisions could be appealed to the Elean council, and results were sometimes challenged.
The programme
The festival is traditionally described as lasting five days in the classical and later periods, though in earlier times it was shorter, and the schedule changed over time. The pattern generally given is:
- Opening day. The oath, contests for heralds and trumpeters, and in some periods the boys’ events.
- Second day. Chariot and horse racing in the hippodrome, and the pentathlon in the stadium, which tested running, jumping, discus, javelin and wrestling.
- Third day. Sacrifices to Zeus, including a large offering of oxen, and the footraces: the stadion, the diaulos, the long race and, later, the race in armour.
- Fourth day. The combat events: wrestling, boxing and the pankration.
- Final day. The award of prizes and a banquet.
The exact order is debated, and what we know comes from scattered references. The stadion at Olympia was about 192 metres long, which gave the word “stade” its later use as a unit of distance, though lengths varied from place to place in the Greek world.
Combat events had few weight classes. Boxers wore leather straps on their hands, and fights could continue until one man gave in or was knocked out. Pankration allowed almost anything except biting and gouging, and was considered especially dangerous. Fatalities were uncommon but not unknown.
Prizes
The official prize was a wreath of wild olive (kotinos), cut with a golden knife from a sacred tree near the temple of Zeus. A palm branch was also given, and ribbons were tied around the winner. The announcement of the victor’s name and city by a herald was a central moment. There was no medal for second or third place, and the idea of “silver” and “bronze” is modern. As noted by ancient writers, the real rewards came later, in the form of honours at home.
Winners also set up statues at Olympia, and the bases of some of these have been found. These monuments make the sanctuary a kind of gallery of athletic heroes.
Spectators and entertainers
Most spectators were men from many parts of the Greek world, and the site must have been crowded, noisy and short of water and shade during a hot summer. Merchants, poets, philosophers and orators used the occasion to find audiences, and cities sent official delegations who made sacrifices and dedicated offerings. Married women were generally excluded from watching, according to Pausanias, though unmarried women and priestesses had some access.
Later history
The programme was extended and sometimes changed under Roman rule, and emperors such as Nero were involved in controversial ways: Nero’s appearance in a special Games in 67 CE, with later records of the event being struck from the official lists, is reported by later authors. The Games continued until the late fourth century CE, after which the sanctuary declined. Today, Olympia is an archaeological site with a museum, and the modern Games take their name from it.