| The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07. |
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| Olympiad |
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| unit of a chronological era of ancient Greece, a four-year period, each one beginning with the Olympic games. Timaeus (c.356c.260 B.C.) of Sicily was the first to use, as a check on chronology, the list of victors kept in the gymnasium at Olympia. The first Olympiad was reckoned to have begun in 776 B.C. |
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| | | The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright © 2007 Columbia University Press. |
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