Ancient Olympic Games: The First Ancient Olympia, Greece

Miller’s purpose for writing the book Ancient Greek Athletics is to teach the audience about ancient Greek Games and how this important subject can teach us more about our own world. He accomplishes this goal by using the artifacts he has studied along with the history itself to guide the audience in their journey toward appreciating Greek heritage. In this book, Miller addresses the Olympic Games that began more than twenty-five hundred years ago. I learned many different things throughout this book including: the participants, all the different athletic

According to the Olympics Game timeline, the first ever Olympic Games was held in 776 BCE, in Olympia which is in Athens, Greece. They were held there at olympia for 13 years. We don't know how the games began according to Robert Woff, some stories say the Zeus started the game. According to this story, it started out with Zeus and his father, Kronos were wrestling in olympia, who knew it would turn into what it has become. Wrestling wasn’t the only sport in the ancient greek olympics, there were many more that were involved. Some of the original events according to “Ancient sports” are boxing, equestrian events (chariot racing & riding), pankration, pentathlon (discus, javelin, jump, running, wrestling).

The opening ceremony started off with the athletes filing into the temple where they had to give their oath before a giant statue of Zeus that they will obey the rules of the game and use no unfair means to win. Similar to today's Olympics but without the religious part because of the diversity and secularism it has. Judges back then were concerned with performance enhancing potions and cursing other opponents in order for them to have a better advantage. Nudity was common during the Olympics but nobody is certain of how it occurred but there are two stories relating to the topic " One, that a winner lost his clothes in a race […] and the second one that it was the Spartans who introduced it in the 8th century" (Penn Museum, "The Games"). The Olympics had strict rules at first but later started becoming more corrupt, especially when the Romans were taking over." One instance was when Emperor Nero enters and wins the

In 776 B.C a new era began for athletes. The first olympic games were held in Olympia, Greece. “The ancient games were not only an expression and definition of common cultural values, but also an arena for intense competition between Greeks.” (Gold, silver, and bronze) The olympics were an important part of Ancient Greece culture because, it brought their civilization together, kept the greeks fit and ready for war, and the games were used to satisfy their gods.

The first accounts of the Ancient Olympic games trace back to the year 776 BC. Held at Olympia, the games were thought to have been dedicated to the ‘Olympian gods’, Hera, Athena, Apollo and most prodimately, Zeus, the god of the sky and the ruler of the Olympian gods. Ancient myths associated with the beginning games stated that Zeus, the father of humanity, have fought and defeated Cronus in a battle for the throne of the gods. Others predicted demigod Herakles staged the games in Zeus’s honour, as he had assisted him in conquering Elis. Olympia, the site in which the games were held, was located in the Western part of the Peloponnese. The sacred area held numerous temples and sporting facilities, as the site was used for both the Ancient Olympic games

The Olympic games were an athletic competition help in Greece around every four years from 776 B.C.E. In 776 B.C.E, the first olympics were held in Athens where many competitors clashed during the sporting events. The olympics then stopped in 393 C.E. due to Theodosius I’s orders on stopping the olympic events. Later during 1896, the modern olympics began to take place. The olympics were different from the ancient olympics in that the competition was shaped due to social, political, and economic reasons.

The Greeks set up athletic events in honor of Zeus for which the Olympics was made.

In the ancient Olympic Games, there were only six different events to compete in. The original events were boxing, pankration, wrestling, running, equestrian and the pentathlon (Top End Sports). The first event ever held was the “stade” which is a 192-meter foot race. A cook named Coroebus won it becoming the first Olympic champion.

At the end of the dark ages in ancient Greece, nothing was more important to Greek men, than reaching their divine potential. At a young age Greek males were taught many legends, such as the Odyssey, which gave them a desire to accomplish their own heroic journey. The importance to be recognized and remembered as a hero surprisingly led to the creation of a religious festival called, the Olympic Games. The Olympic Games created an opportunity for all free men to discover their divine role in society, by letting them present their skills in athletic competitions, which often led to the victors gaining a sense of immortality. The Olympics provided what was needed in the Greek society to continue the teachings of having a sound body and mind in order to fulfill ones divine purpose.

For a vast number of Greeks and Romans, either taking part in or observing sports was a fundamental part of life. In 776 B.C. the ancient Olympics began and are now viewed as the formal beginning of Greco-Roman sports, the Olympics were the most famous and long-lasting of all ancient games. The athletic contest initially included running, jumping, and throwing. During the first several Olympiads there was not a formal stadium available for the athletes instead, the judges drew a line in the dirt to mark the start and another line to mark the finish. Unlike the Olympics now, the only people that could participate in the ancient Olympics were free white males. Women and slaves could not even watch the games, but by the first century B.C. women were permitted to watch the games and even participate in a few women’s only events. Wrestling and boxing were some other popular sports that became evident in Ancient Rome, wrestling was so important in Greece that by the fifth century, almost every town had a wrestling facility and became the most important component of physical education. Greeks and Romans only practiced who types of wrestling upright and ground. Boxing was the most dangerous of the two sports and the goal was to pound one’s opponent into submission. Lastly, back

The ancient Olympic Games started when Koroibos, a cook from the close-by city of Elis, won the 600 feet long foot race in the stadium. This race was the only athletic competition of the Olympics for the initial thirteen Olympic games until 724 BC. The Olympic Games, initially created to respect Zeus, were the most critical national celebration of the ancient Greeks, and a center of competition among the

"The Olympics are a wonderful metaphor for world cooperation, the kind of international competition that's wholesome and healthy, an interplay between countries that represents the best in all of us,” said John Williams, the composer for theme music for the Olympics (8). The Olympic Games are international sports festivals that began in ancient Greece. The first ancient Olympics can be traced back to 776 BC when people held this religious festival to honour Zeus, the father of all the Greek gods and goddesses. The participants were male citizens from Greece, and these athletes participated in only one event — foot race. Unfortunately, this ancient Olympics did not last forever. The first olympic in 776 BC in Olympia was an significant event

Stephen G. Miller, an expert Yale professor in the field of Ancient Greek athletics states that the Olympics were held “in honor of Zeus in the city of Olympia” (Miller). “The element of religion is evident in this historical event. Many people have heard of the concepts of the Greek Gods, but this level of religious involvement is interesting. These games were held “for four days every fourth summer”, a tradition that partially continues to this day (Miller). “Many festivals in ancient Greece were dedicated to the Gods” (Miller). In addition to the Olympic Games, there were also other athletic festivals which included the Pythian Games at Delphi, the Isthmian at Corinth, and the Nemean at Argos (Miller). However, the Olympics at Olympia were “the oldest and most prestigious of the four great ancient Greek athletic festivals.

Around 3,000 years ago in 776 BC the first Olympic games were held. Of course this soon became a popular and well known event that made many people all over Greece want to see and try it. Unfortunately though, not everybody could participate or even watch the competitors strive to win glory. This caused many people to react in different ways, especially if there were rules that differed between the different genders.

While there are clear contrasts between the ancient and the modern Olympics there is still the respect for the athlete striving to perform at the highest level. Today, the Olympic Games are the world's largest carnival of athletic skill and competitive spirit. They are displays of nationalism, commerce, and politics. These important elements of the Olympics are not a modern invention, as the first Olympics was in 776 BC in Ancient Greece. After 1503 years, in 1896 the Olympic Games were recreated as what we know today. The Ancient Games were once dedicated to the Olympian God, Zeus Olympios and were staged on the ancient plains of Olympia, which is also how the word ‘Olympics’ originated from. The modern Olympics is the largest international sporting event, which feature both summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of respectable athletes from over 200 different nations compete against one another. There are clear contrast between the modern and ancient forms of the Olympic Games regarding uniforms, participants, religion, events, politics and the concept of amateurism. However both the Ancient Greeks and the people in the modern world still respect and admire the athletics achievements of the participants making the Olympics the most highly regarded contest in sport.