The Greeks were bound together by their language, by their religion, and also by their great national games. The origin of these games is still somewhat in doubt. They probably began as some kind of religious ceremony in connection with burials, such as the Funeral Games described by Homer that were held in honour of Patroclus. But whatever may have been their origin, they were firmly established in the earliest times of historic Greece.
Greece was never free for long at a time from warfare. The very fact that the country was divided into so many small and independent states bred jealousies and hatreds, and state was often at war with state. This made it necessary that every Greek citizen should be ready at any moment to take up arms in defence of his home, and so he had to be physically always in good condition. This was brought about by regular athletic training which was an important part of the education of every Greek. It was considered just as bad to have an ill-trained body as it was to have an ill-trained mind, and one reason why the Greeks so despised the barbarians, as they called all those who were not of Greek race, was because the barbarian did not train his body to the same extent, and because he loved so much luxury.
All Greeks, then, received athletic training, and this training aimed at developing a beautiful body, for it was believed that to run gracefully was as important as to run swiftly, but though the Greeks loved contests and competition and strove hard for the victory, because they cared so much for grace of movement they did not lay much stress on record-breaking, and so they kept no records of exceptional athletic feats, which prevents us from knowing details of some of their great athletic achievements.
Games were held in nearly every Greek city and were a source of great pride to the citizens. The more important festivals were those held in honour of Poseidon at Corinth and called the Isthmian Games, those at Delphi which commemorated the slaying of the Python by Apollo and called Pythian Games, and the greatest of all, held every four years at Olympia in honour of Zeus, and known as the Olympic Games. These games were the oldest in Greece and they were at all periods the most important. The first were held, if tradition tells truly, before Greece had begun her history, and the last long centuries after she had ceased to be a free state. The first games in historic times were held in 776 B.C. and the interval between each festival was called an Olympiad. These Olympiads constituted the Greek calendar, which took 776 B.C. as its starting point.
This great festival at Olympia was held in August or September and lasted five days. It was a national affair and Greeks from all over the Greek world went to Olympia to take part in it. For a whole month a truce was proclaimed throughout Greece, all warfare had to stop, and all ordinary business and pleasure gave way to the greater business of going to Olympia. The games were usually held from the eleventh to the sixteenth day of this month of truce, the days before and after being given up to the journey to and from Olympia. All roads were declared safe for these days, and great was the punishment meted out to any who dared molest the pilgrims to Olympia, for they were going to pay honour to Zeus and were considered as specially under his protection. Visitors thronged every road and they came from every direction. They came from all the Peloponnesian states, from Corinth, Athens and Thebes. They came from the far-off Greek colonies, some from the shores of the Black Sea, looking almost like the nomads with whom they came so much in contact; some from Ionia, men clad in rich robes and of luxurious habits learnt from their Oriental neighbours; others from the western colonies, from Italy and Southern Gaul; and yet others, dark and warm-blooded men, from distant Africa. Yet all were Greeks, bound together in spite of their differences by the common ties of blood and religion. Some were rich, and were accompanied by slaves who brought everything necessary for their comfort, others were poor, who tramped the roads footsore and weary, but sustained by the thought of the joys of the festival when they reached their goal.
The gathering together of so many visitors brought all kinds of people to Olympia: merchants with rich and rare goods for sale, for a regular fair was carried on during the festival, makers of small statues hoping for orders to be placed in the temples, poets who wanted to recite their poems, musicians ready to play on their lyres to any who would listen, gymnastic trainers from all over Greece who hoped to learn some new method that would improve their own teaching, people of all and every kind. Only there were no women. The games were considered too public a festival for it to be fitting for women to be present, and the journey was too long and difficult for them to undertake it. The women who lived near Olympia had a festival of their own, when they, too, raced and were awarded prizes, but it was at a different time from the great national festival.
There was no city at Olympia and but few buildings beyond the temples, so when the throng of visitors arrived, the first thing they did was to provide sleeping quarters for themselves. Certain people were allowed to sleep in some of the porticoes of the buildings connected with the temples, others had brought tents and a regular camp arose. Booths of all kinds were erected in which the merchants displayed their wares; friends and acquaintances from different parts of Greece met and talked over all that had happened to them since they last met. Many announcements, too, were made by heralds at this time; the terms of treaties between different Greek states were recited in public, for in those days of difficult communication between states, such a gathering as that at Olympia ensured that news made public then would be widely spread amongst the different states.
Then there were visits to be made to the great temple of Zeus and sacrifices to be offered. From the middle of the fifth century B.C. onwards every visitor to Olympia went reverently into the temple to gaze at the great statue of Zeus.[1] This statue was said to be so marvellously wrought that "those who enter the temple there no longer think that they are beholding the ivory of India and gold from Thrace, but the very deity translated to earth by Pheidias," and it was said that to have made such a life-like image of the god, either Zeus must have come down from heaven and shown himself in a vision to Pheidias, or Pheidias must have gone up to heaven and beheld him there.
The god is seated on a throne, he is made of gold and ivory, on his head is a wreath made in imitation of the sprays of olive. In his right hand he carries a Victory, also of ivory and gold; she wears a ribbon, and on her head is a wreath. In the left hand of the god is a sceptre curiously wrought in all the metals; the bird perched on the sceptre is an eagle. The sandals of the god are of gold, and so is his robe. On the robe are wrought figures of animals and lily flowers. The throne is adorned with gold and precious stones, also with ebony and ivory; and there are figures painted, and images wrought on it.[2]
It is said that "when the image was completed Pheidias prayed that the god would give a sign if the work were to his mind, and immediately, they say, Zeus hurled a thunderbolt into the ground."[3] "Fare ye to Olympia," said an ancient writer, "that ye may see the work of Pheidias, and account it a misfortune, each of you, if you die with this still unknown." And so gracious and full of loving-kindness was the face of the god, that
if any one who is heavy-laden in mind, who has drained the cup of misfortune and sorrow in life, and whom sweet sleep visits no more, were to stand before this image, he would forget all the griefs and troubles of this mortal life.[4]
But what of the competitors in the games? They had all been at Olympia for the last thirty days undergoing a final and special training. Only men of pure Greek blood might compete, and no one who had been convicted of any crime or who was guilty of any impiety or disrespect to the gods. Each candidate had to prove that in addition to his regular athletic training, he had received special training for ten months before coming to Olympia. When they had practised for the last time, the competitors were addressed by one of the officials in charge. He said to them:
If you have exercised yourself in a manner worthy of the Olympic Festival, if you have been guilty of no slothful or ignoble act, go on with a good courage. You who have not so practised, go whither you will.[5]
The names of those who were to enter for the games were then written up on a white board, and should a man withdraw after that, he was branded as a coward. As soon as the competitor was finally enrolled, a boar was offered in sacrifice to Zeus, and then he had to take a solemn oath that he was a full Greek citizen, that he had fulfilled all the conditions necessary for the games, that he would abide by the rules of the contest, and that he would play fair, and such was the spirit of honour and fairness in which the games were played, that in more than a thousand years there appear the names of only six or seven competitors who were guilty of breaking their oath.
The first day of the festival was given up to sacrifices and processions. The different states always sent official representatives to the Games, and these would make public entrance in their chariots, richly arrayed and bearing costly gifts to place in the treasury of the temple. The next three days were devoted to the actual contests.
Long before the dawn on the first of these three days, every seat in the stadium was occupied. It was situated at the foot of a hill, and every available spot on the slope of this hill was used by the spectators. Should anyone leave his place, even for an instant, it would be lost, and there the spectators sat the whole day through, until the sun went down. What refreshments they needed, they brought with them. The sun beat down on their bare heads, for the Games were in honour of Zeus and he was looked upon as present, and no one might enter the presence of the Father of Gods and Men with covered head. Not until the setting sun gave the signal for the end of the day's contests, did they hurriedly rush off to their tents and snatch an hour or two of sleep before the coming of the dawn warned them to rise and secure their seats for the next day's spectacle.
The contests probably took place in the following order: First, there were the foot races: there were several of these varying in length from two hundred yards to three miles. The shortest race of two hundred yards was for a long time the race which brought greatest honour to the winner. Then followed the pentathlon which consisted of five contests: throwing the discus, throwing the spear, running, jumping and wrestling, and the winner was required to have won three out of the five. In the pentathlon, in particular, great importance was attached to the gracefulness of every movement, and the jumping, discus and spear throwing were generally accompanied by the music of the flute. Then came what was later regarded as the greatest and most exciting race of all, the four-horse chariot race. This was a race that poets loved to describe. Homer tells us how the charioteers
all together lifted the lash above their steeds, and smote them with the reins and called on them eagerly with words: and they forthwith sped swiftly over the plain; and beneath their breasts stood the rising dust like a cloud or whirlwind, and their manes waved on the blowing wind. And the chariots ran sometimes on the bounteous earth, and other whiles would bound into the air. And the drivers stood in the cars, and the heart of every man beat in desire of victory, and they called every man to his horses, that flew amid their dust across the plain.[6]
The boxing and wrestling matches came last, and these were the roughest and fiercest of all the contests.
On the last day of the festival the prizes were awarded. They were very simple, but more highly valued than greater honours could have been. Each prize consisted of a wreath of olive, which had been cut from a sacred olive tree with a golden knife by a boy especially chosen for the purpose, and an old tradition required that both his parents should be alive. These wreaths used at one time to be placed on a tripod in the sight of all the people, later, a beautiful table of gold and ivory was made for them. A herald announced the name of the victor, his father's name and the city from which he came, and then one of the judges placed the wreath on his head. This was the proudest moment of his life, and though other rewards followed on his return home, nothing ever quite equalled that glorious moment.
The last day of the festival was given up to sacrifices to Zeus, followed by banquets and feasting which lasted late into the night. Every kind of honour was shown the victors: poets wrote odes celebrating their victories, and sculptors made models for statues of them, for to every athlete who had won three victories was granted the honour of being allowed to have his statue erected in the open space outside the temple of Zeus.
DISCOBOLUS OF MYRON.
5th Century B.C.
Vatican Rome.
The festival over, the victors and their friends and the great throng of spectators returned to their homes. The victors were not only proud on account of their own achievements, but for the glory they had brought to their city. The news of the approaching arrival of a victor was sent on ahead, and the day of his return to his native city was always honoured by a public holiday. In some places it was an old custom to pull down a part of the city wall and make a special entrance, in order that he who had brought the city such glory might enter by a path never before trodden by other men. Songs of triumph were sung to greet him, and he was led to his father's house along a road strewn with flowers. Rich gifts were presented to him, and in every way he was treated as a man whom the city delighted to respect and honour. At Athens the returning victors were honoured by being allowed to dine thenceforth at the public expense in the hall where the councillors and great men of the city took their meals.
Pausanias, the traveller to whom we owe descriptions of so much in ancient Greece that has now perished, visited Olympia, and he tells us that
many a wondrous sight may be seen, and not a few tales of wonder may be heard in Greece; but there is nothing on which the blessing of God rests in so full a measure as the rites of Eleusis and the Olympic Games....
and Pindar, the Greek poet who has most often sung of the Olympic Games, summed up the feelings of every victor in the words: "He that overcometh hath, because of the games, a sweet tranquillity throughout his life for evermore."