All Greeks who were free citizens
and had not committed murder or heresy, had the right to take
part in the Olympic Games. Women were not entitled to take
part, except as owners in the horse races, while being strictly
prohibited from watching the games. That had nothing to do
with the nudity of the male athletes. Rather, it was because
Olympia was dedicated to Zeus and was therefore a sacred area
for men.
The chariot races, which were held outside the sacred precinct, were open to
women spectators. (Women had their own sacred festivals from which men were
banned, most notably the Heraean festival at Argos, which included a javelin
throwing competition).
The Games, which took the character of a festival of sports,
were held continuously for almost 1,200 years. During the Olympics
Peace ruled all over Greece . The athletes presented themselves
one month before the games began at Elis, the organizing town,
but the organization and supervision for the upholding of the
rules was carried out by the Hellanodikes, who were chosen
by lot from the citizens of Elis.
Two days after the beginning of the games, the procession of the athletes and
the judges started from Elis to arrive in Olympia where it was received by
the crowds who had come to watch the games.
The ceremonies began with the official oath that was taken by the athletes
at the altar of Horkios Zeus, in the Bouleuterion, swearing that they would
compete with honor and respect the rules.
The athletes who won were hailed as heroes and often elevated to the status
of royalty in their home towns, on return to there towns a part of the walls
was destroyed as a price of the city to its Olympic Heroes. Statues were built
in their honor around the magnificent Temple of Zeus, near the Sacred Grove
of Altis and the stadium of Olympia. They were also given special privileges
and high office.
At its peak during the 4th century BC, the Olympic festival
drew crowds not only from the Pelopponesian Peninsula but from
colonies as far away as Libya and Egypt. Poets and other writers
recited spontaneously, sculptors worked on statues while surrounded
by spectators, vendors sold food from stalls, traders from
throughout the peninsula sold horses. Traveling to Olympia
took on the nature of a pilgrimage, which attracted some of
the greatest names of Greece's classic period. Plato attended
the festival when he was seventy. Demosthenes, Diogenes the
Cynic, Pythagoras, and Themistocles all visited Olympia at
one time or another. The young Thucydides was in the audience
when Herodotus, the "father of history," read from
his works.
The great historical events that took place in the passing
of centuries within the Hellenic lands, took their toll even
on the athletic ideals of the Olympic Games, resulting in the
gradual fall of the moral values, that was especially felt
from 146 A.D. when most of Greece fell under the Romans and
the Eleans lost their independence.
The institution of the Olympic Games lasted for twelve continuous centuries
and was abolished in 393 A.D. (the 293rd Olympiad) by order of Theodosios I
when the functioning of all idol worshiping sanctuaries was forbidden, and
in 426 A.D., during the reign of Theodosios II, the destruction of the Altian
monuments followed.
The national, racial and spiritual unity of the Greeks was
forged thanks to the Olympic Games. The Olympic Games combined
the deep religious spirit along with the heroic past of the
Greeks thus unifying to the highest degree body, mind and soul
according to universal and philosophical values, and so projecting
the individual as well as the cities, through the highest ideal
of freedom.
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