The Ancient Origins of the Olympics: A Brief History

From 776 BCE until about 393 CE, Olympia, Greece, hosted the Ancient Olympic Games, a quadrennial athletic festival. The Olympic Games were a religious celebration honoring Zeus; the term "Olympus" came from the Greek gods' sacred mountain. Since the Games were so important to the Greeks, they frequently planned essential events—such as wars—around them. 

Originally held on a single day, the ancient Olympic Games eventually expanded to four days, with the fifth day reserved for the closing ceremony, award distribution, and winners' feast.

The Olympics may have ceased in the late fourth century C.E., but never lost their allure. Athens hosted the first modern Olympics in 1896 after a determined attempt to bring the games back in the late 19th century.

The Origin of the Olympics

A single event, a footrace, made up the first Olympic Games. It is debatable how far back in history organized athletic competitions ever happened, but it is practically certain that they took place in Greece almost three thousand years ago. 

Though they had their roots in antiquity, by the late 6th century BCE, four Greek athletic festivals—the Olympic Games in Olympia, the Pythian Games in Delphi, the Nemean Games in Nemea, and the Isthmian Games close to Corinth—had become immensely important. Nearly 150 communities, including far-flung locales like Rome, Naples, Odessus, Antioch, and Alexandria, also had festivities of a similar kind.

The Olympic Games were the most well-known of all the athletic events that Greece hosted. An Olympiad was a significant event in Greek history that occurred every four years from August 6 to September 19. 

Historians in the late antique period used this interval as a yardstick for measuring time. Like most Greek sports, the Olympic sports were integral to a religious celebration. 

The city-state of Elis in the northwest Peloponnese hosted these festivals in Zeus's honor at Olympia, the holy place. Cook Coroebus of Elis became the first person to be named an Olympic champion when he won the sprint event in 776 BCE. Myth, not history, supports the idea that the Olympics started before 776 BCE. One story has it that Zeus and Alcmene's son Heracles was the one who first held the Games.

Demise of the Olympics

After Greece lost independence to Rome in the mid-2nd century B.C.E., spectator interest in the Olympic Games and similar events declined sharply in the next century. The Romans held sports in low esteem because it was considered demeaning to compete while undressed in public. However, the Romans saw the political potential in the Greek festivals. Augustus, emperor of Rome, built a makeshift wooden stadium near the Circus Maximus to host Greek athletic competitions and organized new, more substantial athletic festivals in Greece and Italy. Even though he was a generous supporter of Greek festivals, Emperor Nero brought shame to the Olympic Games and himself when he raced a chariot, lost control, and claimed victory.

The Romans had little interest in or training for Greek sports. Team chariot racing and gladiator exhibitions by the Romans had nothing to do with Greek sports or the Olympic Games. The terminology employed to characterize festivals by the two cultures reveals the fundamental contrast in their views.

The Greeks called festivals competitions (agōnes), whereas the Romans called them games (ludi). At first, the Greeks and Romans planned their festivals with the contestants and spectators in mind. Both were enjoyable, although one was more focused on competitiveness. The pagan overtones of the Olympic Games led to their eventual abolition by Roman Emperor Theodosius I or his son in 394 CE.

Move to Modern Olympics

It took 1503 years for the Olympics to return to Olympia, Greece, from 776 BC to 393 AD in antiquity. Athens, Greece, hosted the first modern Olympics in 1896. Baron Pierre de Coubertin, a Frenchman, revived it in 1894 after presenting the notion. He had planned to launch the Contemporary Games in 1900 in his hometown of Paris. Still, delegates from 34 nations were so captivated by the idea that they persuaded him to adjourn the Games until 1896 and have Athens host them first.

The Olympic Flame

The 1928 Amsterdam Olympics were the first to officially introduce the concept of the Olympic torch, also known as the Olympic Flame. In the first Olympic Games, the torch relay did not take place. Even yet, other ancient Greek sporting festivals, such as the one at Athens, are known to have included torch relays. At the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the modern torch relay was first introduced.

Conclusion

The Games persisted until the Roman Empire invaded Greece in the mid-2nd century B.C., but their quality decreased. In A.D. 67, the decadent Emperor Nero participated in an Olympic chariot race and declared himself the winner after falling off. Christian Emperor Theodosius I banned all"paga" celebrations in A.D. 393, ending the Olympic tradition after almost 12 centuries.

France's Baron Pierre de Coubertin (1863-1937) helped revive the Games 1,500 years later. After seeing the old Olympic site, the young baron, who promoted physical education, was inspired to create a contemporary Olympic Games. Coubertin suggested recreating the Olympics as a four-year international athletic tournament at a Union des Sports Athlétiques conference in Paris in November 1892. Two years later, he received authority to form the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to manage the contemporary Olympics.

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