|
|
ANCIENT OLYMPICS 2
Traveling to the Olympics, which was actually a Religious Festival, was save for 30 days before and 30 days after the games and was called Olympic Truce, which was agreed on and honored by all Greeks, although there were three known exceptions. In 570 BC when Elis took control of Olympia from the Pisatans, the next one in 431 B.C. when Spartans invaded Elis during an Olympic Truce and had to pay a heavy fine to Elis and once more in 364 B.C. when Arcadians entered the sanctuary and fought Elis in midst of the Olympic Truce, but the Festival, despite those wars, went on uninterrupted from 776 B.C. to the last official Olympics in 393 A.D. and even did when King Phillip of Macedonia took control of Greece in 338 B.C. and four years later in 334 B.C. when his son Alexander the Great, who began his campaign of conquests across the East using Greek rules did, only to die eleven years later from over intoxication at a victory celebration in Babylon. After Alexander's death in 323 B.C. Hellenistic and Roman periods influenced the Olympics and the pagan Festivals. The first Roman incursion came in 229 B.C., with Roman rules. When Greeks rebelled in Corinth in 146 B.C., Romans leveled the city, executed all males and sold all women and children as slaves. After that, there were many more uprisings against Roman armies, which repeatedly marched across Greece, pillaging the sanctuary of Olympia. In 80 B.C. Roman General Sulla again pillaged Olympia during the civil wars in Greece, who at that time was at a very low ebb, as Roman armies repeatedly kept marching across Greece, until the battle of Actium, off Greece's west coast in 31 B.C. which ended with Mark Anthony's defeat, followed by his and Cleopatra's death. which ended Rome's civil wars. During the turmoil from 146 to 31 B.C. the Olympics kept taking place as usual every four years and in 27 B.C. the Emperor Augustus declared the " Pax Romana", starting a reign of peace and tranquility. Greek Culture and Athletic Festivals were imported into Italy. In 66 A.D. and Emperor Nero, who was devoted to Greek culture, visited Olympia and in 67A.D. took part in Olympics, adding poetry to the roster. He took part in the Chariot races and although he fell off his Chariot, still got awarded by the Judges first prices in all the events he participated, which when he was murdered in Rome a year later were taken away from him and his records were erased as if he never participated in any of the Olympic Games at all in Olympia. Around 100 A.D. thanks to Roman Emperors who admired Greek Culture, a second Golden Age emerged for Olympia, when emperors such as Hadrian lavished Olympia with gifts and buildings and by A.D.150, for the first time in its history, an efficient water system had been installed, ending centuries of the worst health discomforts and conditions in Greece. In 267 A.D. the Heruli tribe, barbarians from South Russia invaded the Greek Peloponnesus, but Elis had a double wall built in the Sacred Grove and defended the Sanctuary victoriously. In 312 A.D. as paganism was fading, Emperor Constantine declared Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire and with the Romans adopting Christianity as their only religion, the Olympics, which were foremost a pagan celebration in honor of Zeus, with bloody pagan rituals and free and open sex orgies that held no place in a Christian Empire, the prestige of Olympia declined rapidly and the Olympics come to an end with Olympia being doomed. Lists of victories, by not being accurately recorded, were getting uncertain and incomplete and finally, as they stopped all together, the prestige of the Olympics was coming to an end. In A.D. 365, the last Victor on record was the Armenian Prince Varazdates who won the Boxing event of the 291st Olympiad. The next Olympiad was the 292nd in 369 A.D. and as much as 24 years later in A.D.393, the 293rd and very last official Olympiad of Ancient Greece took place. There are no records or Victor's lists for the 24 year gap between the 292nd and 293rd Olympics, which have been lost, but it is believed that they did take place in Olympia, possibly even with Roman approval. It is also known, that even after the Romans abolished the pagan festivities, some sporting events kept going on in several parts of Greece and most likely, many of them in Olympia. In A.D. 394, Emperor Theodosius I officially abolished the Olympics and banned all pagan festivals. He sent Phidias' statue of Zeus, one of the seven wonders of the world, to Constantinople, where it was displayed at the Emperor's Palace, which fifty years later was destroyed by a fire inside the Palace. In 426 A.D. by orders of Theodosius II, the Temple of Zeus was burned down in Olympia and malicious, evil fanatic Christians destroyed the Sanctuary. In the next ten centuries, starting in A.D.522, several devastating earthquakes and floods from the rivers Alpheus and Cladeus, buried Olympia under fifteen feet of mud and silt, which also marked the physical end of Olympia, until German Scientists began excavating the ruins in the late 1800's. Although the Olympics in Olympia were over, Sports and Athletics went on in Greece, Rome and most of Europe and new sports were born. Sports that took place in Olympia become more sophisticated, rules were changing and 1500 years later the first Olympics of the modern era was taking place in Athens in 1896, through the ingenuity of Baron Pierre de Coubertain, the father of the modern Olympics, at which time the entire world and especially the nations that attended the first Olympics, had dedicated Officials and many Athletes, continuously breaking new records. The Program of the Ancient Olympics lasted five days and hardly changed after 470 B.C. They were full day events, with morning and afternoon sessions, which started on DAY 1, with the OPENING CEREMONIES and Athletes, Coaches and Judges taking the Olympic Oath in the Bouleuterion, the Council House and Olympic Headquarters with the ten Judges standing under the towering statue of Zeus Horkios, God of Oaths where the Athletes came inside the temple for the solemn "Swearing In" Ceremony, while the first contests for the Heralds and Trumpeters at the Echo Colonnade were taking place. Athletes consulting the Oracle, made their private sacrifices to the Gods. The afternoon was free to explore the Sacred Grove of Zeus, view Statues, Paintings, Literary events, Poetry, Philosophy and History or they did less morally correct pursuits, available at the Carnival-like Festival fringes. DAY 2, from 6.00 A.M. with a lot of activities that day, starting with the Equestrian events at the Hippodrome. Horse races, two and four Horse Chariot races and bareback races with Colts, a very dangerous and bloody affair, that many times ended with dead riders. At 12.00 P.M. the Pentathlon at the Stadium, combining Discus, Javelin and Long Jump as core events, adding Running and Wrestling for the complete series of the Penthatlon, in which only top Athletes were taking part. At night there were Victory Parades, Coral Hymns a Banquet for Champions the Day 2 events, that lasted through the whole night, becoming a wild Bacchanal. DAY 3 AM. Coinciding with a full moon, starting with the festival's religious ritual, the procession to the Great Altar of Zeus and the Sacrifice of one hundred Oxen, a very bloody and gory mass slaughter, I will not describe further, while events for boys under 18 years, which were not permitted at the religious festivals, took place in the Stadium. Later that evening was the gigantic public banquet for all the athletes and the public, from the sacrificed meat which again, as usual, went on through the entire night. DAY 4, A.M. Running, the oldest sport event in Olympia, dating from 776 B.C. with Sprints of 192m, 384m and the long distance race of 3,600 meters. 2.00 P.M.: The very painful contact sports: Wrestling, Boxing and especially the extremely rough and dangerous Pankratian and as a last event, the Hoplitodromia, or the Race-in-Armor of men in full bronze armor, running a double lap of the Stadium. And after all the sport events of that day ended, another long night of partying, including drinking and wild sex orgies, with the utmost sexual perversities. DAY 5, THE CLOSING CEREMONIES: Dignity returns to Olympia. Olive wreaths, cut by a boy at the ritual of the sacred tree of Zeus, which was planted by Hercules at the Altis, are presented to all the Olympic Champions, as they enter the Sanctum Sanctorium of Olympia. The firm and strict Judges, fulfilling the ancient ordinances of Hercules, are setting a grey wreath of Olives upon the Victor's hair while they are being announced to Zeus. When the Champions reemerge from the Sanctorium, they are carried around by their friends and family at the sacred grove of the Altis and later are escorted to the private feast at the banquet hall of the Prytaneion, the Administrative Center of the Olympic Games, which is hosted by the Judges. This was the building where on one wing the eternal Olympic Flame burned and on the other, all the Olympic Archives were stored, dating back to 776 B.C. and also had a museum containing Olympic Memorabilia and Artifacts from famous Champions and events, like discuses, javelins, gloves and other items from heroes of the past. Former Champions were welcome at the banquet, mixing with the new ones, which was a great way to end the five day Olympics. E-mail checked daily at: enash327@yahoo.com or weekly at: museum@olympicsource.org Telephone: Summer: 541-765-2923 Winter: 702-346-1776 |
