50. On the fifth day the awards ceremony would take place. Ribbons would be tied around the victors' heads and they would be handed laurel wreathes. In the ancient Olympics, it was first prize or nothing at all. (Do you detect an archiac smile on the face of the victor?)

51. Here stands the Olympic victor in all his beribboned glory.

A Poetic Conclusion

Let's take a few minutes to dispel a couple of myths about the ancient Olympics.

In the first place the athletes did not compete for honor alone. There were substantial prizes connected with victory at the ancient games. Metal tripods and containers of olive oil were rather ordinary awards.  One scholar has calculated that a major victory would rake in prizes worth several years' skilled labor.

Neither was the quadrennial Olympics the only game in town. There were the Delphic games, the Nemian games, and the Pan-Athenaic games, the so-called "Big Four" or "crown" games. Besides these, there were over 30 important local games. Obviously, an athlete could follow the circuit, amassing a substantial personal fortune, and many chose to do so. In ancient times, there was no distinction between amateurs and professionals.

Besides that, athletes were not bound to represent their native state. Their allegiances could be purchased by cities seeking an international reputation. The political history of some newly wealthy cities can be charted by following the number of victories that their purchased athletes achieved during a succession of years.  Yes, the ancient Olympics were political. In 420, the Spartans violated the local truce, and the Elians excluded their athletes from the Olympic games. In 364, the Pisans and Arcadians attacked the Elians. Their victories were erased from the records. When the Roman armies arrived in Greece, they removed the treasuries from Olympia. The Roman general Sulla ordered the games to be held in Rome in 80 BC. When Nero became Emperor, he attended the Olympics. He added a singing contest, which he won. And he drove a ten horse chariot around the race track. When he returned to Rome, the record of his victories was expunged.

In 390 A.D., the last Olympic games were held. Theodosios II encouraged the destruction of all pagan sites. Earthquakes and rivers have done the rest.

Richard Chandler first located the ancient site in 1756. Excavations were begun in 1875. These excavations inspired the Greco-phile Pierre de Cubertin to resurrect the Olympics, which were reinstituted for the first time in 1896, at the reconstructed stadium in Athens.

I will close as I began, with a poem. This time by Xenophanes of Colophon, who had a different view of the importance of athletics in the ancient world.

But if anyone wins a victory by speed of foot,
or in the pentathlon where the shrine of Zeus
stands beside the Pisan spring in Olympia, or in wrestling,
or by means of the painful art of boxing,
or else in that frightful contest called the 'pancration'--
then indeed will he seem more glorious to the citizens,
and he will receive the showy honor of a front seat at the games
as well as the right of dining at public cost
from the city, and a gift that will be a bonanza to him.
And if he accomplishes this with his horses he receives the same honors.
Yet he is not so deserving as I am.      

Better than the strength
of men and horses is our wisdom.
But this is a useless custom, nor is it right
to put brute strength ahead of a superior wisdom.
For even if there were a superior boxer among the people,
or one who excelled in the pentathlon, or a wrestler,
or even a man with speedy feet--which holds highest honor
in all men's contests of strength.
Yet the city would be no better managed on that account.
Small gain for the state from the fact that
an athlete wins a victory on Pisan shores.
How will that fill the city's granaries?           

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