The History Of The Olympic Games :: Expository Essays Research Papers

The History Of The Olympic Games Introduction Today, the Olympic Games are the world's largest pageant of athletic skill and competitive spirit. They are also displays of nationalism, commerce and politics. Well-known throughout the world the games have been used to promote understanding and friendship among nations, but have also been a hotbed of political disputes and boycotts. The Olympic games started thousands of years ago and lasted over a millennium.. The symbolic power of the Games lived on after their demise, and came to life again as the modern Olympic Games being revived in the last century. Both the modern and Ancient Olympics have close similarities in there purpose and in there problems. Ancient Olympics The ancient Olympics had some differences from the modern Games. There were fewer events, and only free men who spoke Greek could compete, instead of athletes from any country. Women where not allowed to even watch the games on penalty of death let alone play in them.. Also, the games were always held at Olympia in Greece instead of being moved around to different sites every time. But also they had some similarities to our modern Olympics, winning athletes were heroes who put their home towns on the map, and became financially sound for life. The conflict between the Olympic's ideals of sportsmanship and unity and the commercialism and political acts which accompany the Games where also present in ancient times. "Sotades at the ninety-ninth Festival was victorious in the long race and proclaimed a Cretan, as in fact he was. But at the next Festival he made himself an Ephesian, being bribed to do so by the Ephesian people. For this act he was banished by the Cretans. " The first Olympic games at Olympia were held in 776 BC. According to Hippias of Elis, who compiled a list of Olympic victors c.400 BC, the only event held at the first Olympics was the stadion footrace. Scholars have speculated that the games in 776 BC were not the first games, but rather the first games held after they were organized into festivals held every four years as a result of a peace agreement between the city-states Greece. Every four years the games where started on the first full moon after the summer solstice, lasting for five days. For over 1100 years, from 776 BC to 393 AD the games where played, thousands of people ceased all warfare and flocked to a small sanctuary in northwestern Greece for five days in the late summer for a single reason, to witness the Olympic Games.