The Ancients - Origins of the Olympics

Episode Date: August 4, 2024

The Olympics. It’s the most famous sporting event in the world, and the 33rd Olympiad is taking place in Paris right now. But how did it all begin?It's a story that takes us back more than 2,000 years. Featuring mythological heroes like Heracles, ancient athletes that became celebrities and the great sanctuary of Olympia in western Greece, home to one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient WorldIn today's episode of The Ancients Tristan Hughes is joined by Dr. Judith Swaddling to delve into the origins of the Olympic Games, uncovering how they were founded and what the earliest Olympics looked like.Presented by Tristan Hughes. Edited by Aidan Lonergan. The producer is Joseph Knight, the senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.The Ancients is a History Hit podcast.The Ancients is recording our first LIVE SHOW at the London Podcast Festival on Thursday 5th September 2024! Book your tickets now to be in the audience and ask Tristan and his guest your burning questions. Tickets on sale HERE https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/words/the-ancients/Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign up HERE for 50% off your first 3 months using code ‘ANCIENTS’. https://historyhit.com/subscriptionVote for The Ancients in the Listeners Choice category of British Podcast Awards here.You can take part in our listener survey here.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancients ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. Hi, Tristan here, and I have an exciting announcement. The Ancients has been invited to open the London Podcast Festival. We will be recording our very first live show on Thursday 5th September at 7pm at King's Place,

and being the first live show where we want it to be extra special, so I've invited a friend of the podcast, Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, to join me on stage where we will be diving into the captivating story of the Tower of Babel, from its first mention in the Book of Genesis to the real-life great ancient Babylonian structure that it was based on. Of course, the ancients is nothing without you, so we want you to be there in the audience taking part and asking us your burning questions. Tickets for the festival always sell fast, so book yourself a seat now at www.kingsplace.co.uk

forward slash what's on, or click the link in the show notes of this episode. I really hope to see you there. The Olympics. Today it's the most famous sporting event in the world. But how did it all begin? Well, it's a story that takes us back more than 2,000 years, featuring mythological heroes like Heracles, ancient athletes that became celebrities, and the great sanctuary of Olympia in western Greece that was the sacred setting for the original ancient Olympics, home to one of the seven wonders of the ancient world in the statue of Zeus. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and today we are exploring the origins of the Olympic Games.

The Olympics became a massive event for the ancient Greeks and endured for hundreds of years in antiquity. Now, rather than try and tackle it all, this relatively short episode will largely focus on the earlier centuries of these games. What do we know about their beginnings? How far back in ancient Greek history did these games go? And what did the earliest ones look like? Were there any sports similar to the ones we see on TV today? We're going to be exploring all of that and more, delving into key myths that became entwined with the founding of the

Olympic Games and amazing facts including how the first ever winner of the Olympic Games was a local cook. Hopefully this episode will pique your interest in the ancient Olympics and we have a whole series of episodes on Olympia and the Olympic Games in our archive, which we will also link in the description below. Now our guest for today's episode is Dr Judith Swadling, retired senior curator at the British Museum. Judith, we were very grateful for her time and she is here to give you a taster of the ancient Olympics and their distant origins. Judith, it is a pleasure. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much. It's good to be here.

Quite timely. We're talking all about the Olympic Games, the Olympic Games 2024 in France. They are underway. But it's also fascinating to think that more than 2,000 years ago in ancient Greece, a massive games event known as the Olympic Games, back then it was the biggest sporting event of its day too. years ago in ancient Greece, a massive games event known as the Olympic Games. Back then, it was the biggest sporting event of its day too. Indeed, yes. I mean, the Olympic Games, according to tradition, were set up in 776 BC. So 2,800 years ago, phenomenal history, really. What types of sources do we have to learn more about the ancient Greek or the original Olympics? Well, finding out about the ancient Olympic Games is very much like all archaeological projects. You've got to piece together many different parts of the puzzle and all differing

types of parts as well. It was actually an Englishman, Richard Chandler, who discovered the site in 1766. He was on a mission on behalf of the Society of Dilettanti, and he used some of the old guides, the ancient guides to Olympia, and was able to find it with the help of those and with that of the locals. But it was by no means an easy site to find, because between the 4th century AD and the Middle Ages there was flooding and earthquakes on the site so that the whole of it was completely covered to an average of about four metres of silt. But the ancient site of Olympia where the

Olympic Games originally took place, that site was lost for hundreds of years. It was indeed yes because after the Olympic Games finished in the fourth century AD and pagan cults were banned there wouldn't have been nearly as many people going to Olympia and with those natural phenomena that happened the earthquakes and the floods it would have been very difficult to access anyway. So yes, it was forgotten for all of that time. So the site was discovered, rediscovered a few hundred years ago, and I'm guessing that archaeology from the site of Olympia where the ancient Olympics took place. Judith, is this a key source of information for learning more about the ancient Olympics? It's absolutely vital for what we know about the Olympics and about the

site, which was actually the oldest sanctuary of Zeus. Teams of archaeologists, German and French, began excavations during the 19th century, but it wasn't really until 1936 that the German Archaeological Institute began a systematic excavation of the site, and they've continued together with the Greek Archaeological Service, to investigate it to this day. Do we also have a variety of ancient literature that talks about the ancient Olympics too, alongside the archaeology? There are lots of references to Olympia and the Games, of course,

but the most useful source is Pausanias, who was a Greek author and travel writer, really, who wrote up his visits to Greece. And he gives a very detailed account of Olympia. And it's that that we rely on to name the buildings that have been discovered. And he tells us about what went on there. He was learning from the local guides and using his own firsthand observations. So it's wonderful that we have his information. You've already mentioned that the whole setting for the ancient Olympics, clue is in the name, was ancient Olympia. And it was this important religious sanctuary to Zeus, chief of the gods. But can you also explain to us quickly, Judith, where exactly was Olympia? Because part of the story I find absolutely fascinating is the whole setting of Olympia. I mean, this isn't Athens or Corinth.

This feels quite a more difficult place to reach. Yes, it seems out of the way to us today. It's in the northwestern Peloponnese, and it's about nine or ten miles from the coast. And it looks relatively inaccessible. but in those days, the River Alpheus, which flows to the south of the site, was much more navigable, and a lot of people would have arrived at Olympia via boat. But it was such an important site. There was habitation there back to the third millennium BC. It was always sacred, not originally to Zeus. It seems as though there was some sort of fertility cult going on there in honour of the goddess Gaia. And there are little traces of that that survive in the Olympics, like the priestess of Demeter having a

seat on an altar at the side of the stadium, so she got a first-hand view of events. The fact that unmarried women were allowed to watch the games for a certain period of their history anyway, but not married women. The goddess Hera was worshipped at Olympia. Hers is actually the first temple that was built on the site before that of Zeus. So his wife, queen of the gods, and Demeter, goddess of the harvest, and I believe there might even be a temple to Hestia, the very mysterious goddess Hestia, isn't there mentioned in the literature, but not that they've uncovered any evidence for it. Well, yes. Hestia was the goddess of the home and the hearth. And it was at Olympia that there was

a sacred flame which was kept burning on the altar of Hestia. And that has somehow been translated into the Olympic flame, which is now brought to every Olympic Games, as we know, the great ceremony of the torch relay. And it seems that with the Olympic Games, like many ancient Greek city-states, that when going to the tricky topic of the origins of the Olympics, there's a mythological version and then more the archaeological version. I mean, first of all, do we know much? I mean, what's the mythological story or stories for the emergence of the ancient Greek Olympic Games? Well, as often with events that's happened in Greek history,

there are a number of different versions. The most popular account now, I think, is that Heracles originated the games. The story was that he had to complete 12 labours, and this was because he'd committed various crimes in the past. Like many Greek heroes, he wasn't so scrupulous, and he asked the oracle what he could do to atone for these crimes. And she told him that he should go to his cousin Eurystheus, who lived in Mycenae, and serve him and do whatever Eurystheus asked him to. So that was the origin of the labours that he had to carry out. He was rather resentful of having to go and serve this cousin of his whom he thought was

rather inferior. But anyway, he was set the labours and he carried them out all sorts of swashbuckling tasks like killing the Nemean lion and killing a huge wild boar. And one of those labours was the cleansing of the cattle stables of King Algiers. Fortunately, Heracles had an ally on his side, who was the goddess Athena, and she ingeniously showed him where he could breach the banks of the river Alpheus so that it would flow in and cleanse the stables and the land. So that's what he did. It worked, and that last labour was done. So to celebrate the completion of all his labours he established the Olympic Games and the first race that he set about organising was the running race and this was done at the

foot of the hill of Kronos. The hill of Kronos in antiquity towered above the site of Olympia to the north. It was named after the father of Zeus and although the surrounding area was quite flat, the hill of Kronos would have been a landmark in the local area so that was what would have attracted people there the first time and that was perhaps how it began to be a sacred area. But anyway, Heracles needed a stadium for the running race to happen. It was very basic to begin with. He scratched the start and finish lines in the sand with a twig or a branch. And that's where we get our saying, starting from scratch. And the distance between them was the distance that he was said to be able to run in one breath, which was 192 metres. So I understand this is possible. I don't advise anybody who's not a professional

athlete to try it, but apparently it can be done in something like 40 seconds. So that was how it all began. It is interesting how it's almost as if that neighbouring town, we always say Olympia, but Elis is also very important in the story of the ancient Olympics. They've kind of put their own myth into the fabled labours of Heracles and then to kind of have the link of this most famous hero of them all to the creation of the greatest sporting event of them all. It feels quite fitting that one of the key mythological origin stories of the Olympic Games centres on that well-known hero, strong, muscly sportsman of Heracles. Yes, the Aurelians were very canny people,

and they controlled the Games for almost all of their history. At one time, they sent to the the oracle in egypt to ask how they could improve the organization of the games and they were told that the one thing they had to do was to make sure that the judging was neutral previously the judges had been able to do things like entering their own chariots in the chariot races one or two of them won yeah slightly biased there yeah yeah ancient cheating i think obviously olympia was not only a sporting center it was also the great cult center of zeus it was the oldest and most important sanctuary of zeus and it was there that everybody came and i tend to liken it to a mix between saint Peter's in Rome and the Hollywood Bowl, or you could say Westminster Abbey and Wembley Stadium. But in addition to that, it was also a vast art gallery because you had so many thousands of statues there.

So Olympia had also begun a kind of museum because wealthy donors would set up monuments there themselves. You had statues not only of athletes but also statesmen, heroes, mythological characters and gods, which was one of the seven wonders of the world. They had parades around the sanctuary where ambassadors would display their gold and silver finery and there was a great pageant. And we think of that opening ceremony in Paris with the parade of boats along the Seine. The Olympians, as far as we know, didn't use the River Alpheus for that, but they certainly had pageants around the sanctuary. And it was all very grand, magnificent spectacle. Does that give a hint that archaeology is revealing more about the actual origins of the Olympic Games?

Or are there other myths associated with the origins? Is there more to the story of the whole origin story of the Olympic Games? There was at least one other myth that dealt with the origins of the Olympics. And that also relates to local happenings. Another king, this time King Enimaeus, wanted to marry off his daughter. At least he pretended that he wanted to marry off his daughter. What he actually did was to organise chariot races and any suitors who wanted to take him up on this challenge to win his daughter, had to outrun him in a chariot race and he had some of the best horses that were around, so this was very difficult to do. He let

the suitor, together with his daughter Hippodamere, set off in the first chariot and then he would follow and if he caught up with that chariot, he was allowed to spear the suitor. So this he did, he caught up with the chariots, the score was 12-0 in the end, he killed off 12 suitors, when a young hero called Pelops arrived from the east, and he was one of the cunning heroes, who decided that the best way to win this competition would be to bribe Myrtilus, who was Enamouse's charioteer. And he promised Myrtilus a knight with his bride to be Hippodomaia in return. So Myrtilus was secretly in love with Hippodomaia, so he accepted.

And they set off. What Myrtilus had done, according to Pellops Wittage, was to replace the bronze axle pins in Inimersus' chariot with wax ones. So, of course, with the friction, they would very quickly melt and the chariot would crash. This is what happened. Everything went according to plan. The chariot crashed, but this time Inimersus, not the suitors. So Pelops won his bride. But he was one of those heroes who didn't stick to his word. He didn't let Myrtilus have his night with Hippodamus. Instead, he threw him over a local

cliff. So we have this tradition of not quite so virtuous heroes, but they made good stories. I believe it's also shown on the Temple of Zeus, one of those great pedamons. I mean, good stories. I believe it's also shown on the Temple of Zeus, one of those great pedamons. I mean, it's interesting that at least one version of that myth involves cheating at the Olympic Games. You know, he cheated in the chariot race to win that race. I know if he'd lost, he'd have lost his life, as you mentioned. So, I mean, there's quite a good motivation there. But still, nonetheless, it's interesting that that founding myth involves cheating when cheating becomes such a big thing that they try to stop in the ancient olympic games it is now the earliest known olympics from the 8th century bc only included the sprint so do we know much about the evolution of the olympic games its rise but

also how more events are added to the Games as time passes. We know the basics about this first contest and that we know the name of the victor in that first running race. He was Karoibos and he's named as a cook, which is interesting. And then another victor was a goat herd. We also have a cow herd. So it just shows that obviously these athletes at that stage were not professionals they were just people living locally and that is probably one of the real reasons why the olympics began in the first place because there's this link with the fertility cult and most people around there would have been involved in agriculture of some

kind they would be very busy throughout the year. But then when you get to August, September, and the Olympic Games were always held at the second or third full moon after the summer solstice. So that's again, going back to the days of goddess worship. But it would only be at that time of the year, although the hottest time of the year, not the best for sport, that they would have time to take off from their work and indulge in leisure and enjoy sport. And the Greeks were always fanatical about sport. I think you have to bear that in mind. That's a fascinating fact. This is a great pub quiz fact to say to your friends down the pub. The first known victor, the earliest winner

of the Olympic Games, wasn't a professional athlete. The first winner was a cook. Oh, Judith, that is a fascinating fact. I'm glad you like that. Yes, it's unfortunate we don't have a full list of the Olympic victors. I mean, some of the names were preserved in the writings of a physician to one of the Macedonian kings. Some others were preserved by chance on the back of another document. but that's all that we have, apart from chance references and other literature, and knowing the names of various athletes from statue bases and so on. and what other events are added to the original ancient greek olympic games judith we have various different types of running race there was also a race in armor which was added

quite late oh yes is that in bronze hoplite armour? Do we know much about the armour that they're racing in? Yes, it seems that they didn't wear the full kit, but they certainly wore the helmet and carried the shield. Sweaty stuff. Yes, but they didn't wear greaves and normally not the breastplate and so on. But carrying the shield was quite something because it would be a metre across, quite heavy to carry. But that was quite a sort of humorous event, you would think, really. Because what we haven't mentioned so far is the fact that the stadium was actually straight. The track in the stadium was actually straight. Ah, OK.

So there's no circular stadiums at all in antiquity. The races were always run just in the one line and at the far end would be a turning post. We're not sure whether it was always the case that there was just one turning post or whether each athlete might have had their own but that would be the point that would be most difficult because if everybody's got to get around the turning post they're all going to crowd together. At either end of the track, there was a sill, and the starting sill was almost the width of the stadium. And where we see them painted on vases, they actually look more like swimmers about to jump into the pool, because they stand sort of crouched, knees bent, leaning forward, arms straight out, hands in front of them.

crouched, knees bent, leaning forward, arms straight out, hands in front of them. And when the starting signal went, which would actually be a trumpet sound or somebody shouting at apite, which meant go, so they would shoot off and head down the track, round the turning post, if it was a double length and back again. There were no photo finishes or anything like that because they didn't have the means of doing that. It's interesting, isn't it, with the origins of the Olympics. It sounds like it's quite intertwined with that Greek ethos of warfare and fighting for your city-state. The combat events were some of those most popular ones that everybody flocked to see. They were pretty brutal, really.

The boxing was held at midday, so you've got the sun beating down, very hot, quite difficult to see if you had the sun in your eyes. There were no bouts, it was just one continuous round, one continuous contest. So in the beginning, they didn't wear gloves. They really adopted gloves because of the damage that was done to the hands and the fists. But as soon as you start wearing gloves, of course, you can inflict more damage to your opponent. Almost all the blows were to the head. So in boxing, it's the first submission or knockout that establishes you as the winner. So it's really dangerous.

And some boxers apparently went home unrecognisable. Quite a deadly. It's interesting that Apollo was the god of boxing. Very good looking god. Apollo was the god of boxing? Yes. I want to talk a bit more about that other function of the Olympic Games and the early Olympic Games

because it seems with its earlier history, because it's created in this sacred sanctuary to Zeus and has this divine religious element behind it, is this right at the centre of the ancient Olympic Games, Judith, that it's not just this sporting event? Religion plays a big part in the ancient Greek Olympic Games right from its beginnings. Olympic Games right from its beginnings? Of course, indeed, its use was the crucial figure in the Olympic Games. But having said that, it's interesting that although when athletes first begin to compete, if they win the Olympics, they're allowed to set up a statue of themselves. If they won once, they could set up an idealised statue. If they won three times, they could set up a portrait statue. And on the basis of those statues, we find details.

And initially, the athletes are thanking Zeus for the skill and the strength that he had given them to compete and to win. But already by the fourth century BC, when professionalism is becoming more and more dominant, you find that athletes are actually boasting of their own skills in winning, not those of the god. But nonetheless, Zeus remains the figurehead of the games, as it were, and athletes would sacrifice to him before the games, asking for a win. Animal sacrifices? Well, their own sacrifices would be just small barley cakes

or wheat cakes or pouring wine by the altar for Zeus. But the central event of the Olympic Games on the middle day of the festival was the great sacrifice of 100 oxen to Zeus. These oxen were paraded around in one of the pageants before the event and then they were sacrificed at the great altar of zeus it was only the the actual thighs of the oxen which were burnt for the god and he was believed to be able to to savor the the scent of roasted meat from yes

smells yeah goes up high, smells it, thinks it's a barbecue going on, comes down, has a look. Yeah, that's right. But the rest were saved for the athletes and everybody else who was attending the Games. There was a grand banquet that night. One rather strange fact is that

the parts that were sacrificed as use, the ashes were then mixed with water from the river Alpheus and they were pasted on to the top of the conical mound which stood on top of this great altar of Zeus, which was about seven metres high. And of course it got higher with each Olympiad. But anyway, yes, they had a great party in the evening. There was quite a bit of partying at the Olympics, I have to say.

They really enjoyed it. But this was a big event. It seemed odd to us that it would be in the middle of a sporting festival and there were athletes taking part who had to compete the next day. Maybe one of the factors why the few records that we do have are nowhere near those of today, the fact that athletes are perhaps not always in tip-top condition when they perform the contest no and you worry about the judges as well if they've had a bit too much to drink the night before and then they've got to try and judge who comes first to enter the ancient olympic games i mean later on i know there's a big thing that you have to be greek and then obviously nero and the romans do come along and change that but was that right from

the beginning? Was it the fact that to take part in these games that you had to be ethnically Greek or what they would see as a civilised person? The games were only open to Greeks. They were pan-Hellenic festivals. So as well as the Olympics, we had three other major festivals. As I said, the Greeks were mad about sports. So it was arranged so that there were games every year. The other games were those in honour of Zeus, also in honour of Zeus at Nemea, in honour of Apollo at Delphi, and in honour of Poseidon at the Isthmus of Corinth. And in

addition to that, you have the Panathenaic Games, which were only open to the Athenians. But just as nowadays, we have world championships and athletics, European championships, Commonwealth championships. Do we also know whether in the earlier centuries of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, was there ever a time when women could compete, or were the competitors always just men? women could compete, or were the competitors always just men? There was only one way that women could compete at the Olympics, and the instances of that are pretty rare, in that we only had the names of one Spartan princess whose name was Kyniska. And she was able to compete as an owner of chariots. She entered the chariot race twice and won, and she set up two bronze monuments of chariots to do that. And she boasts that she had achieved

these two wins. And it was said that she really did it because she was challenged to prove that a woman could actually win at the Olympic Games somehow. So this is what she did. But for everything else, no, women couldn't enter. They were allowed their own games at Olympia. Those were the games of Hera, but they were held in a different year from the Olympics. And there was only one race, which was the running race for girls of different ages. And Pausanias had described how they ran. They ran with their hair hanging down, wearing a short tunic, one breast bare. So we have his description of that. But that was the only contest in which women could compete at Olympia, not part of the Olympics. We've dabbled on the topic of cheating

and Pilops and the myth of that. And do we have any very, very early cases of cheating in the ancient Olympic Games, or do those cases more come later? There were instances of cheating, and the punishment was quite severe. You could be publicly whipped. So if you made a false start at the Games, that could happen. Just for a false start? made a full start at the games that could happen. Just for a full start?

Yes, for more serious offences. You had to provide money for a bronze statue, which used to be set up, which was no mean feat, because a statue could cost as much as 10 years' wages. And these statues, which had been funded by aggressors, I think there were 13, 14 of them stood on the way into the stadium. So to get to the stadium, you had to pass these statues, which would be a reminder, obviously,

not to break the rules. And then you went through the tunnel on which the spectators stood, all 40,000 spectators. And then you began the events. But it's interesting that you had this last-minute reminder of what you mustn't do. And actually, before the Games, the athletes and their trainers

and their fathers, if they were with them, had to swear an oath at the altar of Zeus Horkios, Zeus of the Odes, that they wouldn't break the rules. But nonetheless, it did happen. And of course, the worst rule-breaker of all was Nero, who entered the chariot race. He even had the Gomes postponed from AD 65 to AD 67 so that he could take part on a visit to Greece.

He entered with a 10-horse chariot, which was... Forbidden, yeah. Just outrageous, really. Everybody else had four-horse chariot, which was... Forbidden, yeah. Just outrageous, really. Everybody else had four-horse chariots. He fell out of the chariot at least once. He didn't finish, but he was still proclaimed victor because they said he would have won had he been able to finish. But he died the next year, and his successor, Galba,

ordered that the bribe the judges, which had evidently been paid back and that was 250,000 drachmas a very expensive victory. Roe B make sure that you don't cheat or you get a 10 year wage is fine which feels definitely a good motivation not to cheat. Judith this has been great and it just goes for me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today thanks a lot well there you go there was dr judith swaddling giving you a taster an introduction to the origins of the ancient olympics a story that goes almost 3 000 years back in history to the early first millennium bc and that first olymp where the winner, the first ever winner, was a local cook. I absolutely love that fact. If this interview has piqued your interest in the story of the ancient Olympic Games, then I have more good news for you because we have

a series of episodes in our ancients archive. We have one on the Olympic Games, a whole overview with Dr. Robin Waterfield, but we also have a special two-parter on the art and architecture of the sacred sanctuary of Olympia, including an in-depth exploration of the statue of Zeus in the Temple of Zeus, one of the seven wonders of the world, with one of my old professors, Dr. Judith Barringer from the University of Edinburgh. So definitely go and check those out too. We'll put links to them in the description. So once again, thank you for listening to this episode of The Ancients.

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