You're Dead to Me - The Ancient Olympics (Radio Edit)

Episode Date: October 14, 2022

Greg Jenner and his guests Prof Michael Scott and comedian Shaparak Khorsandi limber up for a trip to the ancient Olympics. Discover the drastic measures taken to prevent women watching the action. Hear how the gruelling challenges brought a whole new meaning to the term "leaving it all on the field" and how even death couldn’t stop you winning.For the full-length verion of this episode, please look further back in the feed.

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. Hello, Greg here. Just popping in to say that this is a radio edit of the episode, which means it's a bit shorter and some of the naughty stuff has been removed, so it's a bit more appropriate for family listening. If you want to hear the full-length versions, scroll down to the original episode further back in our feed. Thanks very much. Enjoy the show.

Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the history podcast for everyone. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and I'm the chief nerd on the BBC comedy show Horrible Histories. If you haven't listened before, this podcast is all about mashing together first-class history and comedy gold for a winning combination of learning and lols. And as it's an Olympic year, today we are donning our lycra, wrapping ourselves in the flag and lighting our fancy torches as we get to grips with the history of the Olympics. But none of your Johnny-come-lately modern stuff. Oh no, we are journeying all the way back to ancient Greece to cheer on our favourite local legends at the original Olympic Games.

That's right, we're chatting OG OGs. And to help me do that, I'm joined by two champions of your dead-to-me. In History Corner, he's a classicist from the University of Warwick, an author and a BBC broadcaster. You may know him from his amazing documentary series Invisible Cities, in which he pointed lasers at old things. It's the wonderful Professor Michael Scott. Hi, Michael. How are you? I'm well, thanks. It's great to be back talking about naked ancient Greeks again.

Have you been limbering up? Have you been feeling sporty? Absolutely. I was last seen running naked down the mall earlier this morning in preparation for John Brand for you in Ternus. And in Comedy Corner, she's a stand-up, a novelist, a cultural icon. You'll have seen her on Live at the Apollo, 8 out of 10 cats have the news for you. And of course, I'm a celebrity. Get me out of here. It's the wonderful Shappi Korsandi. Hi, Shappi. Hello, how are you? I'm all right. Are you feeling sporty?

Well, I've started to run with my dog and that's embarrassing because I run like full pelt. You go for it. And the dog just trots next to me. So my self-esteem is low, but my thighs are toned. I think that's the best answer. It's so not. It's suddenly very hot in here. Not sure how to respond to that.

You know, when I said thighs, I meant calves. All right. Well, we're already off to quite a weird start. So what do you know? So quite a weird start. So what do you know? So let's begin with the so what do you know, where I try and summarise what I think you at home might know about today's subject.

Well, the Olympics are, of course, famous. We all love the Olympics. And chances are you've run for a bus while humming the theme tune to Chariots of Fire. I certainly do. You're probably thinking Olympics, huge stadiums, medal ceremonies, amazing opening ceremonies, iconic victories for Mo Farah, Usain Bolt, Jess Ennis. You're thinking maybe the five interlocked rings, a torch parade, water wall coverage on the telly and Emily Sandé banging out a tune. But you're probably not thinking ancient Greeks. So I think we should start with the basics, really. Michael, can we talk about the Olympic rings very, very quickly?

Are they ancient Greek? No. Right. The torch parade? No. Fine. All right. Invented by Hitler for the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the torch relay.

And the rings were around from the beginning of the 20th century. But that's all part of the modern Olympics, as indeed is the marathon race. Named after a Greek battle. Named after a Greek battle, but was never part of the ancient Olympics. What do we know then about the very origins of the Olympics? I mean, can you tell us where is Olympia? So Olympia is a place that you can visit today and it's in the Peloponnese, which is the lower part of Greece. Olympia is kind of very much landlocked. It's big, open, flat land, two big rivers kind of coincide, the Alpheus and the Clodeus, and that's where the Olympic Games were held. Supposedly, the first Olympics was in 776 BC. And that's a famous date

because actually for a long, long time, scholars thought that history began when the Olympics began. And everything that happened before 776 was not history. It was called prehistory, whatever that is. But then after the Olympics began, you could have history. And what else is there in Olympia? Well, there was one of the seven ones of the world. Shappi, do you want to guess what it was? One of the seven, oh gosh, now let me go through my mind and remember my Asterix books, the Asterix and the Olympic Games.

Oh, is it the javelin? That's a, no, is it a mountain? Is it to do with a mountain it's not a mountain it's a giant gold and ivory statue of tom daly sorry zeus i get confused it's the abs uh zeus 30 meters high massive whacking great statue there is a really famous hill though shabby was actually right there is a famous hill there is the hill of chronos the hill of chronos that was the one still there today and it sits right behind where they do the modern ceremony every time there's an Olympics, when they now light the Olympic torch.

They light it at Olympia using parabolic mirrors, so it's a flame created from the gods. There's also an origin story. Have you ever heard of Oedemaeus and Pelops, Chappie? Oedemaeus and Pelops? Yeah. Unless they live down my street, no. That's a very middle-class name, isn't it?

There is a couple at the bottom that no one really talks to. It might be them. Okay, I don't think it's them, Michael. So you have Oinomars, who was a king. He got told a prophecy that he was going to be killed by his son-in-law. So obviously he had a daughter. He wasn't very keen for that daughter to marry anyone because he might get killed as a result.

So he came up with a brilliant ruse. Any possible suitor for his daughter, he challenged them to a chariot race. If they won, he could marry the daughter. If they lost, the dad killed them, basically. High stakes. And he had the best and fastest chariot around, so he thought he was kind of quids in. Pellops turns up with a cunning plan

in which he bribes the chariot driver of Oynermals to replace the axle pins of this chap's chariot with wax. At the same time, Pelops goes to his former lover, the god Poseidon, as you do, to get a really fast pair of horses. So he's got an equally good chariot. The chariot race starts. The axles spin round.

The wax warms up. Chariot wheels come off. Oinomaus, the dad, falls to his death, gets trampled under the horses. Pelops walks off with the girl. But what did he promise the chariot wheels come off oinomauus the dad falls to his death gets trampled under the horses pellops walks off with the girl but what did he promise the chariot driver first night with the bride whoa went back on that chucked the guy off a cliff instead as the guy fell off a cliff to his death he turned and cursed pellops and all his descendants forever for his actions. As a result of all that, they set up the Olympic Games in honour of Pelops. Hang on, that bit comes in very, that's a real like tacked on,

and then I guess some Olympics? It's utterly bonkers. So the Olympic Games are supposed to be either funeral games in honour of the death of Pelops, or perhaps celebration games in honour of his victory. But he had a little enclosure in the Sanctuary at Olympia dedicated just to him. So at the heart of the Olympics is a story of a guy who cheats his way to victory and commits a few murders. So, I mean, are the Olympic Games a religious festival? Are they a political thing? What's the purpose of them?

The other massive difference in the Olympics today is that they were in a religious event. They take place in a religious sanctuary sacred to Zeus, king of the gods, and also with a bit of Pelops worship going on. In fact, there were 70 different religious altars across the sanctuary and games places at Olympia. Even worse than that, the Olympics took place over five days in antiquity. Pretty much the first two and a half days were entirely religious sacrifices, religious prayers, processions in honour of the gods. Nothing that took place at Olympia was not completely part of a religious process.

So there was a sort of opening ceremony, but it was a religious one. Absolutely. And it took two days. It took two days. And it culminated in the sacrifice of a hundred oxen to Zeus. So Coldplay couldn't follow that, could they?

Shappi, the Olympic Games isn't technically speaking the straight translation. It's Olympia koi agnos. Do you want to guess what agnos might mean in Greek? Competition. Nearly. Tournament. It's sort of agonies, isn't it? Agonies.

It's really intense struggles so they expect they expected death at these events I mean it's full on it's the agon it's the contest it's the competition

it's the struggle so if we had the Olympic agonies now I mean what events would we have I mean shin kicking but they do those Chinese burns my mate went on a hen day they said it was like

going to be an obstacle course but she didn't express how intense it was going to be. Like it was a proper scale this wall, wade through this mud. And half the women came in high heels, which is another reason I don't go to hen nights. I mean, one of the things that the Olympics would have solved that problem because it didn't allow any women to compete. I want to ask you, every four years we have the Olympics,

has it always been like that or was it an annual event before? No, it was every four years. Do you want to guess what the first ever event was? Because to begin with, there was only one event at the Olympics. I reckon it must have been running. It was running. It was 200 metres. It was called a stadion, which is where we get the word stadium from. Stadium, there we go. So 200 metres naked. And that's the first event. And then they start to sort of phase in other events. Some of them we recognize today, right?

So there's lots of different lengths of running races up to about four and a half K, something like that. But then they had a really weird running race that was called the Hoplito Dromoy race. Yeah. Where they run dressed in full armor of a soldier. Which, I mean, kind of makes sense because every citizen in the ancient greek world was also a soldier there wasn't any kind of professional army being ready to fight was sort of a natural and normal part of what you're supposed to be able to do so to have a competition to run around in all of that stuff i get i guess kind of makes so they're wearing the shin pack the greaves which is the sort of the metal shin pads wearing helmet and they're carrying the shield the hoplod then you had some wrestling pancration ah the pancration so it translates

issues pan all kratos power the all power event it's the ultimate fighting ultimate so it's wwf like kind of in which there were only two rules you couldn't bite anyone okay and you weren't supposed to gorge their eyes out well that's a silly rule bar that straight for the eyes shafiq or sandy Sandy. I'm not fighting her in the way that I'm doing. You've never seen a woman with shorter nails. And then things like discus throwing that we'd recognise. I was always a discus thrower at school. Yes, the kids that were chubby were always the discus.

And the kids who were tall, like my best friend, were the high jumpers. And I remember my best friend ran up and she went under the high jump and my discus just always fell to my ankle. So whenever I hear discus, I just am transported back to 1984. And it turns out I was really good at running. I came first in running. I'm a very good sprinter. I'd like that to be made public.

Thank you. I think the one that we'd find the most difficulty looking at today, though, is that they had the long jump. I did that too and I enjoyed that. But the long jump, the way they did it in ancient Greece was you had these weights that you held in each hand that you sort of threw forward to help you go forward. And you did it as three standing jumps, each accompanied to the music of the flute. Oh, come on, we should bring that back. You had to sort of have the elegance of a dancer the strength of an athlete

and the willingness of a belly flopper i mean brilliant to see you know i've put it better myself greg rutherford doing a triple jump while someone's just sort of playing a bit of foray in the corner but the one if you were a lazy man the event you went for was the chariot race okay because you were said to be the competitor because you owned the horses. This is the only way a woman could win an event, isn't it? The guy who was actually driving the chariot around the course and won the race. No recognition whatsoever.

Don't even know their name. Who cares? It's about the person who owned the horses. So is it Kinista who was the queen? Kyniska. Kyniska. Kyniska, who was the queen who won the Olympic Games. The first and only woman to win an Olympic event, perhaps? Yeah, she sort of snuck in. who was the queen who won the Olympic Games.

The first and only woman to win an Olympic event, perhaps? Yeah, she sort of snuck in. She was the sister of the King of Sparta. That was only because she owned the horses. Yeah, and it wasn't really allowed even then. She wasn't supposed to be doing it. But basically, it was the way she and the King of Sparta could put two fingers up to the rest of the Greek world at the time and go, look, you Greek men who think you're all so hard winning

all these olympic events my sis can win an olympic event it ain't that big a deal there's a statue with an inscription saying spartas kings were fathers and brothers of mine but since with my chariot and storming horses i kineska have won the prize and proudly proclaim that of all grecian women i first wore the crown it's quite a good inscription the whole sanctuary was littered with these statues and inscriptions from victors of different races and different areas and they were all doing yarshuk's boo i'm better than you to everyone else like kind of around them so it was a continual kind of monument wars going on there was nothing subtle about the ancient Olympics. No, so was this like

made popular when people didn't have a war to fight? Because it's all very raw and I don't know what we did before. That's a really good question because there is the sort of Olympic truce, isn't there? There was a truce, but it wasn't the kind of truce that we make it out to be today. That everyone

kind of stops warring with one another and just loves and hugs one another and goes to the Olympic Gamesic games so it wasn't that no one went to war with one another it was that if you were traveling to olympia for the olympic games people were supposed to let you get there without sort of killing you on the spot because you happen to come from a neighboring town they didn't like so the olympics were for men yeah women aren't allowed to enter were they allowed to be spectators no No. So who are the spectators? Are it just other men? It's just other men.

Just men fighting men in front of men, men, men, men, men, men, men. So married women were definitely not allowed. But on occasion, unmarried women, young women were allowed. You also, the other thing which is really different from today, is you had to be Greek. This was not an event in which lots of different nations came together. This was Greeks coming together to be Greek. This was not an event in which lots of different nations came together. This was Greeks coming together to be Greek. And you had to prove that you were Greek enough

to compete in the Olympic Games. And even some really famous people that we obviously consider Greeks, like Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, had quite a lot of trouble proving that he was Greek enough. Make some dolmas now. So the way to do it in those days was you could do it via your cooking or you could check out my heritage, check out my ancestry. And they claim an ancestry back to some really famous Greek hero. So Hercules was a great one.

So Philip kind of rocked up and went, look, I can prove I'm descended from Hercules. How did he do that then? One of those online DNA tests. Kind of sent it off in the post, waited a couple of days, like came back for it. I prefer the cooking idea.

I think there should be a sort of a bake-off element to it. Yeah. Shappi, what do you think the winner would get in an Olympic event? Oh, it must be gold of some sort, a metal of some sort. I think something shiny.

A live chicken. That's not gold. I like the live chicken. I think everyone should be given the live chicken. What did they actually win? It was a crown made of olive wreath. So you weren't winning gold or silver. What you were winning was immortal glory.

Klaos. Klaos, there we go. Like kind of for having won at the Olympics. And there was no second or third prize. I mean, that's the other really important thing. It was winner takes all. And the stakes were high, right? The description of what losers were treated like when they went back home.

There's a great phrase by an ancient writer called Pindar who talks about the fact that even their mothers wouldn't look at them. And you're like, ouch. So going back to the idea of it being an agon, of a contest, of a struggle, it was winner is everything. Do you know what? I used to live on this estate and on my estate was a rowing champion and my son was only about three at the time.

So we went to this person's house on our estate because he was very nice and he let the kids on the estate come to look at his medal. And I took my boy and I said, said look we're meeting a real Olympic champion and he got it his medal and he opened it and my boy went oh only bronze I was not welcome at that house anymore I actually moved from the area it was the most mortifying moment would have been a lot simpler if there were only gold medals given out. Exactly. Only bronze. But this was the Bronze Age, so surely all

bronze medals were gold medals and vice versa. Shappi, what do you think happened to a woman who might have snuck in to watch the Olympic Games? Oh, gosh. I tell you what, I'm thinking of Iran. It's only recently they've allocated certain seats to women in football stadiums.

I don't know what they did. What were they into? Something horrible. Shave their heads. Worse than that, I'm afraid. Chucked them off a mountain. No. But then there was another woman who got away with it.

Yes. Because she managed to sort of basically go, look, I'm related to this winner. You're supporting that winner. I had such a good lineage that basically they couldn't bring themselves to chuck that person off the mountain. What a gamble to take, though. You know, I've sort of lied to get into clubs before, you know, but to know that they're just going to grab you and throw you off a cliff.

Did these people just really very strongly believe in an afterlife? There was definitely an afterlife, but the rules are the rules about the Olympic Games. And don't forget, this is all happening as a religious ceremony to the gods. So the big worry is that if they break the rule, they'll offend the gods. They're offending the gods. And if there's anyone you don't want to offend,

it's the gods and the king of the gods, Zeus. Do you know, I get it now. If I was there i i'd just throw myself off the cliff straight off yes just oh the olympics are on let's go girls just felma and louise it off a cliff to to appease zeus uh the name of that lady was uh calipatera i think and and yeah she got away with it because apparently she was related to an olympic boxer but the whole story around it is that she she'd done brilliantly she she dressed up in disguise as a man no one could recognize her and then she got a bit excited at the match and jumped over the barrier and as a result tripped over and exposed herself like

kind of you know so you were one of the one of these things like it was so good you were doing so well like then you pouted in a selfie yeah So how do you think they got around the problem of women disguising themselves as trainers? Because, you know, trainers were allowed to be in the kind of, not shoes. You know I was thinking of shoes. I guess trainers wouldn't necessarily be really butch, would they? They'd just be knowledgeable.

Did they ask them questions regarding their... They basically made everyone naked. So trainers, naked. So trainers, naked. People competing, naked. Everyone naked. Basically, they wanted to see the D in your ID, essentially. Okay, so we've talked about the ancient Greek Olympics. Can we fast forward a little bit to the ancient Roman Greek Olympics?

Because you've heard of Emperor Nero. He really wanted to compete in the Olympics. Now, Shappi, do you want to have a little guess of what he did to make sure that he could compete in the specific year he wanted to compete? He made up a rule that certain games you could only take part in if you were an emperor. That's really good. Yeah, it's not far off. I think that's genius. The first thing he did is he moved the games from the four-year calendar. He just moved it two years.

Okay. He went, I'm coming this year, so hold it then. And then he just made all the events things that he was good at. Like the emperors, javelin, the emperors, discus, the emperors. Poetry. Poetry. Music. Really?

Yeah. And then he competed in the chariot race. And what happened, Michael? When you're saying he was competing in the chariot race, he didn't win because he sort of fell off. But he was declared the winner because as we all know, if he hadn't fallen off, he would have won.

Yes. In fact, miraculously, he won every single event he entered. He did his sort of tour of Ancient Greece that summer and crowns all over him. It's something like 600 prizes or something stupid, isn't it? It's like he competed in all the games and just won every event in every game.

And apparently people were paid to cheer for him or they were sort of forced. They were locked into the stadium. They couldn't leave. That's great. It sounds like one of my birthday parties. We had a friend. She had a parlor game.

She'd always come to parties and insist we played this game and it was always a quiz based on her life. So she would ask people questions and the answer was always something in her life. So see if you knew her well enough to win the quiz and she always won the quiz herself. Genius, isn't it? I guess for Nero, it got to come home with all the medals,

claiming to be the greatest Olympian of all time. Shappie, there was a very famous chap called Arrachion, I believe. Have I spelled that correctly? Just about. Just about. That's no. Arrachion, come on, give him the right one. That will do.

Arrachion. Okay. Arrachion was a very famous champion, but his victory in the wrestling was somewhat unusual. Do you want to guess why? He tickled them. Oh, I love it. He bit them? He did not bite them.

Basically, he was dead. He was winning the fight, but he was strangled. Oh, gosh. So it was one of those things where it was all about not giving in. So Arakan was being strangled by his opponent, but he, instead of trying to get the guy off his throat,

went to break his toe and his foot. And so the other guy, just as Arakhan dies of asphyxiation, goes, I can't take the pain in my foot anymore, and kind of gives up. The dead guy was the one who hadn't given up. Oh, I see. So he was the winner. Yeah.

So they crowned the dead guy and sort of parade him as the victor around. I mean, that's a fantastic ceremony isn't it I mean that's the podium you want to see holding a chicken corpse holding a chicken with a crown on his head

was the alive guy really annoyed at himself damn it if I could only I've only had lasted just a little longer my mother won't ever look at me ever again

he gets home everyone's like oh there's the loser it's all a bit much, isn't it? It would have been absolutely intense, in-your-face competition. There's another story. The names, I think it's Kroigus and Damoxenos, I think. One of them has grown his fingernails very long

and gouges out the intestines of the other. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's just got to go, come on. They've been, been like punching away each other all day neither would fall over or give in we've got to get this thing to an end somehow so they were each given one move one punch right kind of who could do maximum damage so one of them goes in the face you know with a massive punch other guy sways a little bit but doesn't fall down then the other guy goes in with his hand into the stomach up pulls out all the intestines

but was disqualified because that was more than one move so another dead guy gets crowned the victor i love the idea of var like some sort of video ref kind of guy oh that's actually two moves so you're disqualified and the dead guy wins. The rules matter. How does the Olympics come to an end in both senses? Firstly, is there a closing ceremony? Do they get the Spice Girls on taxis to drive around? So there's sort of final rituals again, because it is a religious ceremony

and that has to be closed off and sorted out and kind of everything. And then everyone dissipates. So nothing like the kind of closing ceremony that we're used to. I suspect most of people would just be like utterly exhausted and fed up and tired everyone dissipate so nothing like the kind of closing ceremony that we're used to okay i suspect most of people would just be like utterly exhausted and fed up and tired i'm pretty full of all that hundred oxen meat and would be lying around dozing in the sunshine with a bit of indigestion the true

spirit of the game typical typical post post glasto kind of feel really hungover full sunburned yeah absolutely having watched a man kill another man. And also, what about the toilets? I mean, how many people are we talking here in this stadium?

So, yeah, no toilets. Those two rivers are for your everything. So they camped out for five days and pooed in the river.

So the Olympic village would have been pretty sorted. How does the actual Olympics as an idea end? Because, you know, it was revived in the

late 19th century by baron de coupator and you know hitler obviously gave it a nasty fascist twist but how does the greek olympics stop being a greek thing and just sort of you know drifts off why well i mean carries on under the romans and the only thing that really kills it off is the conversion of the roman empire to christianity because once you've got the roman empire officially christian from from the end of the fourth century a.d onwards the olympics are a religious ritual to the pagan gods so they can't continue i mean they do a little bit because everyone's like yeah but but we really like the olympic games so maybe we just dial down the pagan bit and we up the games bit.

But they slowly peter out. And then officially all pagan sanctuaries are banned. So this is about 400 CE, AD? Yeah, the Olympics probably actually probably limp on for maybe another century. So essentially the Olympics, the story of the Olympics in the ancient world is 776 BC to about 500 AD, which is what, 1200 years. I mean, that's a really impressive run and then revived later on. So fair play. I think that sort of brings us actually to my favourite part of the show, which is the nuance window. The nuance window!

This is where our expert historian is unleashed. They can geek out for two uninterrupted minutes. Shappi and I go quiet and just bask in the wisdom. Michael, what are you going to talk to us about? Well, I want to take us back to that thing we've been circling around a couple of times, which was what it was really like to be at the ancient Olympics. We have to imagine this was summertime in ancient Greece. 40 degree heat. Probably the biggest conglomeration of Greeks that ever came

together anywhere in the ancient Greek world. So maybe 40, 50,000 people. They're camping out around the sanctuary of Olympia. They're in tents. They've got those two rivers to bathe in, poo in, do everything. They've all probably brought some animals with them that are also pooing that need uh feeding as well and so 40 50 000 people for five six days are camped out in the blazing greek heat without any sanitation and there's going to be tons of food sellers there there's going to be not just the athletes punching each other up and of course those hundred oxen with all their throats slit and blood everywhere and then being cooked on a massive barbecue but there's going to be historians reciting their histories so Herodotus recited his histories from the steps of the

temple of Zeus it's gonna be politicians banging on and trying to prove how amazing they are there was a politician who in 416 BCE decided to pay for everyone's dinner one night for the 40,000 people just to kind of show off his largesse. So this was actually not a very pleasant place to be. There was even an altar dedicated at Olympia to Zeus, Apomuios, which translates as Zeus, the swatter of flies. So you can imagine there must have been a bit of a fly problem there as well. And we have a couple of statements from ancient sources plato rocked up at the olympics couldn't get a tent couldn't find anywhere to stay epictetus the philosopher goes on about oh don't you hate the

din and the heat and everything and it's awful and my favorite of all of them is a guy called alien ancient writer called alien who went you know? If you want to punish a slave, you send him to the Olympic Games. And that is how I'd like you to remember the ancient Olympics. And the women still risk getting thrown off a cliff. I mean, fair play to them. They really, you know, they didn't want to be excluded. Oh, anything for an easy life. I would just sit at home, wait for them to come home and run them a bath.

Is that really Stepford Wife of me? You do what you like. I just want to go back in time and wash everyone. I'm filthy. I can't bear it. Well, I'm afraid that's all we have time for today. All that's left for me to do is to say a Zeus-sized thank you to our lovely guests. In History Corner, Professor Michael Scott from University of

Warwick and in Comedy Corner stand-up legend Shappi Korsandi. And to you, dear listeners, join me next time on You're Dead to Me for another chat about something completely different. But having done all that strenuous exercise, I'm now off to do my warm-down stretches and have a soak in a tub. Until next time bye are you fed up with with the news the top jobs in the new cabinet have all gone to

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