Ancient and Modern Olympic Ideals
Once every couple of years, the world attempts to put aside differences and compete in various sporting events to promote peace, goodwill, and fellowship. To many people, the word we use for the quadrennial display is self-explanatory: Olympic means, well, the Olympic Games. Considering the staggering numbers associated with the Rio Summer Olympic Games – in roughly 17 days, 11,000+ athletes from 206 nations will compete in 306 events in 28 sports witnessed in person by an estimated half a million tourists plus additional locals, not to mention a television/internet viewership in the billions – this singular association is impossible to ignore; however, to really understand the principle, we need to look at the word itself, along at the differences and similarities of the ancient and modern Olympic ideals.
Though the first mention of the word in English occurred in a 1597 translation by Gervase Markham of Madame Geneviève Pétau de Maulette’s work, Deuoreux, where she stated that: “That Prince, thought, was finely shaped, upright, Such as was Marops at the Olympic games,” the initial iteration of the games is ancient. It is from it that the name derives, with Olympic referring to Peloponnesian sanctuary site of Olympia near Elis and Pisa where the games traditionally began in 776 BC. Interestingly though, what we know as tradition is itself shrouded in myth, fable, and legend, with many aspects of the Olympics games also found in Mycenean funeral games, initiation ceremonies, or ceremonies surrounding game hunting, which potentially pushes the Olympics back hundred of years further.
While we may attempt to draw a direct line between the Olympics of Ancient Greece and the modern spectacle, there are some substantial differences and misleading history. One prime example is the games themselves: we have come to view the Olympics as an event every 4 years; however, in ancient Greece, the Olympics were simple the most prominent games of a 4 year cycle, which included the Pythian, Nemean, Isthmian games, meaning games were held every year. The idea of the games being a showcase for international athletes is really a modern ideal, as the ancient games were initially only open to free born men who spoke Greek, making them more Panhellenic than international. Finally, likely contradicting your secondary school history class, the Greeks didn’t initially compete nude (everyone wore a loin cloth for the first half century of competitions), and, though we were told that Roman Emperor Theodosius I banned the games along with other pagan festivities in 394 AD, archaeological evidence shows that some games were still held after the ban.
Still, regardless of the differences and the blending of fact and evidence with myth and tradition, there is something about the thrill of competition, the unity of sport, and the embracing of common ideals that makes it all worthwhile.
