Sacred fire, stopped wars and other myths around the Olympic Games

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Before each Olympics, the information space is filled with informative articles about their ancient traditions from ancient Greece. Many of the traditions described, or their connection with modern games, are myths. There is also the usual confusion of different but similar ancient customs.

The Greeks did not carry sacred fire from anywhere

"Delivering fire" from the homeland of the Olympic Games was invented by Goebbels, a great fan of torchlight processions. Yes, the same propagandist of the Third Reich. The custom seemed so beautiful that they decided not to abandon it, and they shyly close their eyes to the true history, repeating the inventions of the Nazis. Fortunately, the rest of the finds of the Third Reich did not make it to the Olympic Games.

The Greeks didn't just stop wars because of the Olympics

The inhabitants of the area where the games were held achieved a complete ban on waging war with them - so that the land on which the games will be held would not be desecrated by the blood spilled in the battle. Moreover, they themselves calmly and repeatedly attacked their neighbors. Yes, as you might guess, the games were primarily of a religious nature, although they are not very popular about it.

Women were admitted to the Olympics

But only the priestesses of Demeter. The games themselves probably originate from the harvest festival. There is a very mysterious theory that they fought during the games at first for the right to be the husband of Demeter - and this justifies the absence of women: the goddesses are jealous. However, the theory is not confirmed by any known text, and in the foreseeable history of the game they were dedicated to Zeus.

There is also a known case when permission to watch the games once, after the fact, was received by the mother and part-time coach of their winner, Ferenik Callipater. Which means they just didn't get killed when they spotted her among the trainers.

Nevertheless, the woman also had a chance to win the game. The fact is that they included chariot races, and not the drivers were considered the winners, but the owners of the horses. The Spartan princess Kiniska was the first woman to put the chariot to the games and the first to defeat them.

The first modern games did not try to repeat the ancient ones

Even if we accept for the theory that chariots were simply replaced by bicycles, and running in armor - by weightlifting, the program is still difficult to call the same. So, for example, at the ancient games they did not compete in swimming - and it would be inconvenient, the ancient Greeks did not dig large pools. And this kind of discipline of the first modern Olympic Games, like gymnastics, would simply offend ancient athletes - it was only suitable for circus performers, people in those days were not too respected. A couple more differences: in the first modern games there was no fist fighting, and in the ancient ones there was no tennis, high jumps and shot put.

Stadiums weren't that much like modern ones

Yes, the auditorium was indeed an amphitheater, but the stadium itself did not have an oval track for runners - they ran at ancient games only in a straight line, and if for a long distance, they simply turned around at the end of the track.

The spirit at the games was not too democratic

In general, when they say that democracy reigned in Ancient Greece, they forget to add that not all were “demos” with civil rights. Not only women, but also slaves, non-Greeks and Greeks, disenfranchised, were not allowed to participate directly in the games.

The point, in addition to the general snobbery of the ancient Greeks, was also that the games had a religious significance. Therefore, all the relatives and coaches of the participants before the games had to swear that they would not commit crimes (the participation of a man from a family of criminals would desecrate the festival), and the participants swore that for ten months before the games they were only engaged, that preparations for them were like priests or … sacred sacrifices. All vows were pronounced in front of the statue of Zeus.

The winner was not wearing a laurel wreath

The laurel crown was celebrated on other occasions, and the champion received a wreath made of olive, one of the sacred trees of the ancient Greeks associated with the cult of fertility. In addition, palm branches were given into the hands of the champion and placed on a bronze tripod. Since bronze tripods were also used to make sacrifices to the gods, the symbolic meaning of placing the best of the best and the best of the select on it seems obvious.

Life in Ancient Greece did not consist of myths about heroes at all. Dung, Wine and Leather Substitutes for Husbands: How Women Was Healed in Ancient Greece.