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Ancient history

No sporting event grips the world's imagination like the Olympic Games. The soccer World Cup can fascinate the television viewers of Europe and South America, the baseball world series transfixes the population of United States and the Melbourne Cup brings the state of Victoria to a dead stop, but the Olympics belong to the whole world. Participation in the Games is looked on not only as an achievement, but also as an honour.

Various legends purport to account for the inception of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece. Pindar tells of how Hercules initiated the Games after cleansing the Augean stables.

Augeas, ruler of Elis, made Hercules clean out his enormous stables in a single day. Hercules extracted a promise from the king that if he did so he would be given a tenth of the king's herds.

Unwisely the king did not keep his side of the bargain, and Hercules promptly killed Augeas and his family, made himself a present of the entire stock of cattle, and instituted the Olympic Games to mark the occasion.

This is only a legend, but the Greeks did hold religious Games as a part of every day life. Homer, in the Iliad, describes the ritual Games at the funeral of Patroclus, in about 1100 BC.

The Olympic Games were only one of a number of similar celebrations in Greece, but they became the most important, and a list of champions from the year 776 BC exists.

But the Olympics were essentially religious affairs, and the Greeks always proclaimed a scared truce the hieromenia for the duration of the Games, and for people travelling to and from Olympia.

The competitors and the spectators had to be male free-born Greeks, though the circumscription on the women was later lifted.

To the Greeks it was important to win well, and any competitor found guilty of an unfair practice had to pay a fine, which was used to build a statue of Zeus at the entrance to the stadium. In all history of ancient Games, only 13 of these were erected.

Eventually the very success of the Games led to professionalism and corruption, and with the dawn of the Christian Era the religious and physical background of the Games were attacked.

Gradually, the Games lost their reputation, especially after the Roman Emperor, Nero entered and was allowed to win the chariot race in AD 66.

Finally, in AD 393, the Olympic Games were abolished by a decree from the emperor Theodosius, and in the 5th century the once scared buildings were demolished. In time, earthquakes and floods buried the site beneath about 20 feet of soil.

Compiled by Mamatha Maben