Greek Spectacles and Games a supplementary sourcebook on Greek sports Siobhán McElduff Table of Contents

Greek Sports III: Athletes: their status and reputations:

Athletes might be treated with special regard even when taken prisoner as the following story by Pausanias describes (though it does end badly for Doreius in the end):

Doreius the son of Diagoras won in addition to his Olympic titles eight victories at the Isthmian Games and seven at the Nemean Games. It is said that he also won at the Pythian games without having to fight.³¹ He and Peisirodos were proclaimed victors as Thurians, because, banished from Rhodes by their political enemies, they went to Thurioi in Italy. After a while Dorieus returned to Rhodes. Most clearly of all men this man seems to have favoured the Spartans. He even fought with ships of his own against the Athenians, until he was caught by Attic ships and brought to Athens alive. Before Dorieus was brought to them, the Athenians were angry at him and threatened him. When they were gathered in the assembly and saw such a great and famous man as a prisoner, their opinion about him changed and they let him go, without treating him badly at all, while it lay in their power to punish him severely according to the laws. Androtion tells in his Attic history about the end of Dorieus: when the fleet of the king was anchored in Caunos, with Conon as general, the Rhodians were persuaded by Conon to leave the Spartans and ally with the king and the Athenians. Dorieus was away from Rhodes at the moment, inland in the Peloponnesus. After he was caught by Spartan men and brought to Sparta, he was convicted of treachery by the Spartans and sentenced to death.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.7.4-6

Some athletes might even be considered more than human and receive heroic honours:

Not far from these kings stands the statue of Theagenes , the son of Timosthenes of Thasos. The Thasians assert that Theagenes is not the son of Timosthenes. They say that Timosthenes was a priest of the Thasian Heracles and that the spirit of Heracles, in the form of Timosthenes, had sex with the mother of Theagenes. They say that when the boy was nine years old, he returned home from school and saw on the marketplace a bronze statue of a god. Because he liked the statue, he took it on his shoulder and brought it home. The citizens were furious at him because of what he had done, but an man of advanced age with great authority did not allow them to kill the boy and ordered him to carry the statue from his house back to the market-place. When he had carried it, the boy became famous for his strength and all over Greece they spoke about his feat.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.11.2-3

Not all athletes got heroic honours for their actions as athletes:

At the games previous to this it is said that Cleomedes of Astypalaea killed Iccus of Epidaurus during a boxing-match. On being convicted by the judges of foul play and being deprived of the prize he became mad through grief and returned to Astypalaea. Attacking a school there of about sixty children he pulled down the pillar which held up the roof. This fell upon the children, and Cleomedes, pelted with stones by the citizens, fled into the sanctuary of Athena. He entered a chest standing in the sanctuary and drew down the lid. The Astypalaeans toiled in vain in their attempts to open the chest. At last, however, they broke open the boards of the chest, but found no Cleomedes, either alive or dead. So they sent envoys to Delphi to ask what had happened to Cleomedes. The response given by the Pythian priestess was, they say, as follows:

Last of heroes is Cleomedes of Astypalaea;
Honor him with sacrifices as being no longer a mortal.

So from this time the Astypalaeans have honoured Cleomedes as a hero.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.9.6-8

One of the most legendary athletes was Milo of Croton,³² who reigned at the Olympics and other crown games for some 30 years. In the following Pausanias describes Milo’s statue at Olympia and talks about his many feats:

The statue of Milo the son of Diotimus was made by Dameas, also a native of Croton. Milo won six victories for wrestling at Olympia, one of them among the boys; at the Pythian games he won six among the men and one among the boys. He came to Olympia to wrestle for the seventh time, but did not succeed in mastering Timasitheus, a fellow-citizen who was also a young man, and who refused, moreover, to come to close quarters with him. It is further stated that Milo carried his own statue into the Altis. His feats with the pomegranate and the discus are also remembered by tradition. He would grasp a pomegranate so firmly that nobody could wrest it from him by force, and yet he did not damage it by pressure. He would stand upon a greased discus, and make fools of those who charged him and tried to push him from the discus. He used to perform also the following exhibition feats. He would tie a cord round his forehead as though it were a ribbon or a crown. Holding his breath and filling with blood the veins on his head, he would break the cord by the strength of these veins. It is said that he would let down by his side his right arm from the shoulder to the elbow, and stretch out straight the arm below the elbow, turning the thumb upwards, while the other fingers lay in a row. In this position, then, the little finger was lowest, but nobody could bend it back by pressure. They say that he was killed by wild beasts. The story has it that he came across in the land of Croton a tree-trunk that was drying up; wedges were inserted to keep the trunk apart. Milo in his pride thrust his hands into the trunk, the wedges slipped, and Milo was held fast by the trunk until the wolves – a beast that roves in vast packs in the land of Croton – ate him.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.14.5-8

Another legendary athlete was Polydamas, whose statue Pausanias also saw at Olympia:

The statue on the high pedestal is the work of Lysippus, and it represents the tallest of all men except those called heroes and any other mortal race that may have existed before the heroes. But this man, Polydamas the son of Nicias, is the tallest of our own era. Scotussa, the native city of Polydamas, has now no inhabitants, for Alexander the tyrant of Pherae seized it in time of truce. It happened that an assembly of the citizens was being held, and those who were assembled in the theatre the tyrant surrounded with targeteers and archers, and shot them all down; all the other grown men he massacred, selling the women and children as slaves in order to pay his mercenaries. This disaster befell Scotussa when Phrasicleides was archon at Athens, in the hundred and second Olympiad, when Damon of Thurii was victor for the second time, and in the second year of this Olympiad. The people that escaped remained but for a while, for later they too were forced by their destitution to leave the city, when Heaven brought a second calamity in the war with Macedonia.

Others have won glorious victories in the pankration, but Polydamas, besides his prizes for the pankration, has to his credit the following exploits of a different kind. The mountainous part of Thrace, on this side the river Nestus, which runs through the land of Abdera, breeds among other wild beasts lions, which once attacked the army of Xerxes, and mauled the camels carrying his supplies. These lions often roam right into the land around Mount Olympus, one side of which is turned towards Macedonia, and the other towards Thessaly and the river Peneius. Here on Mount Olympus Polydamas killed a huge and powerful lion, without the help of any weapon. He was driven to do this by an ambition to rival the labours of Heracles, because Heracles also, legend says, killed the lion at Nemea.³³

In addition to this, Polydamas is remembered for another wonderful performance. He went among a herd of cattle and seized the biggest and fiercest bull by one of its hind feet, holding fast the hoof in spite of the bull's leaps and struggles, until at last it put forth all its strength and escaped, leaving the hoof in the grasp of Polydamas. It is also said of him that he stopped a charioteer who was driving his chariot onwards at a great speed. Seizing with one hand the back of the chariot he kept a tight hold on both horses and driver. Darius, the bastard son of Artaxerxes, who with the support of the Persian common people put down Sogdius, the legitimate son of Artaxerxes, and ascended the throne in his stead, learning when he was king of the exploits of Polydamas sent messengers with the promise of gifts and persuaded him to come before his presence at Susa. There he challenged three of the Persians called Immortals³⁴ to fight him – one against three – and killed them. Of his exploits enumerated, some are represented on the pedestal of the statue at Olympia, and others are set forth in the inscription.

But after all, the prophecy of Homer respecting those who glory in their strength was to be fulfilled also in the case of Polydamas, and he too was fated to perish through his own might. For Polydamas entered a cave with the rest of his boon companions. It was summer-time, and, as ill-luck would have it, the roof of the cave began to crack. It was obvious that it would quickly fall in, and could not hold out much longer. Realizing the disaster that was coming, the others turned and ran away; but Polydamas resolved to remain, holding up his hands in the belief that he could prevent the falling in of the cave and would not be crushed by the mountain. Here Polydamas met his end.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.5.1-9

However, athletes could also be mocked. They were considered gluttonous because in a culture where most people lived on simple diet which relied on bread and olive oil, they lived largely off meat:

A man from Stymphalus, by name Dromeus [Runner], proved true to it in the long race, for he won two victories at Olympia, two at the Pythian games, three at the Isthmian and five at Nemea Games. He is said to have also conceived the idea of a flesh diet; up to this time athletes had fed on cheese from the basket.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.7.10

The athlete Theagenes ate a bull on his own, as Poseidippos says in his epigrams: "On an assembly I once ate a Maeonian ox, for my ancestral Thasos could not have supplied a meal for Theagenes. Whatever I ate, I kept asking for more. For this reason I stand in bronze, holding forth my hand." According to Theodorus of Hierapolis, in his book about competitions, Milo of Croton used to eat twenty pounds of meat and bread and he drank three jars of wine. In Olympia he lifted a four-year-old bull on his shoulders and carried it around the stadion. Afterwards he cut it in pieces and ate in on his own in a single day.

Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 10.412 d-f

Xenophon insisted that what philosophers contributed to the community was worth more than what athletes did – and in turn he gives us a window in what athletes gained for their victories

If someone should win a victory thanks to the swiftness of his feet or when competing in the pentathlon there in the sanctuary of Zeus by the streams of Pisa at Olympia, or gain the prize in wrestling or painful boxing, or in that fearful contest people call pankration, his fellow citizens would think him more glorious to look on than ever, and he would gain from his polis the right to meals at public expense and a gift which would be his personal treasure. And if his victory were won with horses, he would also gain all these things, even though he is not as worthy as I. For our wisdom is better than the strength of men or horses. For even if there were a good boxer among the citizens or one skilled in the pentathlon or wrestling, or, indeed, even if there were a great sprinter, which holds the front rank among the athletic achievements of men, the polis would still not be better governed because of this. A polis would gain little joy if someone should win in competition by the banks of the Pisa, for that victory would not fill its storehouses.

Xenophon: Hellenica, c. 370 BCE


The Olympic Games

Click here for more images and information on the Olympic Games:

This was the oldest and greatest of the crown games: crown games were games in which you won not money, but a crown. However, such was the prestige that a win in the in the Olympics was felt to bring to a polis (city-state) that many offered rich rewards if you won. These rewards ranged from cash³⁵ to being fed at public expense for the rest of your life; you might also be freed from paying taxes. Olympia was a sanctuary for Zeus, not a town, and was run by the town of Elis (with some interruptions when other towns tried to seize, even leading at one point to fighting right among and in the temples. In his Description of Greece Pausanias devoted two books to Olympia – more than to any other place he visited. He starts his description of the place by describing the various origin stories for the games:

These things then are as I have described them. As for the Olympic Games, the most learned antiquaries of Elis say that Cronus was the first king of heaven, and that in his honor a temple was built in Olympia by the men of that age, who were named the Golden Race. When Zeus was born, Rhea entrusted the guardianship of her son to the Dactyls of Ida, who are the same as those called Curetes. They came from Cretan Ida – Heracles, Paeonaeus, Epimedes, Iasius and Idas. Heracles, being the eldest, matched his brothers, as a game, in a running-race, and crowned the winner with a branch of wild olive, of which they had such a copious supply that they slept on heaps of its leaves while still green. It is said to have been introduced into Greece by Heracles from the land of the Hyperboreans, men living beyond the home of the North Wind. Olen the Lycian, in his hymn to Achaea, was the first to say that from these Hyperboreans Achaea came to Delos. When Melanopus of Cyme composed an ode to Opis and Hecaerge declaring that these, even before Achaea, came to Delos from the Hyperboreans. And Aristeas of Proconnesus – for he too made mention of the Hyperboreans – may perhaps have learnt even more about them from the Issedones, to whom he says in his poem that he came. Heracles of Ida, therefore, has the reputation of being the first to have held, on the occasion I mentioned, the games, and to have called them Olympic. So he established the custom of holding them every fifth year, because he and his brothers were five in number. 10. Now some say that Zeus wrestled here with Cronus himself for the throne, while others say that he held the games in honor of his victory over Cronus. The record of victors include Apollo, who outran Hermes and beat Ares at boxing. It is for this reason, they say, that the Pythian flute-song is played while the competitors in the pentathlon are jumping; for the flute-song is sacred to Apollo, and Apollo won Olympic victories.

Later on there came (they say) from Crete Clymenus, the son of Cardys, about fifty years after the flood came upon the Greeks in the time of Deucalion. He was descended from Heracles of Ida; he held the games at Olympia and set up an altar in honor of Heracles, his ancestor, and the other Curetes, giving to Heracles the surname of Parastates [Assistant]. And Endymion, the son of Aethlius, deposed Clymenus, and set his sons a race in Olympia with the kingdom as the prize. [And about a generation later than Endymion, Pelops held the games in honor of Olympian Zeus in a more splendid manner than any of his predecessors. When the sons of Pelops were scattered from Elis over all the rest of Peloponnesus, Amythaon, the son of Cretheus, and cousin of Endymion on his father's side (for they say that Aethlius too was the son of Aeolus, though supposed to be a son of Zeus), held the Olympian games, and after him Pelias and Neleus in common.

Augeas too held them and Heracles, the son of Amphitryon, after the conquest of Elis.³⁶ The victors crowned by Heracles include Iolaus, who won with the mares of Heracles. So of old a competitor was permitted to compete with mares which were not his own. Homer, at any rate, in the games held in honor of Patroclus, has told how Menelaus drove a pair of which one was Aetha, a mare of Agamemnon, while the other was his own horse. 4. Moreover, Iolaus used to be charioteer to Heracles. So Iolaus won the chariot-race, and Iasius, an Arcadian, the horse-race; while of the sons of Tyndareus one won the foot-race and Polydeuces the boxing-match. Of Heracles himself it is said that he won victories at wrestling and the pankration.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.7.6-5.8.3

In the historical period the Olympic Games and Olympia were under the control of and governed by the town of Elis (though that was contested by the citizens of Pisa, leading to battles right among the temples ). Here Pausanias goes on to give the more recent history of the games, some of the order of events, and when they were added or dropped.

After the reign of Oxylus, who also celebrated the games, the Olympic festival was discontinued until the reign of Iphitus. When Iphitus, as I have already related, renewed the games, men had by this time forgotten the ancient tradition, the memory of which revived bit by bit, and as it revived they made additions to the games. This I can prove; for when the unbroken tradition of the Olympiads began there was first the foot-race, and Coroebus an Elean was victor. There is no statue of Coroebus at Olympia, but his grave is on the borders of Elis. Afterwards, at the fourteenth Festival, the double stadion was added: Hypenus of Pisa won the prize of wild olive in the double race, and at the next Festival Acanthus of Sparta won in the long course. At the eighteenth Festival they remembered the pentathlon and wrestling. Lampis won the first and Eurybatus the second, these also being Spartans. At the twenty-third Festival they restored the prizes for boxing, and the victor was Onomastus of Smyrna, which already was a part of Ionia. At the twenty-fifth they recognized the race of full-grown horses, and Pagondas of Thebes was proclaimed “victor in the chariot-race.” At the eighth Festival after this they admitted the pankration for men and the horse-race. The horse-race was won by Crauxidas of Crannon, and Lygdamis of Syracuse overcame all who entered for the pankration. Lygdamis has his tomb near the quarries at Syracuse, and according to the Syracusans he was as big as Heracles of Thebes, though I cannot vouch for the statement.

The contests for boys are not of ancient creation, but were established by the Eleans themselves because they approved of them. The prizes for running and wrestling open to boys were instituted at the thirty-seventh Festival; Hipposthenes of Sparta won the prize for wrestling, and that for running was won by Polyneices of Elis. At the forty-first Festival they introduced boxing for boys, and the winner out of those who entered for it was Philytas of Sybaris. The race for men in armour was approved at the sixty-fifth Festival, to provide, I suppose, military training; the first winner of the race with shields was Damaretus of Heraea. The race for two full-grown horses, called synoris, was instituted at the ninety-third Festival, and the winner was Evagoras of Elis. At the ninety-ninth Festival they resolved to hold contests for chariots drawn by foals, and Sybariades of Sparta won the garland with his chariot and foals. Afterwards they added races for chariots and pairs of foals, and for single foals with rider. It is said that the victors proclaimed were: for the chariot and pair, Belistiche, a woman from the seaboard of Macedonia; for the ridden race, Tlepolemus of Lycia. Tlepolemus, they say, won at the hundred and thirty-first Festival, and Belistiche at the third before this. At the hundred and forty-fifth Festival prizes were offered for boys in the pankration, the victory falling to Phaedimus, an Aeolian from the city Troas.

Certain contests, too, have been dropped at Olympia, the Eleans resolving to discontinue them. The pentathlon for boys was instituted at the thirty-eighth games; but after Eutelidas of Sparta had received the wild olive for it, the Eleans disapproved of boys entering for this competition.³⁷ The races for mule-carts, and the trotting-race, were added respectively at the seventieth Festival and the seventy-first, but were both abolished by proclamation at the eighty-fourth. When they were first instituted, Thersius of Thessaly won the race for mule-carts, while Pataecus, an Achaean from Dyme, won the trotting-race. The trotting-race was for mares, and in the last part of the course the riders jumped off and ran beside the mares, holding on to the bridle, just as at the present day those do who are called aphobatai. The mounters, however, differ from the riders in the trotting-race by having different badges, and by riding horses instead of mares. The cart-race was neither of venerable antiquity nor yet a graceful performance. Moreover, each cart was drawn by a pair of mules, not horses, and there is an ancient curse on the Eleans if this animal is even born in Elis.

The order of the games in our own day, which places the sacrifices to the god for the pentathlon and chariot-races second, and those for the other competitions first, was fixed at the seventy-seventh Festival. Previously the contests for men and for horses were held on the same day. But at the Festival I mentioned the pankratiasts prolonged their contests till night-fall, because they were not summoned to the arena soon enough. The cause of the delay was partly the chariot-race, but still more the pentathlon. Callias of Athens was champion of the pankratiasts on this occasion, but never afterwards was the pankration to be interfered with by the pentathlon or the chariots. The rules for the presidents of the games are not the same now as they were at the first institution of the festival. Iphitus acted as sole president, as likewise did the descendants of Oxylus after Iphitus. But at the fiftieth Festival two men, appointed by lot from all the Eleans, were entrusted with the management of the Olympic Games, and for a long time after this the number of the presidents continued to be two. But at the ninety-fifth Festival nine judges were appointed. To three of them were entrusted the chariot-races, another three were to supervise the pentathlon, the rest superintended the remaining contests. At the second Festival after this the tenth umpire was added. At the hundred and third Festival, the Eleans having twelve tribes, one umpire was chosen from each. 5.9.6 But they were hard pressed in a war with the Arcadians and lost a portion of their territory, along with all the parishes included in the surrendered district, and so the number of tribes was reduced to eight in the hundred and fourth Olympiad. Thereupon were chosen judges equal in number to the tribes. At the hundred and eighth Festival they returned again to the number of ten judges, which has continued unchanged down to the present day.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.8-9.

Unlike other games Olympia insisted that athletes turned up and trained at Elis for 30 days before the Olympics. Those who were late by their own fault could be fined or refused the chance to compete; during those 30 days some were counselled to drop out; others chose to do so voluntarily after they saw what their competition would be. Pausanias describes the gymnasia and other features of the town.

One of the noteworthy things in Elis is an old gymnasium. In this gymnasium the athletes go through the training through which they must pass before going to Olympia. High plane-trees grow between the tracks inside a wall. The whole of this enclosure is called Xystus, because an exercise of Heracles, the son of Amphitryon, was to scrape up each day all the thistles that grew there. The track for the competing runners, called by the natives the Sacred Track, is separate from that on which the runners and pentathletes practise. In the gymnasium is the place called Plethrium. In it the judges match the competitors according to age and skill; it is for wrestling that they match them. There are also in the gymnasium altars of the gods, of Idaean Heracles, surnamed Comrade, of Love, of the deity called by Eleans and Athenians alike Love Returned, of Demeter and of her daughter. Achilles has no altar, only a cenotaph raised to him because of an oracle. On an appointed day at the beginning of the festival, when the course of the sun is sinking towards the west, the Elean women do honor to Achilles, especially by bewailing him.

There is another enclosed gymnasium, but smaller, adjoining the larger one and called Square because of its shape. Here the athletes practise wrestling, and here, when they have no more wrestling to do, they are matched in contests with the softer gloves. There is also dedicated here one of the images made in honor of Zeus out of the fines imposed upon Sosander of Smyrna and upon Polyctor of Elis.

There is also a third enclosed gymnasium, called Maltho from the softness of its floor, and reserved for the youths for the whole time of the festival. In a corner of the Maltho is a bust of Heracles as far as the shoulders, and in one of the wrestling-schools is a relief showing Love and Love Returned, as he is called. Love holds a palm-branch, and Love Returned is trying to take the palm from him. On each side of the entrance to the Maltho stands an image of a boy boxer. He was by birth, so the Guardian of the Laws at Elis told me, from Alexandria over against the island Pharos, and his name was Sarapion; arriving at Elis when the townsfolk were suffering from famine he supplied them with food. For this reason these honours were paid him here. The time of his crown at Olympia and of his benefaction to the Eleans was the two hundred and seventeenth Festival.

In this gymnasium is also the Elean Council House, where take place exhibitions of extempore speeches and recitations of written works of all kinds. It is called Lalichmium, after the man who dedicated it. About it are dedicated shields, which are for show and not made to be used in war. The way from the gymnasium to the baths passes through the Street of Silence and beside the sanctuary of Artemis Philomeirax. The goddess is so surnamed because she is neighbour to the gymnasium; the street received, they say, the name of Silence for the following reason. Men of the army of Oxylus were sent to spy out what was happening in Elis. On the way they exhorted each other, when they should be near the wall, themselves to keep a strict silence, but to listen attentively if perchance they might learn anything from the people in the town. These men by this street reached the town unobserved, and after hearing all they wished they went back again to the Aetolians. So the street received its name from the silence of the spies. One of the two ways from the gymnasium leads to the market-place, and to what is called the Umpires' Room; it is above the grave of Achilles, and by it the judges go to the gymnasium. They enter before sunrise to match the runners, and at midday for the pentathlon and for such contests as are called heavy.

Pausanias 6.23.1-6.24.1

After their stay at Elis, all the athletes, the judges, many of the audience, and all the horses marched out to Olympia. On arrival at Olympia athletes and judges swore a great oath to Olympian Zeus at his statue in the council house (the bouleterion):

The Zeus in the council house is made to frighten the unjust more than any other statue of Zeus. He is called Zeus Horkios [of the oath] and carries a thunderbolt in each hand. It is a habit for the athletes, their fathers and brothers, and also their trainers to swear at this statue on wild boar meat that they will commit no offence to the Olympic Games. In addition, the adult athletes swear that they have trained for ten months without interruption. The judges who examine the boys and foals swear that they will judge according to the law and without receiving bribes³⁸ and that they will keep secret everything about the candidate, admitted or not.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.24.9-10

I must adopt what they say at the Olympics to you, my brave friends; and the following is an Olympic exordium. When the Olympic Games are about to happen the people of Elis train the athletes for thirty days in their own country. In the same way, when the Pythian games approach, the natives of Delphi; and when the Isthmian, the Corinthians assemble them and say: 'Go now into the arena and prove yourselves men worthy of victory.’
Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyre 5.43

All of those who competed at the games were Greeks (non-Greeks were not allowed to take part, though when the Romans came along they were accepted as Greeks). Ordinary Macedonians could not compete in the Olympics as they were not considered Greek; the royal family, however, claimed descent from Achilles and could compete as they were considered Greek:

Now that these descendants of Perdiccas are Greeks, as they themselves say, I myself chance to know and will prove it in the later part of my history. Furthermore, the judges who manage the contest at Olympia determined that it is so for when Alexander³⁹ chose to contend and entered the lists for that purpose, the Greeks who were to run against him wanted to bar him from the race, saying that the contest should be for Greeks and not for foreigners. Alexander, however, proving himself to be an Argive, was judged to be a Greek. He accordingly competed in the furlong race and tied step for first place. This, then, is approximately what happened.

Herodotus Histories 5.22.1-2

However, not all city-states were endowed with native athletes; as with the modern Olympics, some athletes were lured to run for cities other than their own, as the following set of anecdotes from Pausanias show:

After Hysmon comes the statue of a boy wrestler from Heraea in Arcadia, Nicostratus the son of Xenocleides. Pantias was the artist, and if you count the teachers you will find five between him and Aristocles of Sicyon. Dicon, the son of Callibrotus, won five footraces at The Pythian games, three at the Isthmian Games, four at Nemea, one at Olympia in the race for boys besides two in the men's race. Statues of him have been set up at Olympia equal in number to the races he won. When he was a boy he was proclaimed a native of Caulonia, as in fact he was. But afterwards he was bribed to proclaim himself a Syracusan. The statue of Cyniscus, the boy boxer from Mantinea, was made by Polycleitus. Ergoteles, the son of Philanor, won two victories in the long foot-race at Olympia, and two at the Pythian, Isthmian and Nemean Games. The inscription on the statue states that he came originally from Himera; but it is said that this is incorrect, and that be was a Cretan from Cnossos. Expelled from Cnossos by a political party he came to Himera, was given citizenship and won many honours besides. It was accordingly natural for him to be proclaimed at the games as a native of Himera.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.4.10-11

Sotades at the ninety-ninth Festival was victorious in the long race and proclaimed a Cretan, as in fact he was. But at the next Festival he made himself an Ephesian, being bribed to do so by the Ephesian people. For this act he was banished by the Cretans

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.18.6

Olympia had two age classes: boys and men. There was an obvious advantage in being placed in the younger class, even if winning in the older class held more prestige, because the competition was less fierce (people did not like their young sons to travel and possibly run into all sorts of shocking behaviour at Olympia, which was incredibly crowded and full of parties during the Olympics games. Because there were no birth certificates in ancient Greece, some tried to pass themselves off as younger than they were to compete in the boys’ category. Boys might be quite young when they competed:

Beside this is the Messenian Damiscus, who won an Olympic victory at the age of twelve. I was extremely surprised to learn that while the Messenians were in exile from the Peloponnesus, their luck at the Olympic Games failed. For with the exception of Leontiscus and Symmachus, who came from Messene on the Strait, we know of no Messenian, either from Sicily or from Naupactus, who won a victory at Olympia. Even these two are said by the Sicilians to have been not Messenians but of old Zanclean blood.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.2.10

Although the Eleans claimed to be impartial, they were judges in events where people from their own city state competed. Some people wondered if that were possibl,e as the following story from the Greek historian Herodotus shows:

While Psammis was king of Egypt, there came to him men sent by the Eleans, who boasted that they ordered the contest at Olympia in the most just and honourable manner possible and thought that not even the Egyptians, the wisest of men, could find out anything besides, to be added to their rules. Now when the Eleans came to Egypt and said that for which they had come, then this king called together those of the Egyptians who were reputed the wisest, and when the Egyptians had come together they heard the Eleans tell of all that which it was their part to do in regard to the contest; and when they had related everything, they said that they had come to learn in addition anything which the Egyptians might be able to find out besides, which was juster than this. They then having consulted together asked the Eleians whether their own citizens took part in the contest; and they said that it was permitted to any one who desired it, both of their own people and of the other Hellenes equally, to take part in the contest: upon which the Egyptians said that in so ordering the games they had wholly missed the mark of justice; for it could not be but that they would take part with the man of their own State, if he was contending, and so act unfairly to the stranger: but if they really desired, as they said, to order the games justly, and if this was the cause for which they had come to Egypt, they advised them to order the contest so as to be for strangers alone to contend in, and that no Elean should be permitted to contend. Such was the suggestion made by the Egyptians to the Eleans.

Herodotus, Histories 2.160

Cheating did occur at the Olympics and took various forms. The Eleans were sometimes suspected of giving preference to their own, and it became worse when one of the officials in charge of the festival was competing:

The inscription on Cleogenes the son of Silenus declares that he was a native, and that he won a prize with a riding-horse from his own private stable. Hard by Cleogenes are set up Deinolochus, son of Pyrrhus, and Troilus, son of Alcinous. These also were both Eleans by birth, though their victories were not the same. Troilus, at the time that he was umpire, succeeded in winning victories in the chariot-races, one for a chariot drawn by a full-grown pair and another for a chariot drawn by foals. The date of his victories was the hundred and second Festival.²

After this the Eleans passed a law that in future no umpire was to compete in the chariot-races. The statue of Troilus was made by Lysippus.

Pausanias, Description of Greece, 6.1.4-5

Cities and rulers went around trying to attract runners to compete for them:

By the statue of Thrasybulus stands Timosthenes of Elis, winner of the foot-race for boys, and Antipater of Miletus, son of Cleinopater, conqueror of the boy boxers. Men of Syracuse, who were bringing a sacrifice from Dionysius to Olympia, tried to bribe the father of Antipater to have his son proclaimed as a Syracusan. But Antipater, thinking naught of the tyrant's gifts, proclaimed himself a Milesian and wrote upon his statue that he was of Milesian descent and the first Ionian to dedicate his statue at Olympia.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.2.6

Before any athletic events were held, there were contests for trumpeters and heralds. The winners were considered as Olympic victors, just like those who competed in the athletic competitions. However, after they won they had to work during the rest of the Olympics announcing events and the winners of those events

There is in the Altis an altar near the entrance leading to the stadium. On it the Eleans do not sacrifice to any of the gods, but it is customary for the trumpeters and heralds to stand upon it when they compete. By the side of this altar has been built a pedestal of bronze, and on it is an image of Zeus, about six cubits in height, with a thunderbolt in either hand. It was dedicated by the people of Cynaetha.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.22.1

Surprisingly for such a prestigious and important event in the Greek world we’re not certain of the order of events at the Olympics; it changed over time and could be rearranged after issues with the last Olympics, or sometimes for an athlete who was competing in more than one sport

The present-day program of the games (offering to the god after the pentathlon and the horse-races but before the other contests) was fixed in the 77^th Olympiad (472 BCE). Before that Olympiad, they held the games for horses and men on the same day. But then the pankratiasts continued into the night because they were not called up in time. The cause of this were the horse races and even more the pentathlon contest. The Athenian Kallias won the victory in the pankration, but henceforth the pentathlon and the horse races would never again hold up the pankration

Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.9.3
Celebrating Victory at the Olympics:
Victors might pay to have a victory ode written in their honour. The premier writer of such odes was Pindar, who charged a hefty price to write for you, but it was worth it to have not only everlasting fame, but an ode that could be brought back to your city and performed as you entered it in glory (and presumably on other occasions when you wanted to remind people of your athletic fame). The following odes were all written for Olympic victors; Pindar also wrote for victors of the Nemean, Pythian and Isthmian Games.

May I find suitable speech for my journey in the Muses' chariot; and let me now have daring and powers of ample scope. To back the prowess of a friend I came, when Lampromachos won his Isthmian crown, when on the same day both he and his brother overcame. And afterwards at the gates of Corinth two triumphs again befell Epharmostos and more in the valleys of Nemea. At Argos he triumphed over men, as over boys at Athens. And I might tell how at Marathon he stole from among the beardless and confronted the full-grown for the prize of silver vessels, how without a fall he threw his men with swift and coming shock, and how loud the shouting pealed when round the ring he ran, in the beauty of his youth and fair form and fresh from fairest deeds.

No. 9

Great is the glory stored for Olympian winners; and so my shepherd tongue is trying to keep some part held back. But only by the help of Zeus is wisdom kept ever blooming in the soul. Son of Archestratos, Agesidamos, know certainly that for your boxing I will lay a glory of sweet strains upon your crown of golden olive and will have in remembrance the race of the Locrians in the west.

No. 10

Who then won to their lot the new-appointed crown by hands or feet or chariot, setting before them the prize of glory in the games, and winning it by their act? Likymnios' son Oionos first in the foot-race down the straight course of the stadion, from Nodea had he led his host: in the wrestling was Tegea glorified by Echemos: Doryklos won the prize of boxing, a dweller in the city of Tiryns, and with the four-horse chariot, Samos of Mantinea, Halirrhotios' son: with the javelin Phrastor hit the mark: in distance Enikeus beyond all others hurled the stone with a circling sweep, and all the warrior company thundered a great applause. Then on the evening the lovely shining of the fair-faced moon beamed forth and the whole precinct sounded with songs of festal glee, after the manner which is to this day for triumph.

No. 11

Also two parsley-wreaths shadowed his head before the people at the games of Isthmus, nor does Nemea tell a different tale. And of his father Thessalos' lightning feet is recorded by the streams of Alpheos, and at the Pythian Games he has renown for the single and for the double stadion gained both in a single day, and in the same month at rocky Pan-Athenaios a day of swiftness crowned his hair for three illustrious deeds, and the Hellotia seven times, and at the games of Poseidon between seas longer hymns followed his father Ptoiodoros with Terpsias and Eritimos. And how often you were first at Delphi or in the Pastures of the Lion, though with full many do I match your crowd of honours, yet can I no more surely tell than the tale of pebbles on the sea-shore.

No. 13
The Heraia, Women, and Athletics

At Olympia, after the men’s events were finished, there was a contest for girls. We are not sure how many took part and if they were mainly locals or if some came with their families for the male members to compete in the Olympics and the girls to compete in the Heraia – our only source is Pausanias and we don’t have any secure victory images (although some have been suggested).

Every four years the sixteen women [of Elis] weave a robe for Hera. The same women organize the Heraia. The games consist of a foot-race for girls. These girls are not all of the same age. The youngest run first, the second age-categories after them and the oldest girls run last. They run as follows: their hair is let down and their tunic reaches to a little above the knee. They bare the right shoulder as far as their breasts. The Olympic stadion is reserved for their games and its length is shortened by about a sixth. To the winners they give olive crowns and a part of the cow which is sacrificed to Hera. They can also dedicate painted portraits.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.2-4
Married women were not allowed to watch the Olympic Games - though those who had never been married were. Given the reputation the Olympics had for drunkenness and wild behaviour (especially the further you got away from the Altis), this is a little surprising, and we have no way of knowing how many girls were there with their families. The penalty for being found as a married woman watching the games was death. But one enterprising mother passed herself off as a male trainer to accompany her son to the Olympics and watch him compete and managed to escape the death penalty because of her son’s victory and because her father and brothers had also won at Olympia:

As you go from Scillus along the road to Olympia, before you cross the Alpheios, there is a mountain with high, precipitous cliffs. It is called Mount Typaeum. It is a law of Elis to throw any women who are caught present at the Olympic Games off it, or even on the other side of the Alpheios, on the days prohibited to women. However, they say that no woman has been caught, except Callipateira; some, however, say she was called Pherenice and not Callipateira. She, being a widow, disguised herself exactly like a gymnastic trainer and brought her son to compete at Olympia. Peisirodus, for so her son was called, was victorious, and Callipateira, as she was jumping over the enclosure in which they keep the trainers shut up exposed her person. So her gender was discovered, but they let her go unpunished out of respect for her father, her brothers, and her son, all of whom had been victorious at Olympia. But a law was passed that in the future trainers should strip before entering the arena.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.6.7-8

The only sports that women could compete at the Olympics were the equestrian events: although they did not drive their chariots or ride their horses, they could still send teams, and those whose teams won were considered and celebrated as Olympic victors:
Archidamus left sons when he died, of whom Agis was the elder and inherited the throne instead of Agesilaus. Archidamus had also a daughter, whose name was Cynisca; she was exceedingly ambitious to win at the Olympic Games, and was the first woman to breed horses and the first to win an Olympic victory. After Cynisca other women, especially Spartan women, have won Olympic victories, but none of them was more distinguished for their victories than she.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 3.8.1
After her victory Cynisca set up a statue at Olympia, at the base of which was this inscription:
My forefathers and brothers are kings of Sparta
I, Cyniska, was victorious with my team of swift horses,
and I have erected this statue. I may say that I am the only woman
in all of Greece to have obtained this garland.
Palatine Anthology 13.16
According to another source, the real motivating force was her brother, the Spartan king Agesilaus, who had her enter the chariot races to show that all there was to winning these races was money and not athletic ability:
However, on seeing that some of the citizens regarded themselves highly and were all puffed up because they bred racing horses, he persuaded his sister Cynisca to enter a chariot in the Olympic Games, wishing to show the Greeks that the victory there was not a mark of any great excellence, but simply of wealth and lavish outlay.
Plutarch, Life of Agesilaus 20.1
Whatever the truth of the matter Cynisca had a hero shrine at Sparta, honouring her achievements:
At Plane-tree Grove there is also a hero-shrine of Cynisca, daughter of Archidamus king of the Spartans. She was the first woman to breed horses, and the first to win a chariot race at Olympia. Behind the portico built by the side of Plane-tree Grove are other hero-shrines, of Alcimus, of Enaraephorus, at a little distance away one of Dorceus, and close to it one of Sebrus.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 3.15.1
In Sparta women exercised as keenly as the men did, also exercising naked (something which made Sparta a popular tourist destination for Romans):
Lycurgus pursued a different path. Clothes were things, he held, the furnishing of which might well enough be left to female slaves.⁴⁰ And, believing that the highest function of a free woman was the bearing of children, in the first place he insisted on the training of the body as incumbent no less on the female than the male; and in pursuit of the same idea instituted rival contests in running and feats of strength for women as for men. His belief was that where both parents were strong their progeny would be found to be more vigorous.
Xenophon, Spartan Constitution 1.4
However, there is relatively little evidence for sporting competitions for Spartan women:
Opposite is what is called the Knoll, with a temple of Dionysus of the Knoll, by which is a precinct of the hero who they say guided Dionysus on the way to Sparta. To this hero sacrifices are offered before they are offered to the god by the daughters of Dionysus and the daughters of Leucippus. For the other eleven ladies who are named daughters of Dionysus there is held a footrace; this custom came to Sparta from Delphi.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 3.13.7

The following inscription from 47 CE records the remarkable feats of three young women who competed all over the Greek world; it was discovered at Delphi on a base that once held the statues of the three sisters it mentions. This inscription is a subject of contention because it suggests that some women competed directly against men now just in artistic competitions but in the athletic ones as well. Note, however, its late date and the fact that this area was now governed by the Romans – we do not know how early such professional female athletes appeared:

Hermesianax son of Dionysios, citizen of Kaisarea Tralles as well as of

Athens and Delphi, dedicates this to Pythian Apollo on behalf of his daughters who hold the same citizenship:
For Tryphosa, who came first among the girls at the Pythian Games in the stadion when Antigonos and Cleomachidas sponsored⁴¹ the games, and the following Isthmian Games when Iouventios Proklos did the same there. For Hedea, who won the chariot race in armor at the Isthmian Games when Cornelius Pulcher was the sponsor, and the stadion at the Nemean Games when Antigonos was sponsor and at Sicyon when Menoitas was sponsor. She also won the lyre singing in the boys’ category at the Sebasteia in Athens when Nouios son of Philinos was sponsor. For Dionysia, who won the Isthmian Games when Antigonos was sponors, and the stadion in the games of Asclepius at the holy town of Epidauros when Nicoteles was sponsor.
SIG 802
Beyond the Olympics: the circuit of games
As previously mentioned, there were a number of other crown (stephanitic) games. These were: the Pythian Games (at Delphi for Apollo); the Isthmian Games (near Argos for Poseidon), and the Nemean Games (for Zeus). Of these three, the Nemean Games were the least important – the other two vied for second place behind Olympia. None of these overlapped, meaning that athletes would not have to choose between one and the other; all except Isthmia were on four year cycles – Isthmia was every 2 years, but every second games (so every four years) there was a Greater Isthmia, which was celebrated on a grander scale. They are listed in this poem from the Greek Anthology, which also lists what their crowns were mad of

There are four games in Greece, four sacred games,
Two celebrate mortals, two immortals:
Zeus, the son of Leto, Palaimon and Archemoros.
The prizes are an olive branch, apples, celery and fir tree.

Palatine Anthology 357
As the games were tied into worship of the pagan gods, they, like Romans spectacles, attracted fierce condemnation from Christians, like Clement of Alexandria, who rips into their foundation stories:
Let us now proceed briefly to review the contests, and let us put an end to these solemn gathering at tombs - the Isthmian, Nemean, Pythian, and, above all, the Olympian games. At the Pythian games they worship the Pythian serpent,⁴² and the gathering held in honour of this snake is entitled Pythian. At the Isthmus the sea cast up a miserable carcass, and the Isthmian Games are lamentations for Melicertes. At Nemea another, a child Archemorus, lies buried, and it is the celebrations held at the grave of this child that are called by the name Nemean. And Pisa – mark it, you Panhellenic peoples! – your Pisa is the tomb of a Phrygian charioteer, and the libations poured out for Pelops, which constitute the Olympian festivities, are appropriated by the Zeus of Phidias.⁴³
Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks 1
The Pythian games were held in Apollo’s sanctuary at Delphi. They are notable in that they had both artistic and athletic competitions, which fits with Apollo’s identity as the god of music and the arts; they also seem to have had some sort of arrangement with the Olympics, because the person who won the flute-playing competition at Delphi played the flute during the long-jump at the Olympics. Plutarch, who was a priest at Delphi, reports a discussion about getting rid of newer additions to the Pythian games and gives us a good account of the various events that took place there. One interesting upshot of adding artistic events was that women could and did compete directly with men in these:
At the Pythian games there was a discussion about taking away all the sports which had recently crept in and were not there from ancient times. For after they had taken in the tragedian in addition to the three ancient music competitions, which were as old as the games themselves, the Pythian flute-player, the lyre player, and the singer to the lyre, as if a large gate were opened, they could not keep out an infinite crowd of plays and musical entertainments of all sorts that rushed in after him. Which indeed made no unpleasant variety, and increased the company, but impaired the gravity and neatness of the games. Besides it must create a great deal of trouble to the judges, and considerable dissatisfaction to very many, since only a few could win. It was agreed upon that the orators and poets should be got rid of – this decision did not come from any hatred of learning, but as these contenders are the most noted and worthiest men of all, they admired them, and were troubled that, when they must judge every one deserving, they could not give the prize equally to all. I, as I was there at this discussion, dissuaded those who were for removing things from their present settled order and who thought this variety as unsuitable to the games as many strings and many notes to an instrument. When the same subject was talked about at supper, as Petraeus the president and director of the sports, was entertaining us, I defended music, and maintained that poetry was no upstart intruder, but that had been admitted into the sacred games in the dim and distant past, and crowns were given to the best performer. Some guests imagined that I intended to produce some old musty stories, like the funeral games of Oeolycus the Thessalian or of Amphidamas the Chalcidean, at which they say Homer and Hesiod contended for the prize. But passing by these instances as the common theme of every grammarian, as likewise their criticisms who, in the description of Patroclus’ obsequies in Homer, read ϱ̔ήμονες, orators, and not ϱ̔’ ἥμονες, darters, as if Achilles had proposed a prize for the best speaker — omitting all these, I said that Acastus at his father Pelias’ funeral set a prize for contending poets, and Sibylla won it. At this, a great many demanded some authority for this unlikely and incredible story, I happily recollecting myself produced Acesander, who has this story in his description of Africa; but I must confess this is not an easy to find book. But Polemo the Athenian’s Commentary of the Treasures of Delphi, which I suppose most of you have read through and through as he is a very learned man and diligent in the Greek antiquities. In him you shall find that in the Sicyonian treasure there was a golden book dedicated to the god, with this inscription: “Aristomache, the poetess of Erythraea, dedicated this after she had won the prize at the Isthmian Games.” Nor is there any reason, I continued, why we should so admire and reverence the Olympic Games, as if, like Fate, they were unalterable, and never admitted any change since the first institution. For the Pythian Games, it is true, has had three or four musical prizes added; but all the exercises of the body were for the most part the same from the beginning. But in the Olympian games everything except running is a late addition. They added some and abolished them again; such were the apene,⁴⁴ either rode or in a chariot, as likewise the crown appointed for boys that were victorious in the pentathlon. And, in short, a thousand things in those games are mere novelties.
Plutarch, Moralia 674d-675B

Pausanias, unfortunately, wasn’t that interested in the victors in the musical contests, but he does still discuss the Pythian games and talks about their history. He is how we find out that they dropped one artistic event – singing to the flute – because it was too depressing:

The oldest contest and the one for which they first offered prizes was, according to tradition, the singing of a hymn to the god. The man who sang and won the prize was Chrysothemis of Crete, whose father Carmanor is said to have cleansed Apollo. After Chrysothemis, says tradition, Philammon won with a song, and after him his son Thamyris. But they say that Orpheus, a proud man and conceited about his mysteries, and Musaeus, who copied Orpheus in everything, refused to submit to the competition in musical skill. They say too that Eleuther won a Pythian victory for his loud and sweet voice, for the song that he sang was not of his own composition. The story is that Hesiod too was forbidden to compete because he had not learned to accompany his own singing on the lyre. Homer too came to Delphi to inquire about his needs, but even though he had learned to play the lyre, he would have found the skill useless owing to the loss of his eye-sight.

In the third year of the forty-eighth Olympiad, at which Glaucias of Croton was victorious, the Amphictyons⁴⁵ held contests for playing the lyre as from the beginning, but added competitions for flute-playing and for singing to the flute. The conquerors proclaimed were Melampus, a Cephallenian, for playing the lyre, and Echembrotus, an Arcadian, for singing to the flute, with Sacadas of Argos for flute-playing. This same Sacadas won victories at the next two Pythian festivals. On that occasion they also offered for the first time prizes for athletes, the competitions being the same as those at Olympia, except the four-horse chariot, and the Delphians themselves added to the contests running-races for boys, the long course and the double course. At the second Pythian Festival they no longer offered prizes for events, and hereafter gave a crown for victory. On this occasion they no longer included singing to the flute, thinking that the music was ill-omened to listen to. For the tunes of the flute were most dismal, and the words sung to the tunes were lamentations.

What I say is confirmed by the votive offering of Echembrotus, a bronze tripod dedicated to the Heracles at Thebes. The tripod has as its inscription:

Echembrotus of Arcadia dedicated this pleasant gift to Heracles
When he won a victory at the games of the Amphictyons,
Singing for the Greeks tunes and lamentations.

In this way the competition in singing to the flute was dropped. But they added a chariot-race, and Cleisthenes, the tyrant of Sicyon, was proclaimed victor in the chariot-race.

At the eighth Pythian Festival they added a contest for lyre players playing without singing; Agelaus of Tegea was crowned. At the twenty-third Pythian Festival they added the hoplitodromos. For this Timaenetus of Phlius won the laurel, five Olympiads after Damaretus of Heraea was victorious. At the forty-eighth Pythian Festival they established a race for two-horse chariots, and the chariot won of Execestides the Phocian. At the fifth Festival after this they yoked foals to a chariot, and the chariot of Orphondas of Thebes came in first. The pankration for boys, a race for a chariot drawn by two foals, and a race for ridden foals, were introduced from Elis many years. The first was brought in at the sixty-first Pythian Festival, and Iolaidas of Thebes was victorious. At the next Festival but one they held a race for a ridden foal, and at the sixty-ninth Festival a race for a chariot drawn by two foals; the victor proclaimed for the former was Lycormas of Larisa, for the latter Ptolemy the Macedonian. For the kings of Egypt liked to be called Macedonians, as in fact they were. The reason why a crown of laurel is the prize for a Pythian victory is in my opinion simply and solely because the prevailing tradition has it that Apollo fell in love with the daughter of Ladon.⁴⁶

Pausanias, Description of Greece 10.7.4-8

There was anciently a contest held at Delphi, of players on the cithara, who executed a paean in honor of the god. It was instituted by the Delphians. But after the Crisaean war the amphictyons, in the time of Eurylochus, established contests for horses and gymnastic sports, in which the victor was crowned. These were called Pythian games, in addition to the musical contests.

Strabo, Geography c. 20 CE

The Isthmian Games, like the other games, had their own foundation story.

There are legends about the rocks, which rise especially at the narrow part of the road. As to the Molurian, it is said that from it Ino flung her self into the sea with Melicertes, the younger of her children. Learchus, the elder of them, had been killed by his father. One account is that Athamas did this in a fit of madness; another is that he vented on Ino and her children unbridled rage when he learned that the famine which befell the Orchomenians and the supposed death of Phrixus were not accidents from heaven, but that Ino, the step-mother, had intrigued for all these things.[1.44.8] Then it was that she fled to the sea and cast herself and her son from the Molurian Rock. The son, they say, was landed on the Corinthian Isthmus by a dolphin, and honors were offered to Melicertes, then renamed Palaemon, including the celebration of the Isthmian Games

Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.44.7-8

There was an on-going feud between the Isthmian Games and the Olympics and athletes from Elis did not compete in the Isthmian Games. This feud was traced back to mythical times:

When she discovered him, the Eleians demanded satisfaction for the crime from the people of Argos, for at the time Heracles had his home at Tiryns. When the Argives refused them satisfaction, the Eleians as an alternative pressed the Corinthians entirely to exclude the people of Argos from the Isthmian Games. When they failed in this also, Moline is said to have laid curses on her countrymen, should they refuse to boycott the Isthmian festival. The curses of Molione are respected right down to the present day, and no athlete of Elis competes in the Isthmian Games.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.8.3

The popularity of the Isthmian Games and its very convenient location led to Nero using it to announce the freedom of Greece when he doing his tour of the games. (Freedom in this case meant local self-government and freedom from taxation, rather than freedom entirely from Roman rule. Although it was rescinded under the Flavians, it made Nero incredibly popular in Greece.)

In competition he observed the rules most scrupulously, never daring to clear his throat and even wiping the sweat from his brow with his arm. Once, indeed, during the performance of a tragedy, when he had dropped his sceptre but quickly recovered it, he was terribly afraid that he might be excluded from the competition because of his slip, and his confidence was restored only when his accompanist swore that it had passed unnoticed amid the delight and applause of the people. When he won he made the announcement himself; and for that reason he always took part in the contests of the heralds. To obliterate the memory of all other victors in the games and leave no trace of them, their statues and busts were all thrown down by his order, dragged off with hooks, and cast into toilets. He also drove a chariot in many places, and a ten-horse chariot team at Olympia, although in one of his own poems he had criticized Mithridates for just that thing. But after he had been thrown from the car and put back in it, he was unable to hold out and gave up before the end of the course; but he received the crown just the same. On his departure he presented the entire province with freedom and at the same time gave the judges Roman citizenship and a large sum of money. These favors he announced in person on the day of the Isthmian Games, standing in the middle of the stadium.

Suetonius, Life of Nero 24

And back to Rome:

As we leave Greece to return to Rome, here’s a brief description by Pausanias of the statues of the emperors at Olympia:

There are statues of emperors: Hadrian, of Parian marble dedicated by the cities of the Achaean confederacy, and Trajan, dedicated by all the Greeks. This emperor subdued the Getae beyond Thrace, and made war on Osroes the descendant of Arsaces and on the Parthians. Of his architectural achievements the most remarkable are baths called after him, a large circular theatre, a building for horse-races which is actually two stades long, and the Forum at Rome, worth seeing not only for its general beauty but especially for its roof made of bronze. Of the statues set up in the round buildings, the amber one represents Augustus the Roman emperor, the ivory one they told me was a portrait of Nicomedes, king of Bithynia. After him the greatest city in Bithynia was renamed Nicomedeia; before him it was called Astacus, and its first founder was Zypoetes, a Thracian by birth to judge from his name. This amber of which the statue of Augustus is made, when found native in the sand of the Eridanus, is very rare and precious to men for many reasons; the other “amber” is an alloy of gold and silver. In the temple at Olympia are four offerings of Nero – three crowns representing wild-olive leaves, and one representing oak leaves. Here too are laid twenty-five bronze shields, which are for the armed men to carry in the race. Tablets too are set up, including one on which is written the oath sworn by the Eleans to the Athenians, the Argives and the Mantineans, that they would be their allies for a hundred years.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.12.7-8

Apollonius was a Greek holy man and philosopher who was a contemporary of Nero and Vespasian:

The conversations which Apollonius held about things which met his eyes were, according to Damis, many in number, but the following he said deserve to be recorded. On one occasion they were sitting in the temple of Heracles [in Spain] and Menippus gave a laugh, for it happened that Nero had just come to his mind, "And what," he said, "are we to think of this splendid fellow? In which of the contests has he won wreaths of late? Don't you think that self-respecting Hellenes must shake with laughter when they are on their way to the festivals?"

And Apollonius replied: "As I have heard from Telesinus,⁴⁷ the worthy Nero is afraid of the whips of the Eleans; for when his flatterers urged him to win at Olympia and to proclaim Rome as the victor, he answered: 'Yes, if the Eleans will only not depreciate me, for they are said to use whips and to look down upon me.' And many worse bits of nonsense than this forecast fell from his lips. I however admit that Nero will conquer at Olympia, for who is bold enough to compete against him? But I deny that he will win at the Olympic festival, because they are not keeping it at the right season. For custom requires that this should have been held last year, but Nero has ordered the Eleans to put it off until his own visit, in order that they may sacrifice to him rather than to Zeus. And it is said that he has announced a tragedy and a performance on the lyre for people who have neither a theatre nor a stage for such entertainments, but only the stadium which nature has provided, and races which are all run by athletes stripped of their clothes. He however is going to take the prize for performances which he ought to have hidden in the dark, for he has thrown off the robes of Augustus and Julius Caesar and has dressed himself up in the garb of an Amoebeus or a Terpnus.
Philostratus, Life of Apollonius 5.7

Figure I: Map of Olympia

1: Propyleon NE 2: Prytaneon 3: Monument of Philip II of Macedon 4: Temple of Hera 5: Sanctuary of Pelops 6. Fountain of Herodes Atticus 7: Temple of the Great Mother 8: Zanes 9: Cryptaeum 10: Stadium 11: Portico of Eco 12: Monument of Ptolemy II and Arsinoe 13: Portico of Hestia 14: Hellenistic building 15: Temple to Olympian Zeus 16: Altar of Olympian Zeus

17: Treasury of the Achaeans 18 Dedications of Michito of Reggio 19: Nike of Paeonias 20: Gymnasium 21: Palaestra 22: Theokoleon 23: Heroon 24: Office of the officials and early Christian basilica 25: Baths of Claudius 26: Greek baths 27 and 28: Hostels 29: Sanctuary of Leonidas 30 Baths 31 Bouleuterion 32: South Portico 33: Villa of Nero