Olympics, then and now

Magazine Antiques, Sept, 2004 by Alfred Mayor

This year Athens was the site of the modern-day Olympics for the first time since 1906, itself a distant echo of the first games, in the eighth century BC in Olympia. Those early days are the subject of an exhibition on view until November 28 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and of its catalogue of the same title: Games for the Gods: The Greek Athlete and the Olympic Spirit, this month's book.

The first quadrennial games consisted solely of a footrace, and throughout their existence the ancient games never included any team contests. However, there are similarities between then and now, some of them awkward. In the old days everybody bribed everybody else, and, if they were caught, they were fined. The money was then spent on a bronze statue to Zeus set up at the entrance to the stadium at Olympia. Apparently there were lots of statues. Some contestants escaped the penalty, notably the Roman emperor Nero, who fell off his chariot during a race in the Olympics of 67. He claimed he had won anyway and was awarded the olive leaf crown by the terrified judges.

Then, as now, prizes at the Olympics were symbolic rather than monetary--wreaths, ribbons, and so forth. However, then as now as well, the winner's sponsor was generous with perks of all kinds. In the ancient Olympics the contestants were professionals who made the circuit of municipal and regional games in Delphi, the Isthmus of Corinth, and Nemea, which sprang up in imitation of the Olympics. In the non-Olympic games they won valuable prizes and lived very well. Only recently have the modem Olympics been opened to professionals, acknowledging the alarming professionalism of some of the "amateurs."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Today there is lots of money to be made by pitching equipment for athletes in general, and perhaps even more for Olympic athletes. In this the ancient Greeks had the edge, since by regulation they were clothed only in a thick coat of olive oil dusted with dirt or sand. The purported benefits were to protect the body from wind and to inhibit sweating, which was felt to drain one's strength. After their competition the steamy athletes scraped off the oily mess with a strigil, which looks something like a sickle. The strigil was so much part of an athlete's equipment it is shown hanging on the wall behind him in representations on vases. While this may seem grossly unsanitary in the era of showers and deodorants, it had its fans. Socrates, for example, felt that the oily sweaty smell of the athletic field was preferable to the perfumes of slaves and freemen. But then, he was fond of lingering in the undressing room, eyeing the talent, according to Plato.

Women were not allowed to compete in the Olympics, and when they practiced athletics, they were clothed. The exception was Sparta, as it was in so many other ways. There boys and girls alike competed naked, which got Spartan maidens the reputation for being rather fast. Perhaps this was justified, for it must be remembered that Helen of Troy was a Spartan.

The last Olympic Games in the ancient world were probably held around 390, thereafter succumbing to a ban on pagan cults decreed by the Roman emperor Theodosius in 393. The games were staged sporadically in England in the seventeenth century and in Europe and the United States in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. However, it was not until 1896 that the modern Olympic Games were revived in Athens, thanks to the persistence of the French baron Pierre de Coubertin who successfully packaged a festival that included pageantry, ethics, physical activity, peaceful coexistence, and the mystique of the ancient world.

The baron had done his homework, for in the old days the so-called Olympic Truce prevailed for the duration of the games. This was announced by heralds sent out to invite all the states to contribute contestants. Participating athletes had to affirm that they had been training for ten months before the games, and then spend the eleventh month training at the Olympic gymnasium (from gymnos, naked) near Elis, the city near Olympia from which the Olympics were administered. The athletes were instructed to watch their diet and abstain from the debilitations of sex.

Once the games began, the rules were very relaxed by modern standards. Boxing was done without gloves, and the bout came to an end when the winner incapacitated the loser. If the loser was killed, the winner was banished from the games and the corpse was declared the winner. In addition to death, eye gouging, biting, and breaking an opponent's fingers were technically forbidden. On the lighter side, jumpers, javelin throwers, and others performed to the cadence of a flute. A delightful vase illustrated in the book shows two naked lads in mid-jump, as precise as Rockettes, while the flutist tootles at the right.

The illustrations are devoted almost exclusively to the ancient Olympics, although there are occasional clever juxtapositions of photographs of modern Olympic athletes and their ancient counterparts doing the same thing. The glossary, always a useful addition, covers many bases, from the definition of obverse to "Hellanodikes (pl. Hellanodikai). Judge in athletic competition who determined victors and also punished athletes for fouls. See also athlothetes."