Its commonly believed that when men first began celebrating the Olympic Games, but were certainly doing it, since the time of Homer, starting from the 776 BC. And then on they were celebrated within every four years without fail, until people converted to Christianity and the Roman Emperor Theodosius banned the games in 393 AD. Greece Olympic Games carry an importance of their own.
In Athens, Greece when it was time for the games, the rulers of Elis sent out messengers all over Greece and to the Greek colonies around the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. In a way they declared a truce throughout the Greek world for a month. It didn’t effect even if there was a war going on, one had to stop the war and let their athletes and performers go through your city-state safely to get to the Olympic Games. Each city-state paid for a few athletes from their city to travel to Elis. The men in Athens, Greece had to swear that they had already trained for at least ten months. This applied to the fact that only men who were pretty rich could be in the Games, so they could afford to take so long off work, and also pay to have a good trainer. It’s also important to note that the very first modern Olympic Games opened in the first week of April 1896. Since the then Greek government had been unable to fund construction of a stadium, a wealthy Greek Georgios Averoff, donated one million drachmas to restore the Panathenaic Stadium, originally built in 330 BCE, with white marble for the Olympic Games. It’s commonly believed that when Olympic Games were held in Athens, Greece it also paved the way for politics, nationalism, commercialism and athletics which were further displayed with good accuracy.
|
