Реферат: Olympic Games Essay Research Paper

these festivals lost their local character and became Pan-Hellenic. Four of

these festivals, Olympian, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian, had attracted world

wide attention but the one held at Olympia was by far the most important

consecrated to the Olympian Zeus. The Olympic Games became the greatest festival

of a mighty nation. Once every four years "trading was suspended, the

continuously warring states and the fighting tribes laid down their arms, and

all of the people went forth in peace to pay tribute to the manhood of its

nation"(Gorman 82). The immediate site of the Games, the Stadium of

Olympia, lay towards the northeast of the Altis beyond Mount Kromion. It was an

oblong area that was "about 643 feet in length and about 97 feet wide. It

consisted of four sloping heights, two at the sides and two at the ends. The one

at the north had been cut into a hill, while the other had been artificially

formed by earth that had been taken from the arena. The spectators sat on the

grassy slopes which accommodated more than 40,000"(White 50). For the first

13 Olympiads, the competition consisted of "a single race of 200 yards,

approximately the length of the stadium"(Gorman 84) The race was called the

"Stade" from which our word "stadium" was derived. The first

recorded victor in 776 B.C. was "Coroebus of Elis, a cook"(Gorman 84).

The athletes of Elis maintained an unbroken string of victories until the 14th

Olympiad at which time a second race of two lengths of the stadium was added. In

the 15th Olympiad, an endurance event was added in which the athletes "went

12 times around the stadium, about 4 1/2 kilometers"(Gorman 85). The

athletes competed in groups of four, which were determined by "drawing lots

with the winners meeting the other winners until a final race was

run"(Gorman 86). In 708 B.C., the Pentathlon and Wrestling events were

introduced. In 688 B.C., Boxing; in 680 the Four Horse Chariot Race; in 648 the

Pancration (a fierce combination of boxing and wrestling), and in 580 the Armed

Race where the men traversed the stadium twice while heavily armed. In the

pentathlon, those who jumped a certain distance qualified for the spear