The history of the Olympic Games

Olympics, a symbol of modern sports, how did it come about? The ancient Olympic Games, which lasted from 776 BC to 394 AD, what was its origin? What was the reason for its termination? Where did the modern Olympic Games originate from?

Origins of the Ancient Olympic Games

There are many legends about the origins of the ancient Olympic Games. The main ones are the following two: one is that the ancient Olympic Games were sports competitions held regularly to worship Zeus. The other legend is about Hercules, the son of Zeus.

Hercules was called “Hercules” for his great strength. He completed a task that ordinary people could not accomplish in the city-state of Elis. In less than half a day, he cleaned the king’s cowshed full of cow dung. However, the king did not want to fulfill his promise to give him 300 cows, so Hercules drove the king away in anger. To celebrate his victory, he held a sports meeting in Olympia.　　

To be precise, the origin of the ancient Olympic Games was the need for military training in ancient Greece. Sports competitions can exercise physical fitness and skills, which are indispensable in ancient military activities.

Even in the modern Olympic Games, many events still bear traces of ancient military training, such as javelin, hammer throw, horse racing, etc.

The Rise of the Ancient Olympic Games

In 776 BC, the ruler of Peloponnese, Iphitus, tried to integrate religion and sports. He not only innovated religious rituals, but also organized large-scale sports competitions and activities, and decided to hold them every four years. The time was set after the summer solstice in a leap year. Therefore, the ancient Olympic Games in 776 BC was officially recorded in history as the first ancient Olympic Games. At that time, there was only one event. That is, the field race with a distance of 192.27 meters.

Although there were disputes between the city-states during this period, Greece was an independent country with relatively developed politics, economy, and culture. It was the golden age of the Games. Especially in 490 BC, after Athens, Greece, defeated the Persian army in the Marathon Valley, the people were excited and the national prestige was greatly boosted. Many sports facilities and temples were built. Participants came from all Greek city-states. The Olympic Games flourished and became the grandest festival in Greece.

Ancient Greek civilization once reached a very high peak, and its culture spread to the world with the conquest of Alexander the Great. The seed of the Olympics also took root in the hearts of people around the world.

The decline of the ancient Olympics

History is constantly changing. The history of mankind is always a cycle of one person taking his place and another taking his place.

Ancient Greek civilization eventually had a successor, which was Rome.

After the second century BC, Rome gradually expanded and finally conquered all of Greece. Facing a new culture, where would the Olympic Games go?

At first, Rome did not do anything to the Olympics. But it gradually changed its form. The most direct change was to move the venue from Olympia to Rome. The Olympia Games gradually became useless.

But the good times did not last long. As Rome’s national strength gradually declined, the Roman Emperor Constantine introduced a new ideology to maintain the unity of the empire: Christianity.

The End of the Ancient Olympics

In 393 AD, the Roman Emperor Theodosius I established Christianity as the state religion.

The Olympics finally met with a catastrophe.

The asceticism and theism advocated by Christianity conflict with the humanistic, free and hardworking spirit of the Olympics. Moreover, the Olympics was considered a celebration to worship Zeus, which made it labeled as a “pagan religion”.

In 394 AD, the ancient Olympic Games, which had lasted for more than a thousand years, finally came to an end, and history entered a dark age.

Cultural change

The process of the Olympic Games’ rise and fall is essentially the process of Greek culture being completely replaced by Roman-Latin culture and then gradually Christianized.

To some extent, the Olympic Games are consistent with the overall destiny of mankind, which is a historical process dominated by culture. In the next thousand years or so, the entire West entered the so-called Dark Ages – the Middle Ages.

The emergence of the modern Olympic Games is actually the reverse transformation of the above process. A thousand years later, in the 14th century, the Italians gradually realized the greatness of ancient civilization. Their humanity was highlight, and they constantly pursued the spirit of people-oriented in art and culture. That was the vigorous Renaissance era.

The advent of the modern Olympic Games

Humanity finally got rid of the oppression of “God” and welcomed the manifestation of its own value. But in that era, it was impossible to support the development of the Olympic Games either politically (Greece was still under the rule of Ottoman Turkey) or ideologically.

Until the end of the 19th century.

At this time, Europe was flourishing in culture and technology, and there had not been a large-scale, full-scale war for nearly a hundred years since the Napoleonic Wars. Countries were in great need of a large-scale sports event to carry out political and cultural exchanges.

Pierre de Coubertin, an educator from France, came up with the idea of ​​sports games under the influence of ancient Greek culture and the education of the British bourgeoisie.

After his unremitting efforts, the first modern Olympic Games was finally held in Athens in 1896.

Summary and Outlook

The Olympic Games have gone through more than 2,700 years of ups and downs, like an old man who has experienced many vicissitudes of life, telling the world about the past of mankind.

The modern Olympic Games, from being hosted to being respected by millions and spreading the spirit of freedom, hard work and competition among people, are the result of the hard work of many generations.