Olympia

The granddaddy of the games was situated on the western side of the Pelopon-nesos, about i6 kilometers from the Ionian Sea (although the coast was closer in antiquity). The Alpheios River flows westward down from the Arkadian Mountains through rolling hills to the coastal plain at the sea. Where the land flattens out from hills to plain and the Alpheios is joined by the Kladeos River lies the prominent Hill of Kronos, the father of the gods. These three natural features defined the limits of the Altis, the Sanctuary of Zeus, and of appendages to the sanctuary such as the gymna-sion, stadium, and hippodrome (fig. 166). It is important to remember that Olympia was not a city-state; it passed no laws, issued no coins, pursued no independent foreign policy. It was administered by the city-state of Elis, with which it had extremely close ties, even though it was almost 60 kilometers distant by road.

In the earliest times of the Olympic Games, the sanctuary was clustered at the southwest corner of the Hill of Kronos (fig. 167). Excavations have revealed an extensive layer of sacrificial debris including hundreds of bronze and terra-cotta figurines, largely of horses or chariots (fig. 168), that date to the eighth and seventh centuries b. c. This Black Layer (as the excavators call it) lies beneath the later Heraion (Temple of Hera) and Pelopion (Shrine of Pelops), and near the Altar of Zeus and the Prytaneion. This is the core of Olympia. The Prytaneion was the home of Hestia, the goddess of the hearth, whose eternal flame attested to the health and welfare of Elis. Every city-state had a prytaneion with a hearth and an eternal flame, but that the Eleans placed theirs at Olympia shows how closely Elis was tied to Olympia. Indeed, given the sacrosanct character accorded Elis because of the Olympic Games (according to Polybius 4.73.6-10; A 85), the Prytaneion at Olympia was in some sense a hearth common to all Greeks. Here the victors at the games were given a banquet, and it was from this point that the sacrificial processions around the Altis began and ended.

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Fig. 166 Model of the Sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia seen from the south. The Hill of Kronos is at the center rear (K) and the white-roo Temple of Zeus in the center (TZ). The gymnasion lies to the upper left (G), with the stadium on the upper right (S), and the start of hippodrome at the lower right (H) (photo: ©The British Museum, neg. inv. no. PS254092).

Fig. :67 Plan of the Sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia. The Black Layer marks the core of the sanctuary: the Heraion, the Pelopion, and the Altar of Zeus. Note the outline of Stadium I near the altar and that of Stadium II farther to the east, beneath the Echo Stoa but still within the Altis. After N. Yalouris, ed.,The Olympic Games (Athens, 1976), 100-101.

Fig. 168 Figurine of a chariot and charioteer. Bronze, 8th century B. c. Olympia, Archaeological Museum, inv. no. B1670 (photo: author).

Fig. 169 The Temple of Flera, ca. 600 B. c. The stone columns replaced wooden versions, accounting for the subtle differences in shape and proportion between the columns and their capitals. In the recessed areas on the columns bronze plaques were attached, inscribed with such public documents as regulations for the games, treaties between city-states, and other public announcements (photo: author).

Adjacent to the Prytaneion was the Heraion, the temple of the goddess Hera, wife of Zeus and queen of the gods. Its remains are among the earliest extant of a stone temple in ancient Greece. Actually, the columns were originally made of wood; the stone columns were replacements for those early wooden versions that were erected at later dates throughout antiquity (hg. 169). Pausanias (5.16.1) tells us that there was still one wooden column in his day. It is one of the greatest ironies from antiquity that the oldest large-scale monument at Olympia, a bastion of male domination, was dedicated to Hera. The Temple of Zeus, lying to the south and outside the earliest sacred area, was constructed about 150 years later. Both topographically and chronologically (so far as the remains tell us), Zeus was a later addition to Olympia.

On the other hand, the Altar of Zeus (which was the center of his worship) occupied a prominent position somewhere in or near this early core of the sanctuary. Made of the ashes of previous sacrifices, the altar does not survive, but Pausanias makes its general location clear (see fig. 167); in fact, it has been suggested that the Black Layer represents an early version of the Altar of Zeus. Furthermore, there are no figurines of females mixed in with the hundreds of male examples from the eighth and seventh centuries.

At the core of the early sanctuary lies the Pelopion, the shrine of the hero Pelops, whose story was told by a group of statues on the eastern end of the Temple of Zeus. This simple shrine consisted in prehistoric times of a mound that in the fourth century was enclosed by a wall in the shape of a lopsided pentagon. Here Pelops, who gave his name to the Peloponnesos, was worshiped with libations and sacrifices of black rams, appropriate for a figure associated with the underworld. More than that, Pelops is the key divinity at Olympia; the Eleans made sacrifices to him before they offered them to Zeus (schol. Pindar, Olympian 1.149a). It is important to note that the central role played at Olympia by a hero, a mortal who had become more than mortal, was repeated at the other sites. These heroes and their cults represent the enduring goal of the athlete to achieve immortality through superhuman effort, and they offer encouragement to him by celebrating the actual achievement of that status by his predecessors.

The Temple of Zeus, constructed around 460 b. c., may have been a relatively late addition to the sanctuary, but it was the major monument of Olympia and soon became the center of the Altis. As impressive as it was in size, its sculptural decoration was even more compelling. The eastern pediment told the story of the first Olympic Games, when the local king, Oinomaos, offered his daughter Hippodameia (mistress of horses) and his kingdom as the prize for anyone who could beat him in a chariot race. (If the challenger lost he forfeited his life.) Pelops won by bribing Oinomaos’s stable boy, Myrtilos, to replace the linchpin of the king’s chariot with a peg made of wax. In the heat of the race the wax melted, and the chariot wheels came off, throwing Oinomaos to his death in the ensuing crash. The ancients seem not to have been bothered by this bit of Olympic cheating.

The western pediment of the Temple of Zeus depicted the battle of the centaurs and the Lapiths presided over by Apollo, the god of music and culture. It is an allegory of the struggle between the centaurs’ bestiality and the Lapiths’ civilization, between barbarianism and Hellenism, and it served to unify and edify all the Greeks who came to Olympia.

The sculptural decoration of the Temple of Zeus included, inside the colonnade of the exterior, six metopes over the front porch and six over the back. These portrayed the twelve Labors of Herakles, beginning with his defeat of the Nemean lion (see fig. 99) and ending with his retrieval of the Apples of the Hesperides. But the labor that resonated the most powerfully in the region of Olympia was the cleaning of the stables of the local king, Augeas (fig. 170). To accomplish this feat Herakles actually had to divert the Kladeos River to wash away the filth. In some ancient versions Herakles himself was credited with founding the Olympics; at the least he was viewed as a particularly Dorian and Peloponnesian hero, hence the prominent placement of his exploits on the Temple of Zeus.

The most splendid of the sculptural decorations of the Temple of Zeus, however, was the chryselephantine (gold and ivory) cult statue of Zeus inside the building

Fig. 170 Herakles cleaning the stables of Augeas, king of Elis, with the help of Athena. Metope from the frieze over the inner porch of the Temple of Zeus. Olympia, Archaeological Museum (photo;

© Treasury of Archaeological Receipts).

(fig. 171). This magnificent statue was the work of Pheidias, who also created the enormous cult statue of Athena for the Parthenon in Athens. The statue of Zeus was completed by about 430, and it was regarded as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Although it has long since disappeared, the many verbal descriptions of it, and its portrayals in many media (especially the coins of Elis), allow us to reconstruct the image. Zeus was seated on a throne holding a scepter topped by his eagle in his left hand. On his extended right hand stood Nike, the personification of victory. The Nike was 6 ancient feet (1.8 meters) high, and Zeus himself more than 40 ancient feet (12 meters). One ancient critic claimed that Pheidias had made the statue too large: if Zeus tried to get up and leave, he would hit his head on the ceiling of the temple. The exposed flesh of Zeus (face, arms, feet) and of Nike were wrought in ivory, and the remainder of the composition in gold embossed and worked with various designs. When the front (east) doors of the temple were thrown open at daybreak on the god’s festival day, the first rays of the sun striking this image must have been overwhelming.

Behind the Temple of Zeus to the west was the sacred olive tree from which the Olympic victory crowns were cut, and scattered throughout the Altis were dozens of altars to various gods. The dominant element within the Altis, however, was the hundreds and hundreds of dedications. Many of these were statues set up by athletes and horse owners after a triumph at the games, but many were spoils of war. In both cases, the common element was victory, and Olympia should be understood, most of all, as

Fig. 171 Reconstruction of the gold-and-ivory cult statue of Zeus at Olympia by Pheidias, ca. 430 b. c. Drawing by Ruben Santos.

A place where victory was celebrated. That is the message personified by the Nike on the outstretched hand of the cult statue of Olympian Zeus.

The open area of the Altis was framed by a number of buildings. To the north, a row of small structures known as treasuries lined the foot of the Hill of Kronos (see fig. 166). Each was constructed by a different Dorian city-state in the late sixth or early fifth century and intended, at least in part, to advertise the importance of that city-state. To the west of these treasuries, still on the north side, a Nymphaion (fountain house) was added in the second century a. d. by the wealthy Herodes Atticus. This new source of water was an important if late addition to Olympia, extremely popular with the spectators at the games. On the west, across the road from the Prytaneion, was the large practice track of the gymnasion and the associated wrestling school (palaistra), which were added in the third century b. c. Immediately south of the palais-tra, and directly west of the Temple of Zeus and aligned with it, was the workshop of Pheidias where the cult statue of Zeus was created (fig. 172). The importance of the statue was recognized from the beginning, and the workshop was preserved as a kind of museum commemorating Pheidias’s craft. Farther to the south was a large square building with a central courtyard known as the Leonidaion, after the donor, Leonidas of Elis. Built in the early Hellenistic period, this was a kind of hotel.

The most important building along the south side of the sanctuary was the Bouleu-terion, or council house, which was actually two apsidal buildings joined by a smaller central building. The Olympic Council met here, and the athletes came to its Altar of Zeus

Fig. 172 Aerial view of the stadium and the Sanctuary of Zeus from the east, showing the Bouleuterion (B), the area of the Hippodrome (Hipp), the Leonidaion (L), the Prytaneion (P), the Temple of Hera (H), the Temple of Zeus (TZ), and the workshop of Pheidias (W) (photo: © H. R. Goette, Berlin).

Horkios (Zeus of the Oath) to take the Olympic oath. The entire east side of the Altis was framed by the long, narrow continuous exterior colonnade of the Echo Stoa, which faced out onto the open area and provided shelter for the crowd from sun and rain.

East of the southeast corner of the Altis and parallel to the stadium was the hippodrome (see figs. 166 and 172, center right). Although modern scholars believe that the hippodrome was washed away by the Alpheios River, the region has never been excavated. Indeed, new evidence from Nemea suggests that hippodromes may have been located in floodplains; layers of river gravel might thus represent the successive surfaces of the horse track. '

The entrance to the stadium was along the north short end of the Echo Stoa next to the Treasury Terrace wall (fig. 173). A series of bases here mark the location of bronze statues of Zeus, called Zanes, that were paid for by the fines levied against athletes caught giving or taking bribes; they were intended “to make clear that an Olympic victory is to be won not by money but by swiftness of foot or strength of body” (Pausanias 5.21.2-4; A103). It is no coincidence that these statues were placed directly on the path of the athletes entering the stadium.

The competitors passed through a gate made of Corinthian-style columns between the Echo Stoa and the Treasury Terrace (fig. 174). From this point on, access was

Fig. 173 Entrance to Olympic stadium seen from the west.

It lies north of the Echo Stoa (stone blocks in right foreground), with bases for the Zanes (left) in front of the terrace wall of the treasuries and the tunnel to stadium behind to the right (photo: author).

Fig. 174 Entrance to Olympic stadium seen from the inside (east). From right: a cross-section through wall of the Treasury Terrace, the Corinthian gate, and the back wall of the Echo Stoa. The shed roof against wall of the Echo Stoa was supported by wooden columns; this was the roof of the locker room. From W. Koenigs, Die Echohalle, Olympische Forschungen XIV (Berlin, 1984), pi. 76, courtesy Deutsches Archaeologisches Institut.

Restricted to athletes and judges. The area between the back wall of the Echo Stoa and the retaining wall for the stadium embankment was the location of the apodyterion (undressing room). This ancient equivalent of the modern locker room was partly open to the sky; the rest was covered by a shed roof built against the back wall of the stoa.

From the apodyterion the athlete passed through the krypte esodos (hidden entrance; fig. 175). This was a vaulted tunnel originally more than 30 meters long, covered by the earth embankment on which the spectators sat. This embankment took advantage of the natural slope along the north side, but the remainder was artificial. The track was surrounded by a water channel with basins at intervals and a balbis (line of starting blocks) across each end (see fig. 37). Along the north side was the marble altar of Demeter Chamyne (Demeter on the Ground), whose priestess was the only woman of marriageable age allowed at the games. Opposite that altar was the area marked off for the judges (Hellanodikai), the Hellanodikaion. (Apparently the judge of the Olympic Games was originally called a diaitater [arbitrator]; the rather more grandiose title Hel-lanodikes, “judge of the Hellenes,” was adopted afterward, perhaps as a result of the Greek successes in the Persian Wars.) This was an enclosed platform where judges who were not directly involved in a specific event could oversee the competitions (fig. 176; see also fig. 34). But some of the Hellanodikai would always be on the track.

The stadium we can see today at Olympia came into existence around 340 B. c. or a little earlier, undergoing only minor changes during the remainder of its active history. But there were at least two earlier versions of the stadium (see fig. 167). The immediate predecessor followed the same orientation as the extant stadium, but it lay farther to the west, closer to the core of the sanctuary. The earliest stadium is poorly documented, and its precise location and size are not really known, but it lay closer to the Altar of Zeus and the Pelopion. Indeed, we hear from a late author that the original

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Fig. 176 Reconstruction of the Hellan-odikaion at Olympia, seen from the southeast. Note the krypte esodos at the back, in the northwest corner of the stadium. Drawing by Ruben Santos.

Fig. 175 The tunnel entrance (krypte esodos) to the stadium at Olympia. Originally constructed, with a narrower passage, in the 4th century B. C., the modern reconstruction of a small part of the vault is based on an ancient reconstruction of Roman times. The end of the Treasury Terrace wall appears at the extreme left (photo: author).

Stadion race was connected directly to the altar (Philostratos, On Gymnastics 5). According to this account, the athletes stood one stadion distant from the altar, on which were placed the sacrificial offerings to Zeus. A priest standing next to the altar signaled the start of the race by waving a lighted torch. The runner who finished first lit the fire, burned the sacrificial offerings, and was proclaimed Olympic victor. If this account is accurate, and if we have located the Altar of Zeus correctly, then the race would have begun more or less where the later Hellanodikaion stood and passed beneath the Echo Stoa. But precision and confidence in these details are impossible. Nonetheless, despite the fragmentary state of our knowledge, two basic evolutionary trends are clear and will be examined in more detail later: the stadium moved progressively farther from the religious center of Olympia, and increasingly more room was created for spectators.