Lampas - Volume 54, Issue 2, 2021

Abstract The origin of the Olympics is a topic much researched by historians and archaeologists, who are eager to reconstruct ‘wie es eigentlich gewesen’. An ancient poet like Pindar had a very different take on this issue: he constructs a past that is attractive to the victors in the games, and does so by modelling the mythic past closely after the historic present. This phenomenon of invented tradition is illustrated in detail for t Read More

Abstract Although ancient Olympia is usually viewed as a Classical Greek site, most buildings that are visible nowadays were not there yet when Pindar celebrated famous victors or Peisistratos and Alcibiades won their races. More generally, even though new research has substantially improved our knowledge, the early history of the site is often still neglected in introductory presentations of the site. In this article some Read More

Abstract The pleasant, quiet archaeological site of Olympia appears a far cry from the fame of the ancient Olympic Games, or from the spectacle of the modern variety. In this article, I discuss the end of ancient Olympia and the gradual re-emergence of the archaeological site. After Olympia was abandoned in early Byzantine times, its location was no longer remembered. However, its fame remained, partly through translatio Read More

Abstract Most studies of the ancient Olympic Games focus on the Classical period. This is a bit surprising, as it has been established that the Hellenistic and Roman periods constituted the hey-days of Greek sport. In the Hellenistic period, a shared sports and festival culture was one of the main ingredients of an imagined community of Greek cities stretching from southern Italy as far as the Tigris, and beyond. In the Roman Read More

Abstract The modern Olympic Games started with a modest, but international event in Athens in 1896, the result of a long preparation process launched by Baron De Coubertin. Some ancient elements were included, but as a whole these and subsequent Olympics were purely modern manifestations. Several classical references in the modern games were only introduced in the 1936 games which took place in a sinister Read More

Abstract General introductions to the ancient Olympic Games often paint an idealized picture of intrinsically motivated and fair athletes, competing purely for the honour of the victory. From a scholarly point of view, this image has been adjusted in recent years: also among the ancient athletes there were certainly some who cheated. As the topic of fairness and cheating is very accessible to younger students, this theme is well-s Read More