After changing our charted path due to unusually inclement weather, we arrived at Olympia a site of Hellenic unity for the Greek city-states during antiquity. The denial of participation of the Lacedemonians by the people of Elis to the site of Olympia at 420 BC was the cause for the second phase of the Peloponnesian war.
However, we were not to be denied despite the weather obstacles of Aeolos, and successfully competed, at least got on the starting line.
In the birthplace of the ancient games one could truly feel the essence of the ancient athletes and the pride and passion of the Greeks. The defining line between man and god was blurred here where contenders battled for eternal glory in the eyes of their countrymen.
ReplyDeleteToo bad in this picture only some of us were ready for a race! The sun felt so good this day, I can't even imagine being here in the summer time with only that running stream to drink from for all those people before running water was built in. It was unreal looking at all these ruins, it is so old its hard to take in! I think that it really hit me when we were here how real the ancient olympic games were because we were walking on the same ground that all those people did thousands of years ago.
ReplyDeleteStanding in the Olympic stadium you could feel the energy. The setting seems perfect for these games with the mountains surrounding and no seats, just standing room. I found it interesting that anybody caught cheating would have to pay for a sculpture that would be placed on the entrance to the stadium describing their crime.
ReplyDeleteOlympia was my favorite site of the trip. Ancient Olympia was a communal area, no one city-state had possession of the site of the olympic games, and the olympics were a sacred event taken very seriously by the ancient greeks. standing on the hill overlooking the stadium you could put yourself in the position of a spectator, imagining what it would be like to watch such an event. As a female, I wouldn't have been allowed to enter the stadium, but I could still sense the strong energy of the area and imagine what a competition would be like..
ReplyDeleteThe Olympics is something is that almost everybody knows something about and it was so cool to be in the place where they were held in Ancient Greece. We got to stand in the tunnel the athletes ran through to get to the stadium. Standing on the starting line gave us a view of what it would have been like to stand there and see what it would have been like to see the entire stadium filled. It was also really amazing to see the amount of detail that was put into building the temples and how each column was made up of smaller pieces and only a few of them were taller than I am. It was also really awsome to see all the pieces in the museum that had been preserved over so many years. Ancient Greece also had a system for idnetifying and drawing attention to cheaters in the games. The competitions were regarded so highly that they made sure that everyone knew who had cheated and they made sure that it was remembered by taxing them and inscribing who had had to give the money for the construction.
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