Ancient Athletics Part One: On Your Marks...

A relief from a funerary kouros base depicting two Greek wrestlers, one of the sports at such events as the Olympic Games at Olympia. c. 510 BCE. (National Archaeological Museum, Athens)

The Greeks loved competing.

Everything that could be turned into a competition became a competition. Homeric heroes compete in The Iliad. The great tragedies that we still know and love were entries in dramatic competitions. But the most famous ancient Greek competition is one that has had an impact on our modern world like no other: The Olympics.

This month the entire globe will be competing in a festival of physical strength and skill, and that festival is a revival of the ancient Olympic Games. So when you settle down with millions of others to watch the Opening Ceremony of Paris 2024, I’d like you to remember that that we’re watching today, because over two and half millennia ago, some Greeks asked each other who could run from one end of a large rectangle to the other the fastest. 

If you don’t know much about ancient athletics, we have you covered. This Working Classicists’ Olympic series of articles will guide you from that first sprint to the current Olympics, all the way to Paris 2024.

Over the coming days, we’ll be looking at what the site of Olympia was like to visit in antiquity, the events that athletes competed in during the famous Games, and how athletics was inextricably linked with Greek religion. We’ll meet some of the most notable (and notorious) Olympians of the ancient world, and find out what happened when Romans crashed the party. And we’ll also be giving you your own handy guide, Pausanias style, to visiting the ruins today, and a reading list of recommended books for further study.

On your marks...