In ancient Greece athletic festivals were very important and had strong religious association. The Olympian athletic festival held every four years in honour of Zeus, king of the Olympian Gods, eventually lost its local character, became first a national event and then, after the rules against foreign competitors had been abolished, international. No one knows exactly how far back the Olympic Games go, but some official records date from 776 B.C.
The games took place in August on the plain by Mount Olympus. Many thousands of spectators gathered from all parts of Greece, but no married woman was admitted even as a spectator. Slaves, women and dishonoured persons were not allowed to compete. The exact sequence of events is uncertain, but events included boy's gymnastics, boxing, wrestling, horse racing and field events, though there were fewer sports involved than in the modern Olympic Games.
On the last day of the Games, all the winners were honoured by having a ring of holy olive leaves placed on their heads. So great was the honour that the winner of the foot race gave his name to the year of his victory. Although Olympic winners received no prize money, they were, in fact, richly rewarded by their state authorities. How their results compared with modern standards, we unfortunately have no means of telling.
After an uninterrupted history of almost 1200 years, the Games were suspended by the Romans in 394 A. D. They continued for such a long time because people believed in the philosophy behind the Olympics: the idea that a healthy body produced a healthy mind, and that the spirit of competition in sports and games was preferable to the competition that caused wars. It was over 1500 years before another such international athletic gathering took place in Athens in 1896.
Nowadays, the Games are held in different countries in turn. The host country provides vast facilities, including a stadium, swimming pools and living accommodation, but competing countries pay their own athletes' expenses.
The Olympics start with the arrival in the stadium of a torch, lighted on Mount Olympus by the sun's rays. It is carried by a succession of runners to the stadium. The torch symbolized the continuation of the ancient Greek athletic ideals, and it burns throughout the Games until the closing ceremony. The well-known Olympic flag, however, is a modern conception: the five interlocking rings symbolize the uniting of all five continents participating in the Games.