This date was not chosen by chance, it was June 23, 1894, Baron Pierre de Coubertin in Paris, called for the revival of the Olympic movement. And after his fiery report Athletic Congress decided to hold the 1896 Olympic Games in Greece, for the first time after centuries of interruption.
Originated the Olympic Games as part of a religious cult in 776 BC and were held at 394 AD. Total 293 Olympic Games were held. Competitions were held in Olympia, which was considered by the ancient Greeks, a sacred place.
It is believed that the founder of the Olympic Games has become the king of Elis Ifit. Games for the glory of the gods, he organized to stop the constant internecine wars. He signed a contract with the Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus, and the Athenian reformer Kliosfenom agreed to hold athletic contests at Olympia. The place was declared sacred, and anyone who enters there with weapons was declared a criminal. At the Olympics in Greece stop all wars.
Log in to the Olympics was free. By the way, access to the Olympic Games for women It has been banned under pain of death, the whole point is that athletes were naked. Visit the game could only priestess of the goddess Demeter, and the girls of easy virtue.
Mandatory part of the competition were religious rites and sacrifices which athletes made at the altars of the gods patrons. That's what took place the opening and closing of the Olympic Games.
To participate in the competition is open to all free men of Greece, slaves and barbarians (foreigners) could not take part in the Olympics.
Also to participate in the games is not allowed to persons convicted of crimes and sacrilege. Control of the games and athletes involved in the preparation of the most respected citizens of the country - and hellanodikai gellanodiki. After passing the regulations athletes under their supervision were preparing for a month with a special program.
The basic principle of the competition was the honesty of the participants. Before the start of the Olympics athletes took an oath to follow the rules. And if it turned out that the athlete won fraudulently deprived of his title, betrayed shame, impose a penalty and corporal punishment.
The program of the ancient Greek Olympic Games has been running, fighting, fist fight, jump, javelin and disc, chariot races, horse races on horseback.
The winners received an olive wreath with purple ribbons and universal recognition and respect, it is often exempt from taxes and other public duties, given privileges. Three-time winner of the games could put his statue in the Altis.
The first known to us Olimpionik became Koreb from Elis, won a victory in the race for one of stages (192.27 m) in 776 BC Among participants and winners of the Olympic Games were such well-known scientists and thinkers, like Demosthenes, Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Pythagoras, Hippocrates. For example, Pythagoras was the champion of the fist fight, and Plato - in the pentathlon.
And in 394 BC The Olympic Games were banned - as "a relic of paganism" - the Roman emperor Theodosius I, the implanted forcibly converted to Christianity. And revived only in the last century.
Also you will be interested to know a shocking customs of ancient Rome.
