Greek Olympics
The Greeks invented many olympic contests and held them in the honor of their gods. The Pythian games took place every four years near Delphi. But the most famous games were those at Olympia, a town in south- western Greece. These took place every four years. The ancient Olympics seemed to begun in the early 700 BC, in honor of Zeus. No women were allowed to watch the games.
The games were greatly expanded for a one-day festival of athletics and wrestling to five days with many events. The order of the events is not precisely known, but the first day of the festival was for sacrifices. On the second day, the foot-race, the important event of the games, took place in the stadium. On other days, wrestling, boxing, and the pancratium, a combination of the two, were held. In wrestling, the goal was to throw the opponent to the ground three times. Boxing became more and more brutal, at first the pugilists wound straps of soft leather over their fingers as a means of deadening the blows, but in later times hard leather, sometimes weighted with metal, was used. Horse-racing was confined to the wealthy but was nevertheless a popular attraction. After the horse-racing came the pentathlon, a series of five events sprinting, long-jumping, javelin-hurling, discus-throwing, and wrestling.