| The Archaeological Site of Ancient Olympia |
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It was a land the ancient world saw as “sacred”, because with the truce it proclaimed the city-states of that time had to stop fighting against each other during the religious and athletic activities of the Olympic Games. For almost 1,200 years the Olympic land was glorified by divine legends and graced by the Olympic Games.
This grove with its wealth of sacred monuments, temples, altars, votive columns, statues, buildings, etc. was the place where free people from all over the contemporary world gathered to admire beauty and strength in their purest and most brilliant form.
ALTIS Going down into Altis we find the ancient Gymnasium to the right, only partly exca vated, and the Palaestra next to it. To the left are the ruins of the buildings of Prytaneion, Philippeion, Heraeon and Pelopion. The Heraeon (temple of Hera) goes back at the beginning of the 6th century Inside the temple were many votive offer-ings, and around the mid-2nd c. A.D. Pausa-nias saw there the disk on which the holy truce agree¬ment had been inscribed. The famous statue of Her¬mes by Praxiteles was found here. Next to the Her-aeon is the Metroon and the pedestals for the statues of Zeus, which were called Zanes and were paid for with the fines imposed on the athletes who violated the regulations of the contests. Turning to the right we come to the Echo Colon¬nade or Sevenfold Echo and the votive column erected by King Ptolemeus Philadelphus and his sister Arsinoe, and then to the temple of Zeus. It was a large temple of unsur pas sed grandeur, built as a Doric hexastyle measuring 27.66 m. by 64.12 m. and adorned with sculptured decora tion. The east¬ern pediment depicts the prepa ra tions for the char¬iot race between Oinomaos and Pelops; the western pediment shows the battle of the Lapiths and Cen¬taurs. The twelve metopes of the nave above its entrances in the eastern and western side, being six in each side, were decorated images of the twelve Labours of Hercules. Inside the temple was the chryselephantine statue of Zeus, made by Pheidias and praised like no other creation of classi cal Greece as a work of unsurpassed skill and grandeur. The triangular base for the statue of Nike of Paeo nios has survived in front of the temple. Lying south of the temple are the Bouleute-rion, the Leonidaion and, to the west, the workshop of Phei¬dias, the Thei ko leon (Priests House) and the Hel-lenistic and Ro man the swimming pool and baths. Passing through the gate of Crypt we enter the Sta ¬dium, with the hill of Kronos to the left and the river Alpheios to the right and back. The track is 192.27m in length. There never were any seats of stone or marble, except for a few stone seats for the Hella no dikai and the marble altar of Demeter, reserved for the priestess of the goddess - the only woman who had the right to attend the games. Also surviving are the stone slabs with the grooves used as a star ting line for the races. I feel that this is the ideal place to reflect on the evolution of our society. We are in a haven of peace and balance, where centuries remain engraved on the stones, the meanders of the Alpheios river, the beauty of the vegetation and the serenity which pervades this unique place, Olympia, where sport started on its most glorious and finest course. |
In his Olympian Speech (33,2) the famous ancient orator Lysias described the region of Olympia as “the most beautiful place in Greece”.
The holy grove of Olympia, the Altis, lies in the green valley formed by Alpheios, the 'king' of Peloponesian rivers, the river Kladeos, small and rapid in those days, and the small hill of Kronion.
The strength and beauty of the contestants arose from a noble competitive spirit based on physical and mental contest. the fruit of this competition was the most coveted gift of life - health, physical well-being, mental and physical beauty: the things even simple visitors could feel and enjoy.
