The Olympic
Truce - Myth and Reality
by Harvey Abrams
The modern classical historians
who have written the "best" books have interpreted
the ancient truce as follows. It meant that the travelers going
to the Olympic Games were safe. It meant that the city-state
of Elis, the host to the Games, was not to be warred against.
It meant that once the athletes and pilgrims arrived, they wouldn't
hurt each other, even if they were combatants from warring city-states.
The truce protected those who were going to honor Zeus. It didn't
protect everyone. Warfare continued but the travelers through
warring territories were not harmed.
Most people in the modern world
do not understand that the ancient Olympic Games were primarily
a religious festival held in honor of the Greek God Zeus. The
site of Olympia was sacred territory. Located in the western
region of Greece near Mount Olympus, it was a plain between two
rivers. All Greeks worshipped Zeus and acknowledged the sacredness
of this region. A temple was built there with a huge statue of
Zeus, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Many other
buildings and smaller temples were built there, with statues
and plaques all over the place. It was the ancient Greek version
of the Vatican, or Muslim's Mecca, or the Jews' Wailing Wall
in Jerusalem. It was a holy site, not just a sports stadium,
although the stadium was there.
The Eleans were the custodians
of the sacred site of Olympia. They had adopted a policy of perpetual
neutrality, a noble gesture that lasted from 776 BCE to 420 BCE.
Then they allied themselves against the threatening Spartans.
Outraged, the Spartans threatened an invasion during the Games.
A military force was needed to protect the Olympic festival from
the invasion, which never came.
The ekecheiria didn't stop the
Eleans themselves in 364 BCE, when they battled the Arcadians
and Pisatans inside the sacred grove of Olympia during the Games.
The truce certainly didn't stop the Macedonians in 312 BCE -
who plundered and looted the treasury buildings. The Romans under
Sulla, Caligula and Nero also violated the truce by stealing
and destroying statuary from Olympia. Certainly the Barbarians
didn't respect the truce, such as the Heruli, who invaded Greece
in 267 CE. Because of them a defensive fortress wall was built
around the altis, the sacred grove where the Temple of Zeus was
located.
The ekecheiria was announced
by three heralds, called spondophoroi, who traveled from Elis
to the various regions of Greece, proclaiming the beginning of
the period of truce and announcing the date of the Olympic festival.
The truce was assured not by the love of sports or competition,
but by the almighty power of Zeus, the common Greek god. The
Olympic Games were a religious festival in his honor, not a sports
festival for peace. Zeus protected travelers, or so the Greeks
believed, and great punishment would (and did) come to those
who failed to observe this sacred truce.
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