Olympia, the scene of the celebrated Olympic games, is a beautiful valley in Elis, in the Peloponnesus, through which runs the river Alpheus. As a national sanctuary of the Greeks, Olympia contained, within a small space, many of the choicest treasures of Greek art belonging to all periods and states, such as temples, monuments, altars, theatres, and multitudes of images, statues, and votive-offerings of brass and marble. In the time of the elder Pliny there still stood here about 3000 statues. The Sacred Grove (called the Altis) of Olympia enclosed a level space about 660 feet long by nearly 580 broad, containing the sanctuaries connected with the games. It was finely wooded, and in its centre stood a clump of sycamores. The Altis was crossed from west to east by a road called the 'Pompic Way,' along which all the processions passed. The Alpheus bounded it on the south, the Cladeus, a tributary of the former, on the west, and rocky but gently swelling hills on the north; westward it looked towards the Ionian Sea. The most celebrated building was the Olympieion, or Olympium, dedicated to Olympian Zeus. It was designed by the architect Libon of Elis in the 6th century B.C., but was not completed for more than a century. It contained a colossal statue of the god, the masterpiece of the sculptor Phidias, and many other splendid figures; its paintings were the work of Panæus, a relative of Phidias. Next to the Olympieion ranked the Heraeum, dedicated to Hera, the wife of Zeus and Queen of Heaven, containing the table on which were placed the garlands prepared for the victors in the games. The Pelopium, the Metroum, the ten Thesauri or Treasuries, built for the reception of the dedicatory offerings of the Greek cities, the temples of Eileithyia and Aphrodite also deserve mention. The Stadium and the Hippodrome, where the contests took place, stood outside and east of the Altis; the Gymnasium and Palaestra were also outside and to the west. Explorations were carried on in 1875-81 by the German government at a total expense of £40,000, and threw much light on the plans of the buildings. Many valuable sculptures, bronzes, coins, and other objects were discovered. The greatest find was the Hermes of Praxiteles, a most beautiful and marvellous piece of sculpture. The results of these excavations have been published officially in Die Ausgrabungen zu Olympia (5 vols. 1875-81, with 118 plates).
Olympic games were the most splendid national festival of the ancient Greeks, and were celebrated every fifth year in honour of Zeus, the father of the gods, on the plain of Olympia. Their origin goes back far beyond 776 B.C., the year in which the custom of reckoning time by Olympiads (q.v.) began. We may, however, believe that the games became a truly national festival for the first time in that year. At first, it is conjectured, only Peloponnesians resorted to the Olympic games, but gradually the other Greek states were attracted to them, and the festival became Pan-Hellenic. Originally, and for a long time, none were allowed to contend except those of pure Hellenic blood; but after the conquest of Greece by the Romans the latter sought and obtained this honour, and both Tiberius and Nero figure in the list of Roman victors. Women—with one exception, the priestess of Demeter Chamyne—were forbidden to be present, on pain of being thrown headlong from the Typeran Rock. The games were held at the first full moon of the summer solstice, when first throughout Elis, and then throughout the rest of Greece, heralds proclaimed the cessation of all intestine hostilities; while the territory of Elis itself was declared inviolable. The competitors were required to undergo a preparatory training for ten months in the gymnasium at Elis, and during the last of these months the gymnasium was almost as numerously attended as the games themselves. Much uncertainty prevails as to the manner in which the contests were distributed over the different days. Krause (Olympia, p. 106) suggests the following order: On the first day the great initiatory sacrifices were offered, after which the competitors were properly classed and arranged by the judges, and the contests of the trumpeters took place; the second day was set apart for the boys who competed with each other in foot-races, wrestling, boxing, the pentathlon, the pankration, horse-races; the third and principal day was devoted to the contests of men in foot-races of different kinds (as, for example, the simple race, once over the course; the diaulos, in which the competitors had to run the distance twice; and the dolichos, in which they had to run it seven or twelve times), wrestling, boxing, the pankraton (in which all the powers and skill of the combatants were exhibited), and the race of hoplites, or men in heavy armour; on the fourth day came off the pentathlon (contest of five games—viz. leaping, running, throwing the discus, throwing the spear, and wrestling), the chariot and horse races, and perhaps the contests of the heralds; the fifth day was set apart for processions, sacrifices, and banquets to the victors (called Olympionikoi), who were crowned with a garland of wild olive-twigs cut from a sacred tree which grew in the Altis, and presented to the assembled people, each with a palm branch in his hand, while the heralds proclaimed his name, and that of his father and country. On his return home he was received with extraordinary distinction: songs were sung in his praise (14 of Pindar's extant lyrics are devoted to Olympionikoi); statues were erected to him, both in the Altis and in his native city; a place of honour was given him at all public spectacles; he was in general exempted from public taxes, and at Athens was boarded at the expense of the state in the Prytaneion. The regulation of the games belonged to the Eleans, from whom were chosen the hellenodikoi, or judges, at first two in number, but latterly ten or twelve. Theodosius I. prohibited the games in 394 A.D. Theodosius II. ordered the buildings, which had suffered at the hands of the Romans and of various Byzantine Emperors, as they afterwards did from Goths and Slavs, to be burnt. Olympic games (including bicycle races) were in a fashion revived at Athens in 1896; the athletes coming, however, from France, Germany, and elsewhere, as well as from Greek territories.
See Krause's Olympia (1838); Bötticher's Olympia (1882); Baumeister's Denkmäler; Lalon and Monceaux, Restauration de l'Olympie (1889); and Curtius and Adler, Olympia die Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen (1891).