Stadium

Stadium, the course on and over which the foot-races were run at Olympia and other places in Greece. It was oblong in shape, and 631 feet long. Seats were provided overlooking the course for more than 40,000 spectators. Besides foot-races, leaping, discus-throwing, wrestling, and other sports were celebrated on the same racecourse. The stadium at Athens, levelled and laid out by the orator Lycurgus in the first half of the 4th century B.C., was 600 feet long by 130 wide, and its seats could accommodate as many onlookers as those at Olympia. The length of the Olympian stadium was adopted as the Greek standard measure of length or distance. Seven and a half stadia, or 4732 English feet, were reckoned as equivalent to a Roman mile, at least in the time of the empire.