Olympic Games: A Reflection of Ancient Greek Culture

The Olympic Games, hosted in Olympia, Greece, reflected and represented many of Greece 's traditional values in their culture, politics, and social institutions. With the Olympics being the biggest event in Greece at the time, the occasion brought many new ideas and showed what the traditions and customs of Greece were really about. Through this big spectacle people learned about their own culture and went through many experiences ranging from listening to poets and praying at the Temple of Zeus to spectating the sport of “Pankration”, a combination of boxing and wrestling. They would even compete in the nude as a time-honored tradition. “...the practice [competing in the nude] also symbolically stripped away social rank, an extraordinary gesture toward a democratic sporting ideal in the status-obsessed ancient world.”(pg. 7) The Olympics

Only men and unmarried women were allowed to attend the Olympic events and only men were actually allowed to compete in them. Married women had to stay at home and were not allowed to come to the Olympics at all. If a Married women did come by and someone found out they were to be flung to their death off of a nearby cliff, even though this penalty never had to be carried out. The only loophole in this rule is to own a chariot in the chariot races because they are not directly in the race. Other than that the only time women were to compete was in the Hera games and sometimes they would race with the boys before the games in the cities of Corinth and Delphi. They were still shamed for running naked or wearing short clothes while running and there was only one place where they actually received physical education which was Sparta. The whole system of male superiority in the Olympics also reflects to normal Greek life where males would work and women would stay at home or constantly looking for a good