While ancient Greece was divided into several colonies or city states. It also meant that the city states were parent fighting with each other. These city states traded with each other for Essentials but also help together when faced with a foreign opponent. Yet in spite of their number of fights, they would all pause. Stop all wars to play games every year. There were four games held in the region. One was the pythian games which were held at Delphi, the other and the most popular one is that of the Olympics, which is even played till today. While Olympic games in these modern times have changed a lot from the games in antiquity, they still hold on to the spirit of sportsmanship. When translated from Greece, the Olympics does not have an annexe of games, instead, it was annex by a word that meant an ordeal. Because men were expected to fight with great determination, resolve discipline, and grit to fight for their place among the athletes of their time to dedicate themselves to something greater than themselves to finally reach a place that would bring them closer to their creator, thank God.
As the Greeks believed that a beautiful body is a whistle for a beautiful soul, they expected their bodies to be the best version of themselves. Athletes would come from all over Greece to take part in these games, pausing their lives, even wars if any, that were fought during that time were paused, only to be resumed once the games were finished. Almost 40,000 people would come from where is regions in Greece to participate in these games to bring glory to their place of birth to bring met to themselves and their families inactive aspiring to have a statue of theirs erected in the Olympic campus. The participants and spectators would camp around the Olympic campus and prepare in the gymnasium that will allow them to practise their sport of running, which was the first sports introduced in the Olympic Games. Thereafter, several other games were introduced like javelin wrestling, boxing et al.
It is also in the Olympia that the temple of Zeus is housed and the ancient Olympic games were held once every four years in honour of the greatest of the gods of the Greek. The spectators and participants who would come from great distances would also bring with them several offerings, the best that they had in gold, silver or precious jewels. These offerings were stored in the temple of Zeus into which only the highest members of the society at that time were allowed. Today, walking to those ruins, it is important to know that the original structures have been greatly destroyed and covered by sting of rivers that changed its course over time. Yet after years of escalation archaeologist found the temple of the temple of Hera, administrative centre, the hotels or guest houses and finally the stadium of Olympia. The great stadium that hosted over 45,000 spectators looks pretty paltry and simple compared to the stadia we have today. This stadium measured about 190 m in length, and this is the length that the athletes would run during the games in antiquity. Dousing themselves in olive oil, the athletes within cover themselves with mud of the soil and participate wholeheartedly in the games in nude. The man who wins would be awarded. A wreath made with olive leaves collected by a golden haired boy from the vicinity.
A lot different from the modern games. The ancient Olympic games that were organised by the Hellanodikai were held for 1169 years from 776 BC to 393 AD and were stopped before it re-began in 1896. German archaeologists are said to have unearthed and excavated major portions of Olympia following scriptures and text that they found overtime of travellers who visited this region. The ancient site of the Olympic Olympics still holds modern relevance as it is the light of Olympia that is captured to ignite the modern Olympic torch that travels from state to state city to city all across the world as the games are continued to be held once every four years. the concave mirror that captures the light of Olympia ignites the Olympic torch in a ceremony that is held at the start of the Olympic games once every four years. The winners are hugely decorated awarded the wreath of olive leaves and given a reputation that exceeds the life of the wreath. the winners bring glory to their city, whose name is inscribed forever as a city that produced such great athletic heroes. Today, Site is all inspiring by the magnitude of its scale and its share ingenuity of providing water through aqueducts to the participants.
The museum of Olympia holds the most spectacular statue that remains, which is the statue of the messenger of gods that of Hermes. the East pediment of the temple of Zeus holds Zeus with his followers while the West pediment holds the statues of Apollo with Centaurs fighting, a reminder for the visitors to not behave like centaurs losing their head while at the games. The men who cheated out of greed or pretended to lose and let others win, and they found guilty were also falsely glorified by having to pay a bronze statue of Zeus for every time they made an error. the games that were a brain. Child in antiquity are widely regarded as one of the greatest sporting events of mankind today. As the Romans took over the Greeks, the Greeks are said to have not resisted instead, letting the Romans come and build a layer of their thinking and their way of one thing, an architecture to look on their existing structures and hence Olympia has a layer of Roman contribution. in fact, the workshop that was used to make a huge 12 foot statue of Zeus sitting had been later transformed into a church. While the Greeks knew to build in straight lines in squares and hardly used any arches with the know how to make a roof without the need of a keyStone, there are a few arches visible in the Olympic campus, which were later built by the Romans. The Olympic games were also the first of the games to be held in the cycle of the four years. When every year a different game was held in the region. It was perhaps because of that the Olympics has survived while the other games have slowly lost their relevance. that is not to say that the modern Olympic games look a lot different from that which was practised in the ancient times. The spirit of the games of sportsmanship of community of belonging is still harboured in the present day games. The world still looks at the winnings as how many medals each country won in a particular year, making the country beam with pride!
The reality of the Olympic Site is insurmountable, the fact that the games where we people would find themselves to their countries and bond with other countries is a brilliant idea of the times. The Romans are said to have opened up the games to beyond the Greek border,  just as they took several creek concepts, Mehta and spread it all across the world as they conquered the world. The archaeological sites in Greece also demonstrate the greatest offerings of the Greeks to the world of architecture, the golden ratio the orders of architecture, ionic, Doric and Corinthian, and the matter of scale and proportion.  The Doric and ionic columns built at the Olympia site, were built in parts and assembled one on top of the other, just like the 12 foot high statue of Zeus. The human spirit is greatly exhibited from the ancient times through the modern at this glorious site of Olympia  that finds itself at the base of the Mount Kronion and is wedged by a huge retaining wall to retain the Olympic complex.  Like all Greek locations it is also swathed in stories of legend, of pride and of valour.
Vedasri Siddamsetty 