Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

262 Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks
The sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia (reconstruction by F. Adler [1894]).
The Olympic Program
The first day of the Olympic Games was devoted to oath taking,
checking the qualifications of the competitors, performing sacrifices,
and praying. So important was winning that competitors
prayed for either the wreath or death. All contestants participated
naked and barefoot. The origin of this practice is attributed to a certain
Orsippos, who was in the lead in a footrace when his loincloth
fell off. Orsippos tripped and lost the race.
On the second day of the festival, the chariot race took place in
the hippodrome. This was the most spectacular as well as the most
dangerous event. It consisted of 12 laps up and down a straight
track. The chariots had two wheels and were drawn by a team
of four horses. Because there was no dividing barrier between
the up and down track and because charioteers were required
to perform 180-degree turns when they reached the end of each
lap, head-on collisions were frequent. Increasing the likelihood of
serious injury was the fact that charioteers tied their horses’ reins
around their bodies for stability, so if they fell they were dragged
along the ground. Pindar, who wrote many odes commemorating
victors in the games, claims that, in one race at Delphi, “forty
drivers were laid low” (Pythian Ode 5.49). The chariot race was
followed by a horseback race without stirrups or saddles over
the same course. The victor in both events was not the charioteer
or the jockey, but the owner of the horses. Because horses were