Ten Ways: The Golden Age

Before TiVo, the Internet, the Television, photography and indoor plumbing, there was just one way to get a look at the action from Olympia and that was the “use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others” (thanks, Britannica!) better known as ‘art.’

(The first issue of Sports Illustrated, all the men the cover were eaten soon after by bears)

If you lived 2,784 years ago, you’d find that major sporting events were immortalized in single panel comics known as “paintings.” Having not been invented yet, there were no word balloons; instead, descriptions of the action were given in person by ancient live-bloggers, who, as per tradition, embellished events they themselves may have only heard about second-hand.

Nike of course sponsored these ancient games, albeit in her pre-sellout form as the Greek goddess of Victory, which were held every four years in honor of her celestial contemporary, Zeus. The true origin story of the games are now shrouded in myth, having been subject to hundreds of ret-cons though the centuries by artists and their patrons looking to put their own spin on popular classics. Although the ‘ultimate’ version of the story has the games being founded by the great hero Heracles in the midst of his maxi-series of twelve labors.

At first the games comprise of a single footrace between qualified citizens of the Greek city-states, but as its popularity grew, the games branched out, offering new content like boxing, wrestling, the now classic field events like the discus or javelin and even chariot racing. (There was also a lot of nudity…almost exclusively male nudity, which is fine if you’re into that, although I’ll take modern Woman’s Beach Volleyball, which is close enough.)

Soon (soon being a relative term when talking about history, in this case almost 300 years later) rival games began popping up, like the Isthmian Games in Corinth, which split the fan base, but overall they aided in each other’s stability.

However, by 393AD, social pressure in the form censorship by state sponsored religion, backed up by the threat of Roman Legions ended the games’ Golden Age. The games would pass into memory, and the public domain, until 1896 when the Modern Age began.