The historic associations and resonance of
OLYMPIA , which for over a millennium hosted the most important
Panhellenic games , are rivalled only by Delphi or Mycenae. It is one of the largest and most beautiful sites in Greece, and the setting is as perfect as could be imagined: a luxuriant valley of wild olive and plane trees, spread beside the twin rivers of Alfiós (Alpheus) -the largest in the Peloponnese - and Kládhios, and overlooked by the pine-covered hill of Krónos. Sadly, the actual ruins of the sanctuary are jumbled and confusing, and seem to cry out for reconstruction, even on a modest scale. The great temple columns lie half-buried amid the trees and undergrowth: picturesque and shaded, perfect ground for picnics, but offering little real impression of their ancient grandeur or function. Their fame, however, prevails over circumstance, and walking through the arch from the sanctuary to the stadium it is hard not to feel in awe of the Olympian history. Despite the crowds, the tour buses, the souvenir shops and other trappings of mass tourism, it demands and deserves a lengthy visit.
The modern village of Olymbía acts as a service centre for the site, and has little in the way of distractions, save for a somewhat dutiful Museum of the Olympic Games (Mon-Sat 8am-3.30pm, Sun 9am-4.30pm; ¬1.50), on the street above the Hotel Phedias , with commemorative postage stamps and the odd memento from the modern games, including the box that conveyed the heart of Pierre de Coubertin (reviver of the modern games) from Paris to its burial at Olympia.
The site
From its beginnings the
site (daily: May to mid-Oct 8am-7pm, Aug until 9pm, Sept until 8pm; mid-Oct to April 8am-5pm, Sat & Sun 8.30am-3pm; ¬3.50 or ¬6 for combined site and museum) was a sanctuary, with a permanent population limited to the temple priests. At first the games took place within the sacred precinct, the walled, rectangular
Altis , but as events became more sophisticated a new
stadium was built to adjoin it. The whole sanctuary was, throughout its history, a treasure trove of public and religious statuary. Victors were allowed to erect a statue in the Altis (in their likeness if they won three events) and numerous city-states installed treasuries. Pausanias, writing in the second century AD, after the Romans had already looted the sanctuary several times, fills almost a whole book of his
Guide to Greece with descriptions.
The entrance to the site leads along the west side of the Altis wall , past a group of public and official buildings. On the left, beyond some Roman baths, is the Prytaneion , the administrators' residence, where athletes were lodged and feasted at official expense. On the right are the ruins of a gymnasium and a palaestra (wrestling school), used by the competitors during their obligatory month of pre-games training.
Beyond these stood the Priests' House, the Theokoleion , a substantial colonnaded building in whose southeast corner is a structure adapted as a Byzantine church. This was originally the studio of Pheidias , the fifth-century BC sculptor responsible for the great cult statue in Olympia's Temple of Zeus. It was identified by following a description by Pausanias, and through the discovery of tools, moulds for the statue and a cup engraved with the sculptor's name. The studio's dimensions and orientation are exactly those of the cella in which the statue was to be placed, in order that the final effect and lighting matched the sculptor's intentions.
To the south of the studio lie further administrative buildings, including the Leonidaion , a large and doubtless luxurious hostel endowed for the most important of the festival guests. It was the first building visitors would reach along the original approach road to the site.
