Olympia, Greece
This morning we docked at Katakolon on the Peloponnesus. It was another sparklingly beautiful Greek day, and after breaklfast we took a short bus trip to Olympia, home of the Panhellenic Festival and Greek Games which were held every four years beginning in 776 B.C. The games brought the finest (male) atheletes from all over the Hellenic world to this beautiful garden in the Altis valley. There they prepared for a month in the Gymnasium (the name siginifies that they competed naked) and then, together with the judges and the representatives of their home regions, they marched into the Stadium for the opening ceremonies and the recitation of the Olympic Oath, in exactly the same manner as the world’s atheletes begin the modern Olympic Games. Unlike the modern games, however, in ancient Greece wars were halted for the duration of the games. Any city or region which made war during the games was barred from competition.
We walked through the olive trees around the ruins of the Temple of Hera and the Temple of Zeus, the Palaestra or wrestling school, and the Stadium. The staium seated about 35,000 spectators on the grass just as it is today. Runners ran from start (background) to finish (foreground), a distance of 192.27 meters. Several of us ran the distance, but, as in ancient times, only one of us was crowned with a wreath of olive branches.
The length of the stadium was used as a unit of distance by the Greeks. In 250 B.C. Eratosthenes, the librarian at the great library of Alexandria used it to compute the circumference of the Earth. By measuring the distance between Alexandria and Syene, located where the Nile crosses the Tropic of Cancer. He knew that the sun could be seen reflected from the bottom of a deep well in Syene on the summer solstice and that the gnomon in Alexandria cast a shadow on that day. By measuring the angle of the shadow and estimating the distance in stadia from the time camel caravans required to cover it, he calculated the Earth'’ circumference at about 25,000 miles, remarkably close to the actual size.
After a relaxing afternoon at the Mercouri winery, we sailed west into another beautiful Greek sunset on our way to Malta.
This morning we docked at Katakolon on the Peloponnesus. It was another sparklingly beautiful Greek day, and after breaklfast we took a short bus trip to Olympia, home of the Panhellenic Festival and Greek Games which were held every four years beginning in 776 B.C. The games brought the finest (male) atheletes from all over the Hellenic world to this beautiful garden in the Altis valley. There they prepared for a month in the Gymnasium (the name siginifies that they competed naked) and then, together with the judges and the representatives of their home regions, they marched into the Stadium for the opening ceremonies and the recitation of the Olympic Oath, in exactly the same manner as the world’s atheletes begin the modern Olympic Games. Unlike the modern games, however, in ancient Greece wars were halted for the duration of the games. Any city or region which made war during the games was barred from competition.
We walked through the olive trees around the ruins of the Temple of Hera and the Temple of Zeus, the Palaestra or wrestling school, and the Stadium. The staium seated about 35,000 spectators on the grass just as it is today. Runners ran from start (background) to finish (foreground), a distance of 192.27 meters. Several of us ran the distance, but, as in ancient times, only one of us was crowned with a wreath of olive branches.
The length of the stadium was used as a unit of distance by the Greeks. In 250 B.C. Eratosthenes, the librarian at the great library of Alexandria used it to compute the circumference of the Earth. By measuring the distance between Alexandria and Syene, located where the Nile crosses the Tropic of Cancer. He knew that the sun could be seen reflected from the bottom of a deep well in Syene on the summer solstice and that the gnomon in Alexandria cast a shadow on that day. By measuring the angle of the shadow and estimating the distance in stadia from the time camel caravans required to cover it, he calculated the Earth'’ circumference at about 25,000 miles, remarkably close to the actual size.
After a relaxing afternoon at the Mercouri winery, we sailed west into another beautiful Greek sunset on our way to Malta.
