Olympia

Listen first. In the warm months, the cicadas in the pine trees make a dry, steady buzz that never quite stops. Underfoot, the path is pale gravel and packed earth. Around you, broken columns lie in the grass like fallen tree trunks, and the air smells of resin and dust. This quiet green valley in the western Peloponnese held one of the most important gatherings of the ancient world. Here, for more than a thousand years, Greeks came to compete, to pray, and to be seen.

Olympia was never a city. It was a sanctuary, a sacred ground dedicated above all to Zeus, the king of the Greek gods. Two rivers meet nearby, the Alpheios and its smaller partner, the Kladeos. To the north rises a low, wooded hill called the Kronion, named after Kronos, the father of Zeus. Priests, officials, and craftsmen lived and worked here, but the population swelled enormously only when the festival came around. Then the valley filled with tents, traders, poets, and athletes from across the Greek world.

Tradition dates the first Olympic Games to 776 BC. Ancient Greeks took that date so seriously that they later counted time in Olympiads, the four-year gaps between festivals. Historians today treat the exact year with some caution, because worship at this spot began long before any recorded race. Still, the rhythm held for centuries. Every four years, heralds travelled out to announce a sacred truce, so that athletes and spectators could make the journey safely, even through regions at war.

Start near the Temple of Hera, at the foot of the Kronion hill. It is one of the oldest monumental temples in Greece, built around 600 BC. Look closely at its columns, because they do not match. Some are thick, some slimmer, and their capitals differ in shape. Scholars believe the temple first stood on wooden columns, which were replaced with stone one by one, as each wooden post decayed. So each column carries the style of its own era.

Here is the first surprise. The modern Olympic flame begins its journey right here. Before each Games, in a ceremony in front of this temple, a performer dressed as an ancient priestess lights a torch using a curved mirror that gathers the sunlight. The ancient Greeks did keep a sacred fire burning in the sanctuary, but the torch relay itself is a modern invention, first held for the 1936 Games in Berlin. An ancient place and a twentieth-century ritual now share the same ground.

Now walk towards the largest ruin in the sanctuary, the Temple of Zeus. It was completed in the fifth century before Christ, and ancient sources name its architect as Libon of Elis. Today you see a massive platform and enormous column drums scattered on their sides. They were not pulled down by people. Powerful earthquakes in the sixth century after Christ shook the columns apart, and the drums still lie in the rows where they fell, like a stack of coins knocked over by a hand.

Inside this temple once sat a giant statue of Zeus, made by the sculptor Pheidias. It was built of gold and ivory over a wooden frame, and the ancient Greeks counted it among the Seven Wonders of the World. Visitors wrote that if the seated god stood up, he would lift the roof off. The statue itself is long gone. It was eventually carried away, and its final fate is still debated. Only descriptions, coins, and a few clues remain.

One of those clues is the second surprise. Just west of the temple, archaeologists found the workshop where Pheidias built the statue. In the remains they found tools, clay moulds for shaping glass and gold, and a small black drinking cup. Scratched on its base are Greek words that mean, roughly, I belong to Pheidias. That modest cup is now in the site museum. It is a rare, personal trace of a famous artist, left behind on an ordinary working day.

As you head towards the stadium, notice a row of stone bases near the path. They once held bronze statues of Zeus called the Zanes. These statues were paid for with fines charged to athletes who cheated, bribed rivals, or broke the rules. Their names were sometimes inscribed on the bases. So every competitor walked past a line of public warnings on the way to the race. It was a simple message in bronze: dishonour here would be remembered.

Then comes the tunnel. A long stone vault leads into the stadium, and the light changes as you pass through it, cool shadow and then sudden open sky. Athletes and judges entered this way. On the other side lies a long, flat running track of beaten earth, nearly two hundred metres from end to end, framed by grassy banks. There were no stone seats for the crowd. Tens of thousands of spectators sat or stood on these slopes, in the summer heat.

The prize for victory was not gold. It was a wreath cut from a sacred wild olive tree that grew in the sanctuary. The real reward came afterwards. Winners returned home as heroes, and their cities honoured them with statues, poems, and privileges. Married women, however, were generally barred from watching the men's Games. Legend has it that one mother disguised herself as a trainer to watch her son compete, and was discovered only when she leapt over a barrier in joy.

The festival lasted until the late fourth century after Christ, when Christian emperors moved against the old pagan festivals. Earthquakes, floods, and centuries of river mud slowly buried the sanctuary. Workshops became a small church, and then the valley fell silent. Systematic excavations by German archaeologists began in 1875 and continue in various forms today. Much of what you see was dug out from under several metres of earth. The modern Games, revived in 1896, drew directly on what was found here.

Before you leave the valley, take a moment to stand still. Look back at the fallen drums of the great temple, at the pine trees and the soft line of the Kronion hill. Listen again to the cicadas. Athletes once trained on this ground, crowds shouted from these banks, and craftsmen worked in the shade nearby. The stones are quiet now. But as you walk away, the path under your feet is the same valley floor that runners crossed nearly three thousand years ago.