CultureEurope
The Olympic Games
The city-states halt their wars for a few weeks to compete
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The games were first of all religious — in honour of Zeus — and gave the Greeks something they otherwise lacked: a shared reckoning of time. Historians dated events by Olympiad. That city-states which otherwise fought bitterly could agree on a sanctuary and a calendar is perhaps the closest antiquity came to a common Greek identity.
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Every fourth year the Greeks gathered at Olympia. Wars were suspended so athletes and spectators could travel safely. The games were held for nearly twelve hundred years before a Christian emperor banned them.
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Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org