The First Olympics

I haven't been able to watch NBC's TV coverage of the London Olympics, but I've been catching bits and pieces of the live streaming online. The Olympics are always so exciting!! One thing that I bet the NBC commentators haven't shared with the audience is the "true" origin of the Olympics. I'm not talking about the first modern Olympics, in 1896, or even the earliest entry on the ancient victors' list from Olympia, dating back to 776 B.C.

I'm talking about the legendary foundation of the Olympic Games by my guy, Heracles. I came across this description of the event today in Diodorus Siculus (Oldfather's translation, emphasis mine):

After the performance of this Labour [of the Cretan Bull] Heracles established the Olympic Games, having selected for so great a festival the most beautiful of places, which was the plain lying along the banks of the Alpheius river, where he dedicated these Games to Zeus the Father. And he stipulated that the prize in them should be only a crown, since he himself had conferred benefits upon the race of men without receiving any monetary reward. All the contests were won by him without opposition by anyone else, since no one was bold enough to contend with him because of his exceeding prowess. And yet the contests are very different one from another, since it is hard for a boxer or one who enters for the "Pankration" to defeat a man who runs the "stadion," and equally difficult for the man who wins first place in the light contests to wear down those who excel in the heavy. Consequently it was fitting that of all Games the Olympic should be the one most honoured, since they were instituted by a noble man. (IV.14.1-2)

Now Heracles, he had the right idea! Next time I found an athletics competition, I hope I win every event uncontested. (And, for the record, he picked a terrible place for his Olympic Games – no water or shade! He had to go all the way to the land of the Hyperboreans to pick up some olive trees.)