Archaeological Development

The types of dedications made at Olympia varied over time. In the early days of the sanctuary (c.8th century) dedications consisted mainly of small animal figurines and small caldrons (see picture). Later we find dedications consisting of small statuettes of Zeus, with various aspects, such as as a warrior god, or with his thunderbolt.[1] We also find larger and more elaborate dedications, such as the Nike of Paionios, as well as particular types of dedications associated with certain events, for example helmets were often dedicated by survivors of war. 

Gods/Heroes

There existed at Olympia temples to Zeus and Hera. It has been hypothesised that, since the temple of Hera was the older of the two (c.600 and made of mud and brick), that the temple was originally a temple to Zeus and Hera, and then Zeus got a larger, stone one. Also hero shrine to Pelops, who in mythology won a chariot race against Oinomaos, king of Pisa.

Ritual Activity

The Olympic Games are the only panhellenic games to have survived. These games were dedicated to Zeus and for the first 250 years all the games took place at the sanctuary at Olympia. By the 5^th C the festival was 5 days long with events such as running, jumping, boxing and chariot racing.

Along with festivals and sacrifices, making dedications formed one of the major ritual activities at Olympia. Below are a few dedications found at Olympia.

Nike of Paionios:

The Nike of Paionios was dedicated at Olympia in around 420BC.[2] From the inscription we know that it was dedicated by the Messenians and Naupaktians to commemorate a victory.

“The Messanians and the Naupaktians dedicated this statue to Zeus Olympios from the spoils of the wars. Paionios of Mende made it, who also won the competition to make the akroteria of the temple.” [3]

The base does not specify the battle or the enemy, which we know to be the battle of Sphacteria against the Spartans in 435BC. Pausanias attributes their decision to not inscribe the base with the specific victory to be out of fear of the Spartans. [4] The statue originally sat atop a six meter high pillar near the Temple of Zeus, and so would have been very prominent within the sanctuary. The Nike of Paionios demonstrates how dedications could be used for purposes other than religious observance. Whilst the dedication serves to thank Zeus for their victory, its prominent position within the sanctuary and its high visible position atop a six meter high pillar would have meant it would have gained a lot of attention and been seen by the many people that visited the sanctuary. It demonstrates therefore that dedications could be an effective way to boast of a military or athletic achievement. Many factors could contribute to the impressiveness and self-aggrandizement of a dedication, including any events or victories commemorated, the renown of the artist, of the cost of materials.

Zanes:

Zanes were dedications to Zeus made from the fines of cheating athletes who had disrespected the rules of the sanctuary. There existed 16 of them, arranged in a line before the entrance to the stadium. Their prominent position in front of the entrance meant that all athletes would have to walk past them upon entering the stadium, and hence they served to dissuade athletes from cheating. The statues serve in part to honour Zeus, not only as the god of the sanctuary but also as the god of oaths. Dedications in the form of the god being dedicated to are common at Olympia, particularly on a smaller scale in figurines. Only the bases of these statues remain, however literary sources such as Pausanias provide more details. From Pausanias we know that the statues were made by various artists.[5] He also tells us that athletes and states attempted to avoid paying the fine:

“Next after Eupolus they say that Callippus of Athens, who had entered for the pentathlum, bought off his fellow-competitors by bribes, and that this offence occurred at the hundred and twelfth Festival. When the fine had been imposed by the Eleans on Callippus and his antagonists, the Athenians commissioned Hypereides to persuade the Eleans to remit them the fine. The Eleans refused this favour, and the Athenians were disdainful enough not to pay the money and to boycott the Olympic games, until finally the god at Delphi declared that he would deliver no oracle on any matter to the Athenians before they had paid the Eleans the fine. So when it was paid, images, also six in number, were made in honour of Zeus.” [6]

Helmet of Miltiades

One of the well-known dedications to Olympia was the helmet of Miltiades. Miltiades was a general who commanded the Athenian and Plataean forces against the Persians at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC. Although the helmet is quite battered now, an inscription of his name, Miltiades, can still be seen across the cheek.

Statue Bases

Winners of Olympic contests would often set up statues in the sanctuary as commemorations of their victories. Many of the statue bases survived Pausanias describes one of these statue bases and gives us this inscription:

"Dikon, the son of Kallibrotos, won five foot races at Delphi, three at Isthmia, four at Nemea and one at Olympia in the race for boys besides two in the men's race. Statues of him have been set up in Olympia equal in number to the races he won. When he was a boy he was proclaimed a native of Caulonia, as in fact he was. But afterwards he was bribed to proclaim himself a Syracusan." [7]

 

Historical Significance

The sanctuary itself dates from around 1000 BC.
The Olympic games were held there from 776 BC every four years and this continued for 1000+ years.
The sanctuary was first controlled by the nearby town of Pisa, later this changed to Elis in 572 BC.
With the rising significance of the Olympian games, people were increasingly attracted to the sanctuary from all over Greece, both for the religious aspect as well as the athletic. The sanctuary had a huge Panhellenic identity and due to the wide range of deities worshipped there and the Olympian games, it played a significant role in creating one unifying Hellenic culture that all the poleis were a part of. It was the centre of Greek civilisation.
The 30 year peace between Athens and Sparta following the first Peloponnesian War that was agreed in 446-445 BC in Olympia shows that Olympia is a place that unified the whole of Greece and has a very Pan Hellenistic aspect.
The sanctuary’s fame grew overtime and so there was a huge number of offerings from rich individuals, winners of the games, and states also erected treasuries to house their votive offerings.
The sanctuary’s peak time was the Classical era in which lots of new buildings were constructed. It started to gradually decline in late Hellenistic times and suffered early on in the Roman era. Sulla plundered the sanctuary in 86 BC in order to fund his war against Mithridates, however once Roman rule was established in Greece, Olympia enjoyed a revival through imperial sponsorship and even direct patronage and the games were relocated to Rome; the 175th Olympian games were held there in 80 BC.
After the 293rd Olympiad in 393 AD, emperor Theodosius I banned the games and ordered the sanctuary to be razed as they were connected with Pagan deities. The temples started to be destroyed in 426 BC and earthquakes further damaged the site in 522 and 551 BC.
The site lost none of its religious potency during the vast majority of the 1000 years + of the Olympian games, one of the reasons could be its diversity- there were over 70 different altars and this meant Greeks from all over could come to worship the deities that were most significant to them.

Who used the site, and where did they come from? 

The ancient Greek sanctuary of Olympia was located in Elis, in western Peloponnese, near the Alpheios and Kladeos rivers, and hosted the Olympic Games every four years, from 776 BC onwards.[8] The Olympic Games were held in a stadium which could seat 40,000 people.
During early 8th century citizens of Elis and the neighbouring cities were the only ones who were involved, however from the 7th century visitors from all over Greece came to visit. The site was even popular during Roman times, as we can see from Pausanias’ account of Mummius’ dedication at Olympia: “On the outside of the frieze, which runs around the temple [of Zeus] at Olympia above the columns, are twenty-one gilded shields, dedicated by the Roman general Mummius after he had conquered the Achaeans, taken Corinth, and expelled the Dorian inhabitants”.[9] 

Select Site Bibliography

https://www.ancient-greece.org
https://www.britannica.com
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/greek-art/beginners-guide-greece/a/olympic-games
https://www.olympic.org
https://www.penn.museum/sites/olympics/olympiccommercialism.shtml
Kindt, J. (2012) Rethinking Greek Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Morgan, C (1990) Athletes and oracles: the transformation of Olympia and Delphi in the eighth century BC.
Pausanias, Description of Greece, trans. W.H.S. Jones (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univeristy Press: 1918) from the Loeb Classics Library
Pollit, J.J. (1990) The Art of Ancient Greece: Sources and documents (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Scott, M (2010) Delphi and Olympia, the spatial politics of pan-Hellenism in the Archaic and Classical periods.

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Footnotes

[1] Kindt (2012) 141.

[2] Pollitt (1990) 71.

[3] Found in Pollitt (1990) 71.

[4] Pausanias 5.26.1.

[5] Pausanias, Description of Greek, 5.21.3.

[6] Pausanias, Description of Greece, 5.21.5.

[7] https://www.penn.museum/sites/olympics/olympiccommercialism.shtml

[8] https://ancient-greece.org/archaeology/olympia.html

[9] Pausanias, Description of Greece, 5.10.5

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