Historian Tony Perrotet discusses how the ancient Games more closely resembled some combination of Woodstock, Red Light Districts, and cage-fighting than the current Costas/Seacrest vibe:
The combat events on the fourth day were very popular with the rank and file. The wrestling was similar to today’s Greco-Roman wrestling. But the boxing was more exotic. Guys pummeled each other to the head using their fists with leather thongs wrapped around them. Body blows were actually forbidden. There were no rounds and no weight restrictions. There are vivid tales of people’s faces being pummeled to a bloody pulp. One boxer didn’t want to give his opponent the satisfaction of knocking out his teeth, so he swallowed them all.
Meanwhile, prostitutes could make the equivalent of a year’s revenue in just five days. But women weren’t excluded from competition:
The [women’s] games were held at Olympia and dedicated to Zeus’s consort Hera. The young women ran in short tunics with their right breast exposed as an homage to the Amazon warrior women, a race of female super warriors that was believed to have cauterized their right breasts so as not to impede their javelin throwing.
Doping was also a thing back then:
Forget anabolic steroids in easy-to-swallow tablets, or EPO in clean syringes. Ancient Olympic dopers got their pre-Games hormone boost from chewing on raw animal testicles.
I prefer mine lightly sauteed.
(Sketch: Olympia in Ancient Greece from the Pierers Universal-Lexikon, 1891.)
via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/08/the-ancient-olympics-more-hbo-than-nbc.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+andrewsullivan%2FrApM+%28The+Daily+Dish%29