Just how far back in history organized contests were held remains a matter of debate, but it is reasonably certain that they occurred in

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...

almost 3,000 years ago. However ancient in origin, by the end of the 6th century BC at least four Greek sporting festivals, sometimes called "classical games," had achieved major importance: the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...

, held at Olympia; the

Pythian Games The Pythian Games ( grc-gre, Πύθια;) were one of the four Panhellenic Games of Ancient Greece. They were held in honour of Apollo at his sanctuary at Delphi every four years, two years after the Olympic Games, and between each Nemean and ...

at Delphi; the

Nemean Games The Nemean Games ( grc-gre, Νέμεα or Νέμεια) were one of the four Panhellenic Games of Ancient Greece, and were held at Nemea every two years (or every third). With the Isthmian Games, the Nemean Games were held both the year before a ...

at Nemea; and the

Isthmian Games Isthmian Games or Isthmia (Ancient Greek: Ἴσθμια) were one of the Panhellenic Games of Ancient Greece, and were named after the Isthmus of Corinth, where they were held. As with the Nemean Games, the Isthmian Games were held both the year b ...

, held near

Corinth Corinth ( ; el, Κόρινθος, Kórinthos, ) is the successor to an ancient city, and is a former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese (region), Peloponnese, which is located in south-central Greece. Since the 2011 local government refor ...

Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...

2006
The ancient Olympic Games
The Olympic Games were perhaps the greatest of these sporting events, and all Olympian victors were highly appreciated among the

Greeks The Greeks or Hellenes (; el, Έλληνες, ''Éllines'' ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, oth ...

History

The sophist Hippias of Elis was the first who drew up the list of Olympians in his work ''Olympians inscription'', based perhaps on the records of Olympia, and the oral tradition memories of the older Olympiads were still live in Olympia. Conventional beginning was considered the Olympiad of 776 BC, when

Coroebus of Elis Coroebus of Elis ( grc-gre, Κόροιβος Ἠλεῖος, ''Kóroibos Ēleîos''; la, Coroebus Eleus) was a Greek cook, baker, and athlete from Elis. He is remembered as the winner (, ''olympioníkes'') of the first recorded Olympics, which ...

win the foot race named stadion. The work of Hippias revised and continued in the 4th century BC by

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...

, later by Eratosthenes, then by Phlegon of Tralles ( Seleucia of Caria) and many others. Thus formed a kind of Olympians' chronicle, which was already in 3rd century BC the base of the ancient dating system.According to

(1911), Chronology (§ Olympiads). Than younger tables survives complete the list of stadion winners by

Sextus Julius Africanus Sextus Julius Africanus (c. 160 – c. 240; Greek: Σέξτος Ἰούλιος ὁ Ἀφρικανός or ὁ Λίβυς) was a Christian traveler and historian of the late second and early third centuries. He is important chiefly because o ...

(for the first 249 Olympiads), which included in a book by Eusebius of Caesarea.According to

Eusebius Eusebius of Caesarea (; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος ; 260/265 – 30 May 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilus (from the grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος τοῦ Παμφίλου), was a Greek historian of Christianity, exegete, and Chris ...

.According to HHN.

List of Olympic winners in the Archaic period

The table below is an attempt to give a list (as complete as possible) of Olympic winners in the Archaic period (776 BC to 480 BC) combining all surviving sources. The work is based on records in the surviving historical and literary sources, race inscriptions, the texts of the

Oxyrhynchus Papyri The Oxyrhynchus Papyri are a group of manuscripts discovered during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by papyrologists Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt at an ancient rubbish dump near Oxyrhynchus in Egypt (, mo ...

, the testimony of

Pausanias Pausanias ( el, Παυσανίας) may refer to: *Pausanias of Athens, lover of the poet Agathon and a character in Plato's ''Symposium'' *Pausanias the Regent, Spartan general and regent of the 5th century BC * Pausanias of Sicily, physician of t ...

and the list of

. The first column shows the serial number of any Olympiad, the second column the same date, the third column contains the game and the fourth column lists the name and origin of the winner, or marked with ..if the element is not readable on the papyrus and giving whenever possible a version of what could contain when an investigation exists over this element.According to FHW.According to Müller.

Supplementary list

The supplementary list contains Olympic winners of this period known from literary and epigraphic records, but who have been dated only approximately and cannot be included in specific Olympiads.

Notes

References

Sources