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Abstract
More than 100 years ago, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic movement, declared that the Olympic games should promote “international understanding, brotherhood and peace.” Was this a modern concept, a dream of Coubertin, or did it resurrect the ideals of the ancient Olympics?
On the one hand, the ancient Olympic games certainly promoted in Greece a sense of unity among the independent city states, for Greece was for much of its history not a united nation but rather a collection of individual cities. Every four years the games brought together as many as 40,000 spectators, athletes, politicians, merchants and cultural figures to a festival that celebrated not only sports but also religion—since it honored Zeus and other gods. It was also a kind of trade fair, as were some of the more modern Olympics, such as the one held in Paris in 1900. The ancient Olympic games were the biggest single gathering of any kind in the Greek world, and thus their importance to the Greeks can hardly be overemphasized.