Panhellenic Games
Panhellenic Games is the collective term for four separate religious festivals held in ancient Greece that became especially well known for the athletic competitions they included.
[6] The Olympiad, the four year cycle starting with the Olympic Games, was one of the ways the Ancient Greeks measured time.
(Note that the dial on the Antikythera mechanism seems to show that the Nemean and Isthmian Games did not occur in the same years.
[8] However, competitors often were funded by their hometowns or private patrons, and many of them traveled together from one competition to another, winning cash awards as they went.
The Games were hugely popular not only for their three-day sporting competitions but also because they brought many spectators from all over, according to classics historian Jason König.
Though victors received no material awards at the Games, they were often showered with gifts and honours on returning to their polis.
[13] According to Pindar’s Olympian 1, the origin of the Ancient Olympic Games can be traced to Pelops, son of Tantalus.
King Oenomaus decides the only way for him to marry his daughter is to take part in a chariot race that has killed many other suitors.
It is also claimed that Pelops had Myrtilus sabotage King Oenomaus’ chariot which caused him to lose the race and die during the process.
[14] After his victory, Pelops organized a festival to take place at Olympia with chariot races and other Games in tribute to the gods and to honor King Oenomaus.
[2] Originally, these games occurred every eight years and there was just one contest--the singing of a hymn to Apollo, accompanied on the cithara.
In Pausanias' Description of Greece, he lists Cleisthenes of Sicyon as the winner of the first Pythian Games chariot race.
[29] The winner of the Isthmian Games originally received a pine crown, but in the Classical era dry celery was substituted.
[31] Sisyphus held the Games at a funeral in honor of Melikertes (later changed to Palaimon), a boy who drowned in the gulf.
According to Pausanias, Palaimon was killed because Hera found out his parents were raising baby Dionysus which brought down her wrath.
[34][35] Plutarch also credits Theseus with holding the Games in honor of Poseidon, since they were typically held in his sanctuary in Corinth.
[37] Pleket and historian David Stone Potter describe a view from Alcibiades saying how he would rather breed horses for racing than take part in the gymnastic events because it was "not to be pursued by one of low estate.
Historian, Georgia Tsouvala, gives three examples of inscriptions from lesser polis festivals that provide evidence of female athletes that were members of the gymnasia.
[8] Tsouvala also points out, while it's not common for women to have been able to partake in any form of physical education in ancient Greece, there are some states where it's encouraged like Sparta.
[8] In many ancient Greek works from Vergil, to Plutarch, to Ovid, there are reverences made to Spartan women taking part in traditionally male activities like boar hunting, pancration, and discus throwing to name a few.
[8] Tsouvala points out that other than as chariot horse owners, it was likely that girls and women would take part in footraces in the festivals in honor of Artemis and Iphigeneia.
There was also evidence discovered in Naples that held inscriptions detailing young women who participated in the stadion and dolichos foot races.
However, in Plutarch's Life of Lycurgus, its discussed how Spartan women were encouraged to participate in all the activities they normally would naked except for some festivals that where singing and dancing with men was permitted.
