Like our German friends, the porter had regaled us with stories of how, if the Games had been in progress, all the peaceful area around our hostel would have been overwhelmed For weeks, Olympia became a vast festival camp Outside the sporting and sacred areas sprawled tented sites, after they were cleared of their crowded marquees when the Games ended, the ground would be covered with a hot mulch of trash and human squalor According to the porter, it rivalled the mounds of slurry from the cattle of King Augeus which Hercules had sluiced away in myth
There was no natural water source, and no latrines had ever been provided until we Romans came Except in the Aids, as they called the walled-m sacred area, a reek of human waste would hang
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everywhere The flies which famously torture spectators would hover in drugged clouds above the litter
The locals tidied up every four years for the next Games Maybe we were too fastidious, but a year in advance, the place still seemed a mess Even my dog balked at nosing among the old mattresses, gnawed bones from roasted meat, and broken amphorae Nux adored everything the streets of Rome offer to a hound with disgusting standards, here she took one breath then slunk to heel, shocked I patted her and tied her on a leash The last thing we wanted abroad was a dog with a diseased digestive tract, we might need her to bark for assistance when the people were laid low As they were bound to be
Walking north from our hostel, we found greater decorum Nervous about the anti-women rules, Helena and Albia had prepared a story about visiting the Temple of Hera, where women must be allowed since there were running races for girls In fact nobody ever turned them back The place was devoted to the male body, however Wherever we went, we marched in the shade of statues, hundreds of them, some given as thank-offerings for good fortune in war by cities, but mostly dedicated by the victors themselves as the lasting memorial to their prowess It was no place for prudes Nude men on tall plinths were showing off their stone assets everywhere we looked
We spent a morning sightseeing Young Glaucus led us instinctively to the gymnasium He was ecstatic Though he was itching to try out the sports facilities, he came with us into the sacred area
Within the walled enclosure, we were overlooked by the dramatic tree-covered Hill of Cronus, where Marcella Caesia"s corpse had been found by her father Closest to the gymnasium stood the Prytaneion, a building where fabulous feasting occurred to celebrate victories Near to this was the gaily painted Temple of Hera, the oldest temple on site It had three long aisles, each full of astounding statuary, including a fabulous Hermes with the young Dionysus Glaucus gazed reverently at the gold and ivory table, which during the Games would be carried out to the judges" enclosure, on it would be placed simple wreaths of wild olive, the only prizes awarded here Of course Olympic winners would be received back home with mass adulation, a pension in vast vats of olive oil, seaside villas, and lifetime permission to bore the populace with sporting stories Glaucus was already
dreaming
In outside spaces stood many altars, some with smoke from that
morning"s sacrifices wreathing up into the air One was phenomenal. the Great Altar of Zeus Upon an ancient stone base reared a curious rectangular mound, maybe twenty feet tall when we saw it During every set of Games a hundred oxen were slaughtered for Zeus, a gift from the people of Elis who ran the festival. Over the centuries, the ash of past sacrifices had been mixed with water from the River Alphaios, it set in a hard paste that was added to the mound. Steps had been carved out, leading to the top of the altar, where the god's choice cuts were burned
As we approached the stadium, we saw a line of forbidding statues of Zeus, called the Zanes, erected to damn for ever athletes who had cheated. their names and crimes were inscribed on the bases. Beyond them lay a long colonnade, used for the contests for heralds; it had a sevenfold echo which Albia and the lads tested to the full. At this corner of the enclosure an arch marked the competitors" tunnel to the running track. The bronze trellis gates were closed, but we found a way to clamber into the stadium after a steep climb up and over the spectators" stand.
Young Glaucus inspected the curious starting blocks "You curl the toes of your front foot in these grooves and wait for the signal. There's a trip-rope system to deter false starts If a runner takes off too soon, before the judges loosen it, he'll knock the rope down He is made to withdraw, and the judges flog him like a slave. There are not," stated Glaucus, "many false starts."
The hippodrome lay alongside the stadium. There Glaucus explained the starting gates, where up to forty chariots could be held in wedge formation that gave the outer pairs an equal chance with those at the centre. We imagined them bursting forth to the roar of forty thousand spectators, who stood on carefully designed elliptical banks. Everyone had a good view down the course – though we noticed with smirks that it was much smaller than the Circus Maximus.
Coming out, we wasted time trying in vain to get into an enormous villa Nero had built for himself by the hippodrome gates, the authorities had locked it up and hoped it would fall down. Glaucus went back to the gymnasium to practise. The rest of us sauntered through the main sanctuary, reaching the famous Temple of Zeus This did contain one of the Seven Wonders of the World, so it was no surprise that although we had barely seen ten people so far, at this point we came face to face with an official guide
"You speak Greek – oh you speak Latin?" He changed swiftly to
Latin, though we had not said a word. "Where are you folks from? Croton? Rome? My brother lives at Tarentum " Oh no. "Xenophon's fish bar, do you know his place?"
Our guide was named Barzanes. Should you go to Olympia, try to be snaffled by a different one.
"First I will show you the workshop of Phidias "
We had seen it for ourselves already. That did not stop him.
As we stood for the second time in the enormous workshop being regaled with facts, Helena was the only one of us prepared to be civil to the guide. He was tall, with a small head set on lop-sided shoulders, one wider than the other. He wore a long belted robe like a charioteer, and carried a stave with which he gesticulated enthusiastically.
Yes, it was miraculous to find ourselves standing in the very place where one of the world's greatest artists had produced his masterpiece. To prove it, we were shown surviving moulds, faulty casts, and minuscule bits of marble, gold sheet and ivory. Funnily enough, they were for sale; this charade for the public must have been going on for five hundred years. At Barzanes" voice, souvenir-sellers had popped out of nowhere. We were even offered a blackened cup that said i BELONG TO PHIDIAS It was an exorbitant price but I bought it, even though the sculptor's name was spelled the Roman way. It was the only way to escape. I would give it to my father as a souvenir. It did not matter if the cup was a fake; so was my father.
We hustled Barzanes back to the Temple of Zeus. In fairness, our guide knew a whole whack of statistics. "The temple was financed by the Elians and took ten years to build; it has thirty-four columns, topped with plain square pediments; above the columns you will see a painted frieze of innumerable mouldings in deep hues of red, blue, and gold – " He was unstoppable. "The roof is of Athenian Pentelic marble, drained in rainstorms through over one hundred marble waterspouts in the form of lions" heads. Twenty-one gilded shields which you see now, but which were unknown to the ancients, have been placed here by the Roman general Mummius after he sacked Corinth -"