O L Y 
O L Y 
where they poured oil, to preferve the ivory. The altar of 
Jupiter Glympius was compofed of allies from the thighs 
of the viclims which were carried up and confumed on 
the top with wood of the white poplar-tree. The allies 
alio of the prytaneum, in which a perpetual fire was kept 
on a hearth, were removed annually on a fixed day, and 
fpread on it, being firft mingled with water from the Al- 
pheus. The cement, it was affirmed, could be made with 
that fluid only ; and therefore this river was much re- 
fpedfed, and efteemed the mol'friendly of any to the god. 
On each fide of the altar were fione fteps. Its height was 
02 feet. Girls and women, when allowed to be at Olym¬ 
pia, were fuffered toafcend the bafement, which was 125 
feet in circumference. The people of Elis facrificed daily, 
and private perfons as often as they chofe. 
Religion flourilhed at Olympia; and many deities were 
worlhipped befides Jupiter. Paufanias has enumerated 
above fixty altars of various fliapes and kinds. One to 
The Unknown Gods flood by the great altar. The peo¬ 
ple of Elis offered on all thefe monthly; laying on them 
boughs of olive, burning incenfe, and wheat mixed with 
honey; and pouring libations of fuch liquors as the ri¬ 
tual prefcribed. At the latter ceremony fometimes a form 
of prayer was ufed, and they fang hymns compofed in the 
Doric dialed:. 
Olympia was fituated on an eminence, between two 
mountains called Ofla and Olympus. It has been aflerted 
that no remains of the celebrated city of Olympia could 
now be traced ; but M. Fauvel, a friend of Dr. Pouque- 
ville, has defcribed with much minutenefs a variety of 
relics, which appear to leave no doubt of the identity of 
the fpot. He fixes it near the conflux of the fmall river 
Cladeus and the more copious flream of the Alpheus. 
In the courfe of his inveftigations, he was much delighted 
chi difcovering that the inhabitants called the neighbour¬ 
ing village Andilalo, or “Village of the Echo;” a cir- 
cumftance remarkably connected with the obfervation of 
Paufanias, that the Greeks attending the Olympic games 
were accultomed to liften to an echo which repeated the 
found feven times over. Were the furface of the ground 
dug up, it is probable that many veftiges of Olympia 
would be found hidden under the fand and earth which 
have been accumulated by the inceffant overflowings of 
the Alpheus. This river, bringing down foil from the 
fides of the mountains, with leaves and other vegetable 
fubftances, has in the courfe of ages raifed the ground 
near its banks, and even at a conliderable difiance from 
them, to the height of feveral feet; which operation has 
been going on ever fincethe abandoned Hate of the coun¬ 
try caufed the negledt of the mounds that, in better days, 
preserved the adjacent plains from inundation. The fcite 
of Olympia is now occupied by a fmall place called Lon- 
ginico, which fee, voL xiii. See alfo Pouqueville’s Tra¬ 
vels in the Morea, 1813. and Monthly Rev. vol. Ixxiv. 
OLYM'PIAD, f. A Grecian epoch; the fpace of four 
years.—The Olympick games were celebrated every fifth 
year; and the interval was called an olympiad, confifting 
of four Julian years. Gregory. 
The firft olympiad fell, according to the mod approved 
computation of the moderns, exadlly 776 years before the 
firft year of Chrift, or 775 before the year of his birth, in 
the year of the Julian period 3938, and 22 years before the 
building of Rome ; and correlponding to the 3228th year 
of the world, and 408 years after the liege of Troy. The 
games were exhibited at the time of the full-moon next 
after the fummer folftice ; therefore the olympiads were of 
unequal len'gth, becaule the time of the full-moon differs 
11 days every year, and for that realon they fometimes 
began the next day after the folftice, and at other times 
four weeks-after. The computation by olympiads ceafed 
after the 304th, in the year 440 of the Chriftian era. It was 
univerfally adopted, not only by the Greeks, but by many 
of the neighbouring countries ; though ftill the Pythian 
games ferved as an epoch to the people of Delphi and to 
the Boeotians; the Nemrean games to the Argives and 
Vol. XVII. No. 1190. 
4G5 
Arcadians; and the Ifth’mian to the Corinthians and the 
inhabitants of the Peloponnefian ifthmus. To the olym¬ 
piads hillory is much indebted : they have ferved to fix 
the time of many momentous events; and, indeed, before 
this method of computing time was obferyed, every page 
of hillory is moftly fabulous, and filled with obfeurity and 
contradidlion ; fo that Varro, with good reafon, confiders 
-this epocha as the boundary between the fabulous and the 
hillorical times. 
The Peloponnefian war began May the 7th, in the fe¬ 
cund year of the 87th olympiad. Alexander the Great 
died April the 21ft, in the fecond year of the 114th ; and 
Our Saviour Chrift was born in the fourth year of the 
193d, four years before the common era; fo that what we 
call Anno Domini 1, is the firft year of the 195th olym¬ 
piad. See Blair, Chambers,'and Gent. Mag. for Dec. 1817. 
OLYM'PICS, or Olym'pic Ga'mes, were folemn 
games, which Jailed five days, famous among the ancient 
Greeks; inftituted, according to Pome, by Hercules, in 
honour of Jupiter, and re-eftablilhed by Iphitus; and 
held at the beginning of every fifth year, that is, every 
50th month, on the banks of the Alpheus, near Olym¬ 
pia, a city of Elis ; to exercife their youth in five kinds 
of combats. 
Thefe games have been held in fuch reputation, and 
they are fo nearly connected with thejiillory of the Greeks, 
that their vanity has induced them to aferibe their ori¬ 
gin or revival to the moft venerable perfonages of anti¬ 
quity, fuch as the Idaean Hercules, Clymenus, Endymion, 
Pelops, and Hercules the fon of Alcmena; and, in or¬ 
der to fupport thefe pretenlions, reafons have been fought 
for, and arguments'produced, from the religious rites and 
ceremonies, the laws and cuftoms, of this folemnity. 
Thus Paufanias fays, that thefe games were ordered to 
be celebrated every five years, becaule the brothers called 
the Idrei Dafilyli, of whom the Idaean Hercules was the 
elder, were five in number; to whom, in particular, as 
alfo to his four brothers, an altar was confecrated at 
Olympia by Clymenus, who was defeended from this 
Hercules, and is laid to have celebrated thefe games fifty 
years after the deluge of Deucalion. The claims of En¬ 
dymion are founded on the name of his father Aethlius, 
who is faid to have given the appellation of athletic to 
thole who contended for the prize denominated athlon at 
thefe games. As for Pelops, this hero was held in fuch 
high veneration at Olympia, that the Eleans in their fa- 
crifices gave him the preference even to Jupiter himfelf, 
for which they alleged the practice of Hercules, the fon 
of Alcmena ; to whofe labours, as Pindar informs us, they 
were indebted for their olive-crown. The Eleans, not 
contented with a founder who was mortal by his mother’s 
fide, have fought a ftill more noble and ancient origin, 
and have named for the authors of thefe games Jupiter 
and Saturn ; who, as they pretend, in the very place 
where thefe games were afterwards celebrated, wreftled 
with each other for the empire of the world. Others 
affirm, that they were inftituted by Jupiter, in comme¬ 
moration of his victory over the Titans ; and that Apollo 
in particular fignalized himfelf by gaining two victories, 
one over Mercury in the foot-race, and another over 
Mars in the combat of the cteftus. The names of other 
heroes might be mentioned, who are laid to have cele¬ 
brated thele games ; the laft of whom was Oxylus, who 
came into the Peloponnefus with the Heraclidas. After 
him followed fo long an intermiflion of the folemnity, that 
the memory of it was almoft loft. 
As to theoccafions of celebrating the Olympic games, 
fir Ilaac Newton is of opinion, that they were originally 
celebrated in triumph for victories; firft by Hercules 
Idteus, upon the conquell of Saturn and the Titans ; and 
then by Clymenus, upon his coming to reign in the Terra 
Curetum ; then by Endymion, upon his conquering Cly- 
raenus ; and afterwards by Pelops, upon his conquering 
Hitolus ; and by Hercules, upon his killing Augeas; and 
by Atreus, upon his repelling the Heraclidte ; and by 
6 C Oxylus, 
