Archaic and Classical Greece · 776-400 BC

The Olympic Games: a truce every four years

Every four years the quarrelling Greeks laid down their arms and traveled to Olympia to honor Zeus with footraces, wrestling and chariot racing. Students visit the sanctuary, learn what an athlete won, and ask what the Games did that no treaty could.

Teach it live New Open on the map
Length
45 minutes
Ages
10–13
On the map
3 steps, 776 BC to 435 BC
Live lesson
7 rounds, 3 on the map
Worksheet
Two A4 pages, with Classroom
You need
A projector; phones for live

Live lesson · new in Classroom

Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.

Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.

€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.

A live lesson on the projector: the class's pins on the map around Alexandria, the closest students listed beside it A student's phone: the question and a map to tap
7 rounds
3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
About 15 minutes
Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
A report
Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
1

Introduction

5 min

Read aloud

Every four years the quarrelling Greeks laid down their arms and traveled to Olympia to honor Zeus with footraces, wrestling and chariot racing. Students visit the sanctuary, learn what an athlete won, and ask what the Games did that no treaty could.

By the end of the lesson, students can

  • Locate Olympia and explain why the Games were held there.
  • Name three ancient Olympic events and describe who was allowed to compete.
  • Explain what the sacred truce was and why the Games helped Greeks feel like one people.
2

Explore the map

12 min

Project the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.

a

776 BC

The sanctuary of Zeus

Open the map in 776 BC, the traditional year of the first Games, on Olympia in the western Peloponnese. Turn on Historical Events (Cultural) and find "First Olympic Games". Olympia was a sanctuary, not a city. Why hold the Games at a temple rather than in a big town?

Open this view on the map
b

500 BC

Coming from everywhere

Zoom out in 500 BC. Athletes and spectators came from every Greek city, including colonies in Sicily and Italy and cities in Ionia under Persian rule. Find Syracuse, Athens and Miletus and estimate how long each journey to Olympia took by ship and on foot.

Open this view on the map
c

435 BC

The statue of Zeus

Go to 435 BC and find "Statue of Zeus at Olympia" in Historical Events (Cultural). The sculptor Phidias made a seated Zeus about 12 m high, covered in gold and ivory. It was later counted among the Seven Wonders. Who paid for something like that, and why?

Open this view on the map
3

Class discussion

14 min

Pick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.

  1. The first Games had only one event: a sprint of about 192 m. Later came wrestling, boxing, the pentathlon and chariot racing. Why would a religious festival add sports at all?
  2. Only free Greek men could compete, and married women could not even watch. Who was the festival for, and who was left out?
  3. The winner received only an olive wreath, yet cities gave their champions free meals for life and poets such as Pindar wrote odes for them. Why was fame worth more than money?
  4. During the sacred truce, athletes and pilgrims could cross enemy territory safely. Why did Greek cities, who fought each other constantly, respect this rule?
  5. The ancient Games lasted more than a thousand years, until the Christian emperors ended them in the 390s AD. The modern Games began in 1896. What do the two have in common, and what is different?
4

Game round

9 min

Play one round of Rule History as Alexander the Great. His father Philip II won a horse race at Olympia in 356 BC and built a monument there. Ask the class: why would a king of Macedon, whom many Greeks called an outsider, care so much about winning at Olympia?

Open Rule History
5

Worksheet

5 min

This worksheet comes with Classroom

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