Greece was the place where the original Olympic games were held on the Plain of Olympia in 776 BC. So highly esteemed were the games by the ancient Greeks that they measured time in Olympiads, a period of four years, from the first Olympics. The ancient Greeks considered the games to be an offering to Zeus, so religious rituals and non-athletic events were also involved. In one of the games, Herodotus read out all nine books of his ‘History’ to the crowd, a feat that must have taken several days.

The marathon is also deeply rooted in Greek history. When, in 490 BC, the Greek army defeated the Persians at Marathon, on the northeast coast of Attica, the runner Pheidippides was despatched to convey the good news to Athens. When the Olympics was revived in 1896 after being abandoned in 4 AD, a long-distance race was introduced to commemorate the feat of Pheidippides and this race was run over a course equal in distance to the run from Marathon to Athens – 26 miles and 32 yards.

The recently concluded Olympics blended tradition with modernity in a charming fashion. Both medals and laurel wreaths were awarded to winners. The award of the medal is a development introduced after the games’ revival in 1896.

There were no medals in the original Olympics. The athletes were awarded a wreath of laurel leaves and a palm branch. The laurel is an aromatic evergreen shrub. This award of the laurel wreath has given rise to verbs like laurelled and laurelling and figurative usage as in ‘look to one’s laurels’ and ‘rest on one’s laurels’.

The laurel carries shades of romance from mythology as well. When the Greek nymph Daphne was pursued by Apollo, she prayed for aid, so the gods turned her into a laurel, which was promptly adopted by the die-hard romantic Apollo as his favourite tree. The Cannes’ award for the year’s best movie is named La Palme d’Or, in memory of the winner’s palm branch..

This feature was published on September 11, 2004