ANCIENT NEMEA, Greece -- I took my white tunic and rope belt from the pile. The judges picked out fresh laurel crowns and hand-hewn staffs. I walked out into the shade of tall cypress trees to await the trip to the Temple of Hercules.
|
ADVERTISEMENT
|
|
|
Have a thought?
Go to the Forums or Chat.
|
|
|
|
Barefoot runners wearing tunics take part in a footrace in the ancient stadium of Nemea. The race was part of the Nemean Games, the third modern reenactment of the athletic competition originally held in the stadium some 2,300 years ago. The ancient games at Nemea were part of a cycle of festivals in four Greek cities, including Olympia, home of the Olympic Games.
Associated Press
|
|
And a rare chance to play ancient athlete for an hour or so.
About 700 of us - from grade school kids to U.S. Supreme Justice Anthony Kennedy to a 97-year-old iron man - gathered Saturday in Ancient Nemea for a recreation of the games of antiquity. But it was more than a well-crafted bit of time travel. It was an opportunity to reflect a bit more on the budget-busting modern Olympic extravaganza that opens in Athens in less than two weeks.
The Nemean Games could be accused of going too far in the other direction: offering a romanticized version of the ancient contests that also had their share of scandals and abuses. But no one cares. They emerge wide-eyed and smiling from the dark 120-foot tunnel that leads into the stadium - one of the four sites for the ancient Panhellenic games, now generally referred to as the Olympics after the most famous venue of Ancient Olympia.
All day the competition had been races of 89 yards over the packed tan soil of the 2,300-year-old stadium surrounded by moss-speckled olive groves, emerald pine trees and dry summer grass. Everyone runs barefoot, ending in front of a squat column with a smoldering fire of olive wood, pine and cypress.
The first three finishers get a palm branch and head band. The champion also receives a wreath of wild celery that wilts within hours. That's all.
But there are some concessions to modernity. The judges and others tote cell phones in their robes and gulp bottled water. Helpers have shirts advertising the games' Web site: www.nemea.org. Women, who were mostly banned from the ancient games, can compete. And there's the short white tunic called a "chiton."
"The ancient athletes competed naked," said Stephen Miller of the University of California at Berkeley, who has directed the Nemea archaeological digs since 1974. "That's one aspect we'll just have to leave to the past."
Our race is the last of the day: 4.5 miles and the only one that permits running shoes. About 200 of us are taken by bus to the Temple of Hercules, who performed the first of his mythical 12 labors by strangling the Nemean Lion. The ruins are surrounded by vineyards.
The oldest competitor, 97-year-old La Grand Nielsen of Hemet, Calif., took some sips of water and stretched a bit. He's been to all three Nemean Games since 1996 and looking ahead to number four.
"I'll be 101," he said. "If I'm still around, I will be here. This is not about who wins. We are here to be part of history."
"Listen everyone," shouts a judge.
He reads us an oath similar to the words spoken in antiquity: "Do you swear to abide by the rules of the Nemean Games and do nothing that would bring shame to you, your family or the spirit of the ancient games?"
We hold up our right hands and proclaim together: "We swear."
"Apite," shouts the judge in ancient Greek. "Go."
We race down a road in a cloud of fine talc-like dust.
The whole idea of the "Nemead" goes back to Miller's novel ideas to revisit history.
His excavations have uncovered the ancient Nemea stadium, ruins of a locker room, a rope-and-wood starting gate system and other clues of the athletic contests more than two millennia ago. But he wanted the findings to have an audience beyond academic journals and the few tourists who stop in Ancient Nemea, about 72 miles southwest of Athens.
The first modern Nemea Games took place in June 1996 with 650 participants from nearly 30 nations. The second gathering was in 2000.
"We want to give people real contact with the ancient games," Miller said. "Your toes are, literally, in the footprints of ancient Greece. It's a sensual connection to antiquity."
Miller has taken the recreation of ancient Greece a step further. He has led a team rebuilding parts of the 2,300-year-old Temple of Nemean Zeus, a shepherd god different from the mighty Olympian Zeus that ruled the cosmos.
"My whole career here would not have been worth much if I just dug up antiquities and put them in an 'apothiki' (store room)," said Miller, 62, who plans to retire later this year. "There is an educational aspect to make these objects - to make this place - come alive."
The society overseeing the Nemea Games is guided by the belief that the modern Olympics "have become increasingly removed from the average person."
"We don't consider ourselves an alternative to the Olympics, but a supplement," Miller said. "It's a place where slow guys like me can be Olympians for two minutes."
Our race is about the same as the longest run in antiquity. The marathon is a modern invention of an old legend: the route of messenger Pheidippides to Athens to announce victory of Persians in 490 B.C.
We struggled up a grueling series of hills heading toward the village of Kleonai, where Hercules rested for a while. By now, the cotton tunics are drenched with sweat.
"Keep going," the villagers urge. "On to Nemea."
I'm not doing too bad - a little better than a nine-minute-mile pace on a very tough course. Up ahead is a small figure, whose tunic is flopping around his ankles. I pass the boy with just about 1.2 miles to go.
We enter into the ancient stadium grounds and into the dressing area. The rules say we must remove our running shoes and continue barefoot. I run into the darkness of the tunnel and emerge in the stadium. My daughter slaps my hand.
I cross the line. My feet are covered in dirt.
Then the crowd erupts into bigger applause. The boy, 9-year-old Alexi Rigopoulos, is sprinting to the finish just behind me.
