List of ancient Olympic victors

The current list of ancient Olympic victors contains all of the known victors of the ancient Olympic Games from the 1st Games in 776 BC up to 264th in 277 AD, as well as the games of 369 AD before their permanent disbandment in 393 by Roman emperor Theodosius I. It is based on available modern sources,^[1]^[2]^[3] as well as the older ones such as the writings of Pausanias (2nd century AD) and Chronicle of Eusebius (3rd century AD).^[4]

Completeness

The complete number of sports that were carried out in each iteration of the Games is unknown, as is the number of victors that took part in these.^[1]^[2]^[5] Also, the correlation between victors and cities may not always be true, as it was not uncommon during antiquity for some ancient writers to make up or distort an olympic victor's city so that the given city would gain the glory and fame that accompanied an athlete's victory.^[2]^[6]

Up to the 2nd century BC and the beginning of 1st century BC, the athletes were Greek, as per the prerequisite for participating in the Games,^[7] however starting from the end of 1st century BC more and more Roman names appear as a consequence of the Roman rule in the Hellenic world. A measure of the level of uncertainty that exists today with regard to who the majority of the ancient Olympic victors were, is the approximation that from a total of more than 3,500 probable victors in different olympic sports during the ancient Olympic Games, only about 800 of them are known today.^[5]

List

Notes

^ Eusebius lists Phrynon in this Olympiad, but the text is fragmentary and it is not clear what he won; Diogenes Laërtius says that he was a Pankratiast.
^ As restored by Christensen & Martirosova-Torlone 2006. Antigonus of Carystus quotes Hippys of Rhegion as listing Arytamas as the winner of the Stadion in this year.
^ Eusebius says this was the only Olympiad in which the Boys' Pentathlon was competed.
^ Possibly Hiero I of Syracuse.
^ Lichas was ineligible to have entered the race, and the Boeotian people were given the prize.^[8]
^ Diodorus (Bibliotheca 13.74–5) puts this victory in the 93rd Olympiad (408 BC); C. M. Bowra says that this dating is impossible and argues for the 91st Olympiad (416 BC) instead.^[9]
^ The Greek text of Eusebius says that Phokides won the Wrestling; the Armenian text of Eusebius agrees with Diodorus that Phokides won the Stadion.
^ "Deinosthenes" according to Diodorus
^ According to Eusebius' Chronicon, there was no Stadion race in the 175th Olympiad, as Sulla had summoned all of the athletes to Rome.
^ a b Photius quotes Phlegon as listing both Hypsikles and Gaius as winners of the Dolichos in the 177th Olympiad.
^ Eusebius says that instead of being held in 65 AD, they were instead held two years later in order to accommodate the emperor Nero.

References

^ a b "The Olympic Victors – Foundation of the Hellenic World".
^ a b c Christesen, Paul (22 October 2007). Paul Christesen – Olympic Victor Lists and Ancient Greek History, Cambridge University Press, 2007. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139466233.
^ "Karl Otfried Müller (1839) - The history and antiquities of the Doric race - σελ. 446–462 παράρτημα VI". 1839.
^ "Eusebius: Chronicle - attalus.org".
^ a b Romano, D.G. "How Do We Know? – The Ancient Olympic Games". ancientolympicgames.org. Archived from the original on 2016-02-16. Retrieved 2016-02-10.
^ "Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες στην αρχαιότητα, οι αθέατες πλευρές – Το Βήμα". 11 May 2012.
^ "Ancient Olympic Events - perseus.tufts.edu".
^ Thucydides 5.50.4
^ Bowra (1960) p.69.
^ The Anabasis of Alexander/Book II/Chapter XIV/Alexander’s Treatment of the Captured Greek Ambassadors.—Submission of Byblus and Sidon. – Arrian
^ Phlegon, Olympiades
^ Pausanias, Description of Greece, 6.14.2 – 6.14.3
^ Golden, Mark (2004). Sport in the Ancient World from A to Z. Routledge. p. 24. ISBN 978-0-415-24881-5.
^ Belis, Alexis. "The Ancient Olympics and Other Athletic Games". The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 2024-03-22.

Sources