Olympiad

An Olympiad (Greek: Ὀλυμπιάς, Olympiás) is a period of four years associated with the Olympic
Games of the Ancient Greeks. During the Hellenistic period, beginning with Ephorus, it was used as
a calendar epoch. Converting to the modern BC/AD dating system the first Olympiad began in the
summer of 776 BC and lasted until the summer of 772 BC, when the second Olympiad would begin
with the commencement of the next games. By extrapolation to the Gregorian calendar, the 2nd year
of the 699th Olympiad begins in (Northern-Hemisphere) mid-summer 2018.
A modern Olympiad refers to a four-year period beginning on the opening of the Olympic Games for
the summer sports. The first modern Olympiad began in 1896, the second in 1900, and so on (the
31st began in 2016: see the Olympic Charter).

Stadium at ancient Olympia.

Ancient Olympics
An ancient Olympiad was a period of four years grouped together, counting inclusively as the
ancients did. Each ancient Olympic year overlapped onto two of our modern reckoning of BC or AD
years, from midsummer to midsummer. Example: Olympiad 140, year 1 = 220/219 BC; year 2 =
219/218 BC; year 3 = 218/217 BC; year 4 = 217/216 BC. Therefore, the games would have been
held in July/August of 220 BC and held the next time in July/August of 216 BC, after four olympic
years had been completed.

Historians
The sophist Hippias was the first writer to publish a list of victors of the Olympic Games, and by the
time of Eratosthenes, it was generally agreed that the first Olympic games had happened during the
summer of 776 BC.[1] The combination of victor lists and calculations from 776 BC onwards enabled
Greek historians to use the Olympiads as a way of reckoning time that did not depend on the time
reckonings of one of the city-states. (See Attic calendar.) The first to do so consistently
was Timaeus of Tauromenium in the third century BC. Nevertheless, since for events of the early
history of the games the reckoning was used in retrospect, some of the dates given by later historian
for events before the 5th century BC are very unreliable. [2] In the 2nd century AD, Phlegon of
Tralles summarised the events of each Olympiad in a book called Olympiads, and an extract from
this has been preserved by the Byzantine writer Photius.[3] Christian chroniclers continued to use this
Greek system of dating as a way of synchronising biblical events with Greek and Roman history. In
the 3rd century AD, Sextus Julius Africanus compiled a list of Olympic victors up to 217 BC, and this
list has been preserved in the Chronicle of Eusebius.[4]

Examples of Ancient Olympiad dates

A relief of the Greek Olympiad.


Early historians sometimes used the names of Olympic victors as a method of dating events
to a specific year. For instance, Thucydides says in his account of the year 428 BC: "It was the
Olympiad in which the Rhodian Dorieus gained his second victory".[5]

Dionysius of Halicarnassus dates the foundation of Rome to the first year of the seventh
Olympiad, 752/1 BC. Since Rome was founded on April 21, which was in the last half of the
ancient Olympic year, it would be 751 BC specifically. In Book 1 chapter 75 Dionysius states:
"...Romulus, the first ruler of the city, began his reign in the first year of the seventh Olympiad,
when Charops at Athens was in the first year of his ten-year term as archon." [6]

Diodorus Siculus dates the Persian invasion of Greece to 480 BC: "Calliades was archon in
Athens, and the Romans made Spurius Cassius and Proculus Verginius Tricostus consuls, and
the Eleians celebrated the Seventy-fifth Olympiad, that in which Astylus of Syracuse won
the stadion. It was in this year that king Xerxes made his campaign against Greece." [7]

Jerome, in his Latin translation of the Chronicle of Eusebius, dates the birth of Jesus
Christ to year 3 of Olympiad 194, the 42nd year of the reign of the emperor Augustus, which
equates to the year 2 BC.[8]

Start of the Olympiad

An Olympiad started with the holding of the games, which occurred on the first or second full
moon after the summer solstice, in what we call July or August. The games were therefore
essentially a new years festival. In 776 BC this occurred on either July 23 or August 21. (After the
introduction of the Metonic cycle about 432 BC, the start of the Olympic year was determined slightly
differently).

Anolympiad
Though the games were held without interruption, on more than one occasion they were held by
others than the Eleians. The Eleians declared such games Anolympiads (non-Olympics), but it is
assumed the winners were nevertheless recorded.

End of the era

During the 3rd century AD, records of the games are so scanty that historians are not certain
whether after 261 they were still held every four years. During the early years of the Olympiad, any
physical benefit[clarification needed] deriving from a sport[example needed] was banned. Some winners were recorded
though, until the last Olympiad of 393AD. In 394, Roman Emperor Theodosius I outlawed the games
at Olympia as pagan. Though it would have been possible to continue the reckoning by just counting
four-year periods, by the middle of the 5th century AD reckoning by Olympiads had become disused.

Start and end

The modern Olympiad is a period of four years, beginning at the opening of the Olympic Summer
Games and ending at the opening of the next. The Olympiads are numbered consecutively from the
first Games of the Olympiad celebrated in Athens in 1896. The XXXI Olympiad (i.e. 31st) began on
August 5, 2016 and will end on July 24, 2020. [9]
The Summer Olympics are more correctly referred to as the Games of the Olympiad. The
first poster to announce the games using this term was the one for the 1932 Summer Olympics, in
Los Angeles, using the phrase: Call to the games of the Xth Olympiad
Note, however, that the official numbering of the Winter Olympics does not count Olympiads—- it
counts only the Games themselves. For example:


The first Winter Games, in 1924, were not designated as Winter Games of the VII Olympiad,
but as the I Winter Olympic Games.

The 1936 Summer Games were the Games of the XI Olympiad. After
the 1940 and 1944 Summer Games were canceled due to World War II, the Games resumed
in 1948 as the Games of the XIV Olympiad.

However, the 1936 Winter Games were the IV Winter Olympic Games, and the resumption of
the Winter Games in 1948 was designated the V Winter Olympic Games.[10]

Some media people have from time to time referred to a particular (e.g., the nth) Winter Olympics as
"the Games of the nth Winter Olympiad", perhaps believing it to be the correct formal name for the
Winter Games by analogy with that of the Summer Games. Indeed, at least one IOC-published
article has applied this nomenclature as well.[11]This analogy is sometimes extended further by media
references to "Summer Olympiads". However, the IOC does not seem to make an official distinction
between Olympiads for the summer and winter games, and such usage particularly for the Winter
Olympics is not consistent with the numbering discussed above.

Quadrennium
The U.S. Olympic Committee often uses the term quadrennium, which it claims refers to the same
four-year period. However, it indicates these quadrennia in calendar years, starting with the first year
after the Summer Olympics and ending with the year the next Olympics are held. This would suggest
a more precise period of four years, but the 2001–2004 Quadrennium would then not be exactly the
same period as the XXVIIth Olympiad.[12]

Cultural Olympiad
A Cultural Olympiad is a concept protected by the International Olympic Committee and may be
used only within the limits defined by an Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games. From one
Games to the next, the scale of the Cultural Olympiad varies considerably, sometimes involving
activity over the entire Olympiad and other times emphasizing specific periods within it. Baron Pierre
de Coubertin established the principle of Olympic Art Competitions at a special congress in Paris in
1906, and the first official programme was presented during the 1912 Games in Stockholm. These
competitions were also named the ‘Pentathlon of the Muses’, as their purpose was to bring artists to
present their work and compete for ‘art’ medals across five categories: architecture, music, literature,
sculpture and painting.
Nowadays, while there are no competitions as such, cultural and artistic practice is displayed via the
Cultural Olympiad. The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver presented the Cultural Olympiad Digital
Edition. The 2012 Olympics included an extensive Cultural Olympiad with the London 2012 Festival
in the host city, and events elsewhere including the World Shakespeare Festival produced by
the RSC.[13] The 2016 games' Cultural Olympiad was scaled back due to Brazil's recession; there
was no published programme, with director Carla Camurati promising "secret" and "spontaneous"
events such as flash mobs.[14]

Other uses
The English term is still often used popularly to indicate the games themselves, a usage that is
uncommon in ancient Greek (as an Olympiad is most often the time period between and including
sets of games).[15] It is also used to indicate international competitions other than physical sports. This
includes international science olympiads, such as the International Geography
Olympiad, International Mathematical Olympiad and the International Linguistics Olympiad and their
associated national qualifying tests (e.g., the United States of America Mathematical Olympiad or
the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad), and also events in mind-sports, such as
the Science Olympiad, Mindsport Olympiad, Chess Olympiad, International History
Olympiad and Computer Olympiad. In these cases Olympiad is used to indicate a regular event of
international competition for top achieving participants; it does not necessarily indicate a four-year
period.
In some languages, like Czech and Slovak, Olympiad (Czech: olympiáda) is the correct term for the
games.
The Olympiad (L'Olimpiade) is also the name of some 60 operas set in Ancient Greece.