Ancient Greek Olympics
The Greeks invented athletic contests and held them in honor of their gods known as the Olympics. The ancient Olympics seem to have begun in the early 700 BC, in honor of Zeus. No women were allowed to watch the games and only Greek nationals could participate. The first day of the festival was devoted to sacrifices. On the Middle Day of the festival 100 oxen were sacrificed in honor of a God. Athletes also often prayed and made small sacrifices themselves as well. On the second day, the foot-race, the main event of the games, took place in the stadium. At the Olympics there were four different types of races.Boxing became more and more brutal in the Olympics at first the pugilists wound straps of soft leather over their fingers as a means of deadening the blows, but in later times hard leather, sometimes weighted with metal, was used. There were also Chariot races, that consisted of both 2-horse and 4-horse chariot races.