Olympic Tradition The Spirit Of The Games Lives On Among The Sprawling Ruins In Olympic, Greece

The temptation is natural: To run past the judges’ stand and imagine being crowned with the olive wreath of victory as spectators (including, perhaps, Plato or Diogenes or Herodotus) roar their approval.

Children readily succumb to the urge, crouching at the stone starting line and then bolting down the track. Amid tumbled columns and roofless walls, in the ruins of the stadium where it all began, they are running literally in the footsteps of ancient Olympians.

When the Olympic Games were born here in 776 B.C., the Great Wall of China had not been built; the Mayan culture had yet to be founded; Confucius had not been born; and Nike was the Goddess of Victory, not a registered trademark.

The games were held here every four years for more than 1,000 years, even under Roman rule. But they were abruptly halted because of increasingly bitter relations between Greeks and Romans. After a lapse of 1,500 years, they were resumed in 1896 in Athens, making that city the sentimental favorite to host the centennial of the modern Olympics this July. But the city’s air pollution, traffic congestion and aging infrastructure made it no match for Atlanta.

So the satellite-beamed TV event we know as the Summer Olympics will be held this year in the American South. But I wanted to see where these ancient games began - to visit the sites associated with them. That meant going to Olympia and a drive that would take me to Athens and Marathon, and dozens of ancient and unheralded towns between.

Along the way I found myself distracted and sidetracked by the expansive beauty of the countryside, the boundlessly engaging culture and uniformly friendly people.

Yet it is in Olympia, among the sprawling ruins of fountains, baths and the arches through which Olympic athletes paraded into the stadium, that the Olympic spirit is evoked most powerfully, for the cold stones are links to the honored spectacle that I can only imagine.

When I watch the Greco-Roman wrestling at this year’s Olympics, my mind’s eye will see the columns of the wrestling school at Olympia, where young athletes trained. When I see women from around the world competing - something they did not do in the beginning - I will picture the temple of Hera, queen of the gods, sister/wife to Zeus and goddess of women and marriage.

As I watch the athletes from many nations compete at Atlanta, I will think back to the ruins of the Treasuries - a row of templelike buildings where Greek cities and colonies from as far away as Italy, Albania, North Africa and Byzantium stored sacrificial items and sporting equipment.

In its glory days, the centerpiece of Olympia was the temple of Zeus and the games were dedicated to his glory. Today, little remains but the foundation and scattered sections of fluted columns five feet in diameter. Still, I could picture the 42-foot-tall gold-and-ivory statue of the chief deity of Greek mythology, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, that once stood here.

Olympia’s museum, filled with relics excavated from the site, puts flesh on the bones of the ruins. One room has athletic equipment: discuses, weightlifters’ stones and hand weights used to help jumpers achieve greater momentum. A gallery of statues portrays statesmen, generals and gods forever frozen in marble; massive pediments from the temple of Zeus depict epic struggles; and there are coins, weapons, tools, bronzes and ceramics.

In the mountains outside town, I turned off a paved road onto a steep track, intrigued by a rusty metal sign that reads, “Monastery.” The track is rugged and a brief hailstorm added to the plagues of mud, narrow roadway and hairpin curves. After 10 miles the track ends and to proceed meant going on foot. A footpath leads to Prodhromou monastery, stuck like a swallow’s nest on a cliff above the Lousios River gorge.

Vasilis Ilios, one of 12 monks cloistered here, answered my knock on a thick wooden door. His beard and hair are as black as his robe, his eyes as soft as his voice.

He lead the way through whitewashed tunnels into the cliffside.

“Beginning in the eighth century, monks lived in caves here,” he whispered, pointing to 14th-century frescoes on the rock walls.

“I am from Macedonia. Then I stay many years in Athens. Then I say to God, ‘You show me what to do.’ And I choose this life.”

“This life” is as simple and isolated, for the monks’ needs are few. They live in cubbyhole cells that extend precariously, cantilevered, out of the cliff face along a wooden catwalk. Hundreds of feet below, the river rumbles unseen. Just to live here seems an act of faith.

Near the monastery I stopped, intending to spend the night in Karitena, a village that clings - like the monastery - by its fingernails to a mountainside. But first, dinner, which consisted of a round loaf of bread, fat olives and feta cheese bought at a tiny store that also sells bolts of cloth and hammer handles.

In the midst of the purchase, a sudden power failure plunged the village into darkness. Not missing a beat, the merchant threw in some long candles that he stocks for church services. We completed the transaction by flashlight.

Without electricity, the village looked as it must have centuries ago: people living by candle and lantern light in stone houses terraced one above the other along narrow streets designed for carts, not cars.

Near a 13th-century church overlooking the valley, Athalasia Papadopoulon rents rooms in her home for $15 a night. The rooms are unheated, but blankets are plentiful.

The next morning the village lights were back on, but visibility remained poor, limited by a thick fog that rolled down the mountainside like a ghostly glacier.

Mrs. Papadopoulon invited me into her kitchen, containing a fireplace, wood stove, electric stove, TV and bed. Animal hides hung on the porch.

She shooed me toward the fireplace to break the chill and brought coffee in a demitasse cup.

Like most people in the mountains around Olympia, she speaks little English. But also like most people here, she displays a friendliness that transcends the language barrier.

It was difficult to leave her cozy kitchen, but 150 miles to the east are more mountains that figure prominently in Olympic lore. Almost 2,500 years ago a Greek ran across them and right into the language of the Olympics.

His name was Pheidippides and he was a long-distance foot messenger, what the ancient Greeks called a hemerodromi. In 490 B.C., when the Greeks defeated invading Persians at the Battle of Marathon, Pheidippides was dispatched to run 26 miles from Marathon to Athens with news of the victory. When he reached Athens he proclaimed, “Rejoice! We conquer!” Then he dropped dead.

To honor him, the marathon race was made an Olympic event when the games were revived in 1896.

When Pheidippides made his run, he was in a hurry. I was not. As I approximated his route by car, I enjoyed the luxury of plodding, leaving plenty of time to stop and talk with people like Constantine Tsekouras.

He manages the hotel where I stayed in Nea Makri, near Marathon. Tsekouras is also an amateur historian who loves to talk about the Battle of Marathon. That’s understandable - his house is on the battlefield.

At the slightest provocation he gets out a Greek history book and shows diagrams of the battle, explaining the strategy of both sides:

“The Greeks, they lined up stronger in the flanks than in the middle. This deceived the Persians, who could not see the greater depth of the flanks. The Persians defeated the middle of the Greek forces, but then the two Greek flanks surrounded them.”

South of the village of Marathon stands the Tomb of the Marathon Warriors, a 30-foot-high mound where the 192 Athenians killed in the battle are buried.

In the Pentelis, it quickly became apparent that Pheidippides must have had leg muscles as hard as the marble quarried in these mountains.

One Greek who apparently inherited his legs is John Stamatogiannis. He was bicycling through the mountains on a worn 10-speed. As he paused on a steep incline to talk, his breathing was barely labored. He is 40, with gray dappling his black hair.

Learning that I was American, he says in practiced English, “I am a mathematics teacher. I got my master’s in Illinois.”

Stamatogiannis and his bike are a common sight in these mountains.

“I ride 25 to 30 miles through these mountains every other day,” he says. “It takes me about three hours. I have been doing this about five years.”

If Pheidippides could join Stamatogiannis on his route today, he would find some things along the way familiar - groves of orange, lemon, olive and fig trees and fields of yellow flowers. Even the modern Greek alphabet, used in signs for vegetable stands, marble outlets and taverns serving souvlaki and baklava, is little changed.

Of course, he also would find much changed, especially when he arrived in Athens. More than a million people live there now. Traffic is chaotic. At every intersection drivers honk hosannas to the Greek god of gridlock.

Even the Parthenon, one of the city’s oldest landmarks, would be unfamiliar to him. It was built atop the Acropolis in 438 B.C., 52 years after Pheidippides made his legendary run.

A mile away is Athens’ Panathenian Stadium. When the Olympics were revived in 1896, they were held here. It is simple but elegant, built of white Penteli marble from the mountains that Pheidippides ran through. This marble was also used to create the amazing number of statues that have survived to grace museums and archeological sites all over Greece.

Like Pheidippides, I had covered 26 miles from Marathon to Athens on this leg of my journey. Like Pheidippides, I rejoiced upon arriving in the city that has contributed so much to democracy, philosophy, art and architecture.

But how different Pheidippides and other ancient Greeks would find today’s Olympics. The original games, begun almost 2,800 years ago, consisted of just a handful of events - for men only, who competed in the nude. When the games were revived in 1896 in Athens, nine nations sent male athletes to compete in 20 events. This year, more than 100 nations will send male and female athletes to compete in dozens of events. What would the ancients think of Olympic table tennis?

The original games had strong religious overtones. The modern games have become big business dependent on money and media.

And there is one other significant difference: During the original games, a truce was declared. Legal disputes and armed conflicts among warring groups were banned while the games were in progress.

The 1996 Olympics could hope to achieve so much.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: If you go Driving in Greece, especially in Athens, is not for the faint of heart and weak of brake. Athens traffic is congested and chaotic; street signs are in Greek. In the mountains of the Peloponnese Peninsula, don’t expect to be able to average 55 or even 45 miles an hour. Roads that appear fairly straight on a map are actually quite convoluted. Opportunities to pass safely are infrequent and drivers must watch for rock slides and shepherds with their flocks. Along major highways, signs for tourist attractions are in English and restaurant menus often are in English, too. Rental cars are available at major airports and cities for about $90 a day, mileage included. Most towns have at least one hotel. If you want a tub - not just a shower - ask to see the room first to avoid surprises. A double room typically is $35 and up. Youth hostels are about $6 a night; campsites about $5. Bed and breakfasts are not as common as in some European countries. For more information about the glory days of Olympia, “The Ancient Olympic Games” by Judith Swaddling (University of Texas Press, 1984) is a thin but thorough book. Runners who want to follow in the footsteps of Pheidippides can participate in the Spartathlon (Athens to Sparta) Sept. 27-28. Contact the Spartathlon Association, Box 3851, Athens 10210, Greece; phone 011-30-1-9234788. For the Athens Open International Marathon (Marathon to Athens) Oct. 20 (and for general information about touring Greece), contact the Greek National Tourist Organization, 645 Fifth Ave., New York, N.Y. 10022; (212) 421-5777. The organization’s E-mail address is gnto@aurora.eexi.gr