Paul
CHRISTESEN Whence 776? The Origin of the
Date for the First Olympiad
776 BCE, ostensibly the
date of the first celebration of the Olympic Games, is
widely considered to be the first firm chronological
point in ancient Greek history. This date is ultimately derived
from the Olympic victor list, which was first compiled by
Hippias of Elis in the late fifth-century BCE and was
subsequently updated by Aristotle and Timaeus among
others. The purpose
of this paper is to argue that the date of 776 was
calculated on the basis of generational reckoning using
the Spartan king list and is at best only approximately
accurate. This conclusion has significant
ramifications since it means that many Olympiad dates
found in the ancient sources, which are universally
converted to Julian calendar dates based on the
assumption that Olympiad 1 corresponded to 776, may be
less precise than they appear.
The key components of the
argumentation I will present can be summarized as
follows:
1. Hippias
compiled the first Olympic victor list from a diverse
array of sources and did not draw on archival records.
2. In the
absence of a continuous register of Olympic victors,
Hippias or one of his immediate successors established
the date for the first Olympiad recorded in the Olympic
victor list by the association of that iteration of the
Olympics with the Elean king Iphitos and the Spartan
lawgiver Lycurgus. There
is a range of evidence to support this assertion,
including the facts that (a) ancient Greek chronographers
relied on generational reckoning for establishing dates
before c. 500 BCE, and the best known generational
sequence was that of the Spartan royal houses, to which
Lycurgus was related, (b) in Phlegon of Trallesí
account of the founding of the Olympics only one figure,
Lycurgus, is given a genealogy, which would have been
critical information for calculating the date of Olympiad
1, (c) Plutarch (Lycurgus 1) states that Aristotle
assigned a date to Lycurgus on the basis of a discus at
Olympia on which the names of Iphitos and Lycurgus were
inscribed, (d) Hippias produced the first Olympic victor
list at a time when Sparta was threatening to end Elean
control of the Olympics, and he would have been aware
that his claim that Iphitos and Lycurgus had jointly
founded the Olympics made it more difficult for the
Spartans to terminate Elean control of the Games.
3. Generational
reckoning was imprecise, and widely divergent dates for
Lycurgus circulated in the ancient world.
Even if one accepts the link between Olympiad 1 and Lycurgus,
the date of 776 is uncertain at best.
4. The
archaeological evidence potentially supports a range of
dates for the first athletic contests at Olympia, but the excavators at
the site have proposed a date of sometime around 700.
The argumentation presented here removes one major objection
to this date.