A plain called Olympia, in the small city-state of Elis was the site of the original Greek games. At the beginning of every four years, a period called an Olympiad, a major religious festival with athletic competition, took place at Olympia. In ancient Greece, the early Olympics did not rotate from city to city, but were permanently hosted at Olympia, the place from which the name Olympics originated. If wars were taking place at the time, as there usually were, a truce would be made during the military conflicts, soldiers would drop their swords and shields and accompany their opponents on a safe passage to Olympia, to enthusiastically participate in the games. After the games, the athletes would return to the battlefields with their companions, pick up their weapons and resume military engagements with their enemies, often fighting to the death, the athletic competitors whom they confronted only a few days or weeks before.
In the beginning, only free Greek-speaking male athletes could participate in the games, women, slaves, and foreigners were banned from competition. Women were even barred as spectators, not for sexual reasons, but for from 720 BC the male athletes were usually naked down to their bare feet when they participated. Olympia was a sacred place for men only, a place to worship Zeus, the principal Greek god. However, women were not completely excluded from competitive sports, as they had their own games, every four years as well, called the Heraea, after Hera, the wife of Zeus.
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