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Directions:
Please read the following passage within the limited time, and then do the
exercise.
Length of Text: 400
words
Time
Allowed: 4 minutes
3. Early Olympics
1 In ancient Greece, festival days were holidays for everyone. There were 70 festival days in the year. Every four years, a festival was held to honor the goddess Athena. It lasted from six to nine days. The festival opened with games and athletic contests. One contest featured a race with lighted torches. The torch race was a relay race between two teams that passed the torch from runner to runner. The winners of the games received a decorated jar filled with oil from the sacred olive groves. Today people keep up this custom by awarding prize cups to winning teams.
2 The most famous games in Greece were held in the little town of Olympia. Every four years, runners left Olympia for all parts of the Greek world to announce the start of the games. The games were held in midsummer. Then a sacred truce was declared. If Greeks were at war, they laid down their arms. As a result, people could travel to and from the games safely. Thousands of people headed for Olympia. Servants carried food supplies, cooking equipment, tents, and bedding. Most visitors slept on the floors of the town porches or beneath olive and poplar trees.
3 The Olympic games were held in honor of Zeus. His gold and ivory image sat enthroned in his Olympic temple. Athletes took an oath to abide by the rules.
4 The winners were crowned with an olive wreath. Poets wrote about them. Cities held parades for their favorite athletes. Athens gave money prizes to its Olympic champions. Athens also fed winners for the rest of their lives at public expense. At Sparta, Olympic winners had the honor of standing beside the king in battle.
5 Between athletic events, poets recited their verses to the crowds in the grandstands. Herodotus, the father of history, even read his history of the Persian Wars aloud at the Olympic games. It must have taken him several days of steady reading.
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Greek historians dated events by Olympiads. These were the four-year periods when the games were held. The first recorded date in Greek history is 776 B.C., the first Olympiad. This first Olympics had only one event, a short footrace. Over time, the number of events grew to include longer races. The games were held every four years until A.D. 394. Then Greece was ruled by the Roman Empire. The emperor forbade the Olympics as wicked pagan rites.
Comprehension
Exercise
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