Olympus Awakens: Athens Revives Ancient Games

Evangelical Zappas, a wealthy Greek-Romanian businessman consumed by patriotic idealism, funded the first modern attempt to revive the Olympic Games in Athens. The 1859 Zappas Olympics were held in a public square rather than a proper stadium, attracted athletes of wildly uneven ability, and were plagued by organizational chaos, yet they planted the seed from which the international Olympic movement would eventually grow. The idea of reviving the ancient games had percolated through Greek intellectual circles for decades. Greece had won its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1832, and the new nation was searching for connections to its ancient past. Panagiotis Soutsos, a Greek poet, had proposed an Olympic revival as early as 1833. Zappas, who had made his fortune in Romanian agriculture, offered to fund the entire venture and lobbied King Otto of Greece to make it happen. The 1859 games were open only to Greek and Ottoman subjects, making them a regional affair rather than an international competition. Events included running, jumping, discus, javelin, and climbing a greased pole. Most competitors were farmers, tradesmen, and laborers rather than trained athletes. The crowd was enthusiastic but unruly, spilling onto the competition area and disrupting events. Greek newspapers offered mixed reviews, praising the national spirit while criticizing the disorganization. Zappas funded subsequent revivals in 1870 and 1875, each better organized than the last. He also funded the restoration of the ancient Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, which was completed using his bequest after his death in 1865. That same stadium hosted the first modern international Olympics organized by Pierre de Coubertin's International Olympic Committee in 1896.