The Olympic ideals of amateurism, participation and international unity - foundation stones of the modern games - are nothing more than a series of myths. The ancient Greeks had no such aims in their games - and no sacred torch or marathon race either. Where did the modern games get such ideas? What were the games of the ancient Greeks really like? How could they have continued for 1,000 years without a single interruption? Tonight, M. I. Finley, Professor of Ancient History at Cambridge University, tells the story of the first Olympic Games from their beginnings near a tiny altar on a flat plain in Western Greece more than 700 years before Christ.
