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50 free Ancient Olympics trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The ancient Olympic Games ran for well over a thousand years, and this quiz covers the whole span from a single foot race in 776 BC to a bronze plaque proving they were still going in AD 385. It starts with the basics (which god, which prize, what an Olympiad is, why athletes competed naked) and works through the events: stadion, diaulos and dolichos, the race in armour, wrestling and boxing, the pankration that only banned biting and gouging, halteres for the long jump and the four-horse chariot race that let a Spartan princess become the first female champion. Then come the people and the politics: Coroebus the cook, Milo and his calf, Leonidas of Rhodes and his twelve wreaths, Diagoras dying of joy, the judges from Elis, the truce and the Spartans who broke it, Sulla's looting, Nero's chariot crash, the Statue of Zeus, Kallipateira in disguise, and the emperors who revived, neglected and finally ended it all. Easy questions suit anyone who has watched a modern Olympics; the expert tier asks about mule carts and 2,000-mina fines. For the modern games, try our Olympics quiz. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the ancient games, Olympia and the athletes involved, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The ancient Olympic Games were held in honour of which god?
Zeus
On the middle day of the festival 100 oxen were sacrificed to him.
Q 02What is the traditional date of the first ancient Olympic Games?
776 BC
One ancient philosopher reckoned the date; archaeology suggests major games at Olympia began around 700 BC.
Q 03The four-year interval between games became a unit of time called what?
An Olympiad
Historians dated events by the sprint winner: 'the third year of the eighteenth Olympiad when Ladas of Argos won'.
Q 04What was the prize for an ancient Olympic victor?
An olive wreath
The kotinos was cut from the sacred wild olive near the temple of Zeus by a boy whose parents were both alive, using golden scissors.
Q 05What was the Greek name for the Olympic truce announced before each games?
Ekecheiria
Three runners called spondophoroi carried news of it; it guaranteed safe passage but did not stop wars.
Q 06The last recorded ancient games were held in AD 393 under which Roman emperor?
Theodosius I
Archaeology shows some games continued afterwards; they probably ended under Theodosius II when the temple of Zeus burned.
Q 07According to Pausanias, the only event at the first games was a foot race of about 190 metres called what?
The stadion
It gave us the word 'stadium' and remained the sole event for the first thirteen games.
Q 08Who is traditionally named as the first Olympic champion, winning the foot race in 776 BC?
Coroebus of Elis
He was a cook and baker by trade; other ancient writers say he was merely the first recorded winner.
Q 09The two-stade race with a turn around a post, added in 724 BC, was called what?
The diaulos
Its name means 'double pipe'; runners turned around separate posts called kampteres.
Q 10The long-distance race of twenty or more laps, roughly 7.5 to 9 km, was called what?
The dolichos
There was no marathon at the ancient games; that event was invented for the 1896 revival.
Q 11In which race, added in 520 BC and run last, did competitors sprint in full military armour?
The hoplitodromos
Helmet, greaves and heavy shield added at least 6 kg; it was based on soldiers charging in armour to surprise an enemy.
Q 12What was the all-in ancient Olympic combat sport of punches, holds, kicks and chokes, introduced in 648 BC?
Pankration
Only biting and gouging were banned; oddly, the Greeks considered it less dangerous than boxing.
Q 13Which pankratiast famously won posthumously, dying at the very moment his opponent submitted?
Arrhichion of Phigalia
He died defending his title in 564 BC and was called 'the most famous of all pankratiasts'.
Q 21Which was the first equestrian event added to the games, in 680 BC?
The four-horse chariot race
Two horses were yoked in the middle and two outer horses attached by rope; riders used neither saddles nor stirrups.
Q 22Which Spartan princess became the first female Olympic victor in 396 BC as a chariot owner?
Cynisca
Owners, not drivers, were credited as winners, and she had trained the horses herself.
Q 23Which Athenian, according to Plutarch, entered a record seven chariots in a single Olympic race?
Alcibiades
He took first, second and either third or fourth place at once.
Q 14Which wrestler from Croton won six Olympic titles and reputedly trained by carrying a calf until it was a cow?
Milo
A follower of Pythagoras, he reportedly led Croton's army into battle wearing his Olympic wreaths and a lion skin.
Q 15Which sprinter from Rhodes won three races at four straight Olympiads, a record twelve wreaths?
Leonidas
His 164-152 BC streak was unmatched until Michael Phelps in the modern era.
Q 16What did the five events of the ancient pentathlon always finish with?
Wrestling
The others were running, long jump, discus and javelin; how the winner was decided remains unknown.
Q 17Ancient long jumpers swung a pair of hand-held weights called what?
Halteres
Recorded jumps of up to 50 feet suggest the event was more like a multiple hop than a single leap.
Q 18Ancient boxers wrapped their hands in long leather strips called what?
Himantes
Boxing was first listed in 688 BC; the Spartans, who claimed to have invented it, soon abandoned the event.
Q 19Which 720 BC runner is said to have been the first to compete naked, shedding his loincloth?
Orsippus
Nudity became the norm; Thucydides credited the Spartans with the custom of stripping and oiling for exercise.
Q 20What was the loincloth worn by early Olympic athletes, before nudity became standard, called?
Perizoma
Sixth-century BC vase paintings show athletes still wearing it.
Q 24Which Roman emperor was thrown from his chariot at Olympia in AD 67 yet was declared the winner anyway?
Nero
He had the games postponed two years to fit his tour and won every music contest too; after his death the 'Neronian Olympiad' was voided.
Q 25Which Roman general looted Olympia in 86 BC and staged the 175th games in Rome?
Sulla
He is described as the only Roman to commit violence against Olympia.
Q 26What were the judges of the ancient games, all drawn from the host city-state, called?
Hellanodikai
The name means 'Judges of the Greeks'; their number settled at ten in 348 BC.
Q 27The Statue of Zeus at Olympia, one of the Seven Wonders, was made by which sculptor around 435 BC?
Phidias
He had already made the Athena Parthenos; the Eleans hired him to outdo Athens, and his workshop was excavated in the 1950s.
Q 28The Statue of Zeus was made of which materials over a wooden frame?
Ivory and gold
Strabo wrote that if Zeus stood up he would unroof the temple; the statue was lost by the end of the 6th century AD.
Q 29Which hero, who won Hippodamia by sabotaging King Oenomaus's chariot, gave his name to the Peloponnese?
Pelops
One origin myth says he founded chariot races at Olympia as funeral games for the dead king.
Q 30The sacred precinct at Olympia was known by what name, from an Elean word for 'the grove'?
The Altis
It held the temples of Hera and Zeus, the Pelopion and the great altar; spectators camped in tents outside.