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The Ancient Olympic Games, originally referred to as simply the Olympic Games (Greek: Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες; Olympiakoi Agones) were a series of athletic competitions held between various city-states of Ancient Greece. They began in 776 BC in Olympia, Greece, and were celebrated until 393 AD. The prizes were olive wreaths, palm branches and woollen ribbons. The origins of the Ancient Olympic Games are unknown, but several legends and myths have survived. One of these involved Pelops, king of Olympia and eponymous hero of the Peloponnesus, to whom offerings were made during the games. The Christian Clement of Alexandria asserted, "[The] Olympian games are nothing else than the funeral sacrifices of Pelops." That myth tells of how Pelops' overcame the King and won the hand of his daughter Hippodamia with the help of Poseidon, his old lover, a myth linked to the later fall of the house of Atreus and the sufferings of Oedipus. Read more...