1.Since the Greeks (especially the Athenians and Spartans) attached importance to the military training, actualized the physical education and advocated the spirit of valor and tenacity, thus in the war of fighting against the Persians in 5th century BC, the Greeks were so valiant that they defeated the Persians and won the great victory in the battle.After the war, the sports were popularized in Greece in an unparalleled scope, which brought the Olympic Games to its golden age in history.During this time, the magnificent temple of Zeus and the acceorial Olympic Guests House(奥林匹亚迎宾殿)were constructed.That was the most splendid memorial that saw the states of Greek debate Persians.From then on, the Olympic Games became more influential and larger-scale.
2.The triumph of the Greece-Persia war not only made the Greek-states beat back the Persian army’s offensive into westward, securing the independence of the country, but also laid the foundation for opening up of the sea-lane to the Black Sea, establishing its supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean.At the same time, the victory had promoted the prosperity of the slavery economy and culture in Greece in the second half of 5th century BC.Just then, with the constant development of politics, military, economy and culture in the slavery city-states, a large number of slaves were more widely used in all kind of producing departments in society.They produced ceramics, metal wares, textile fabrics, olive oil, wine, agricultural proceed-goods, mineral products, and so on, which were inceantly sold to the distant areas in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea by the aristocratic slaveholders.Simultaneously, the slaveholders also carried back the food supplies, livestock, industrial raw materials and numerous slaves.All these resulted in the rapidly flourishing of the handicraft industry, busine and external trade in many city-states of Greece.Obviously, the economic prosperity of the Greek society was based on the great fortune made by maive slaves.Without the slavery system in Greece, the Silver Age of the Olympic Games would not have come.3.However, the slavery society was founded on the base of a great deal of oppreed slaves’ exploitation thrown by the slaveholders.The slaves made enormous fortune for the society as well as the various wealth for the Greek city-states.Meanwhile, the annexing was appearing, especially the cruel oppreion and exploitation of the slave-owner cla had taken stirred up the slaves’ continuous resistance.Many of them either went into exile or held armed uprising, which gave a heavy hit to the slavery society of Greece and made it fall from flourishing summit to decline inch by inch.During the Peloponnesian War, the whole Greece had suffered a bigger lo.Large numbers of slaves escaped both from Sparta and Athens.Only in the year of 413 BC, there were more than 20,000 slaves holding the ma breakout from the city-state of Athens, most of who were skillful craftsmen, which hit the slavery economy of Athens heavily.
4.Just as the historian, Thucydides described:“The war--the Peloponnesian War has lasted a long time, and during the wartime, Athens suffered unprecedentedly.Actually, there never have so many cities been occupied and destroyed…so have the driven and killed people resulting from the war itself or the civil strife…Besides, the earthquake expanded in a wide area instantaneously, so did the drought as well as the famine causing by drought.At last, the widespread diseases caused the biggest calamity, and a lot of people died of it.All these came up with the war.” After the war, the slaves of the different city-states rose up continuously, and they always united the urban paupers fighting in an extremely large scale.5.All these drastically exhausted the national power of each city-state.Besides, the flooding of diseases and disasters accompanied with the war crippled the old Greece completely and the society began to run from the prosperity to the wane.While the slavery society went downhill in Greece, the Olympic Games also followed it from a flourishing age to a declining period.6.It was the Olympic Games that firstly advocated the Holy Truce, which expreed the yearning for peace of the ancient Greeks and made it poible for the Olympic Games going on wheels and developing continually.However, the war could not be prevented and vanished just by the Holy Truce.On the contrary, it was the evil war that brought the Olympic Games to the crowning calamity.After the Greece-Persia war, the Peloponnesian War in the 5th century BC made the slavery system begin to decline in Greece.At the same time, it became the turning point of the Olympic Games from rise to decline.
7.Why did the Olympic Games run from rise to decline gradually? Apart from the reasons mentioned above, so many maladies it had were the internal cause that speeded up the decline of the Olympic Games.These maladies corroded the muscles and eroded the soul of the Olympic Games from every side and by any ways.From the 6th century BC, even in the Golden Age of the Olympic Games, some unhealthy elements had appeared, among which the appearance of the profeional athletes and the profeionalized competitions, which went bad to worse in the following years.Finally, it resulted in the corruption being revealed continuously in some competitions of the Olympic Games.Thus, it went too far to be back.8.At the very beginning of the foundation and development of the Olympic Games, the athletes joining in must be trained strictly.Once winning in the competition, they would gain all kinds of glories after that.At first, the kings, slaveholders and aristocrats often participated in some competitions.Relatively, the slaveholders and aristocrats usually paid special attention to the strict and hard training and spared no effort in the games.But the following games were imprinted by the ages deeply along with the slavery society going from prosperity to decline in Greece.
