12 BCE

Herod Preserves the Olympic Games

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In 12 BCE, receiving word that the Olympic Games, established in the time of Grecian rule, were dwindling due to insufficient funds, Herod was strongly moved to make large provisions to ensure its continuity. ‍

Josephus, Wars, 1.21.12

‍“... but then what favours he (Herod) bestowed on the Eleans was a donation not only in common to all Greece, but to all the habitable earth, as far as the glory of the Olympic games reached. For when he perceived that they were come to nothing, for want of money, and that the only remains of ancient Greece were in a manner gone, he not only became one of the combatants in that return of the fifth-year games, which in his sailing to Rome he happened to be present at, but he settled upon them revenues of money for perpetuity, insomuch, that his memorial as a combatant there, can never fail.”

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Josephus, Wars, 1.21.12

“... but then what favours he (Herod) bestowed on the Eleans was a donation not only in common to all Greece, but to all the habitable earth, as far as the glory of the Olympic games reached. For when he perceived that they were come to nothing, for want of money, and that the only remains of ancient Greece were in a manner gone, he not only became one of the combatants in that return of the fifth-year games, which in his sailing to Rome he happened to be present at, but he settled upon them revenues of money for perpetuity, insomuch, that his memorial as a combatant there, can never fail.”