From Publishers Weekly
Combining a wealth of vivid details with a knack for narrative pacing and subtle humor, Perrottet (Pagan Holiday) renders a striking portrayal of the Greek Olympics and their role in the ancient world. While our modern games certainly pay homage to the Greek festival that was held uninterrupted for more than 1,200 years, the book's title refers to the most pronounced difference between the two: Ancient athletes competed in the nude, adorned only with olive oil. While Perrottet also outlines events ranging from the merciless chariot races to the pankration—a sort of early predecessor of ultimate fighting in which strangulation was seen as the surest means of attaining victory—he also puts the games in their heavy religious context and gives readers a strong sense of what they were like from a spectator's point of view. That they were cramped, hot and dizzyingly unsanitary apparently did little to dissuade throngs of people from the often treacherous journey to Olympia to catch glimpses of their heroes. And their experiences provided by Perrottet are what separate this book from staid history. His goal, he writes at the outset, is "to create the ancient games in their sprawling, human entirety," so readers are treated not only to a thorough picture of the games' proceedings but also to glimpses of the shameless bacchanalia, numerous (and often lascivious) entertainments and even corruption that accompanied them. It's an entertaining, edifying account that puts a human face on one of humanity's most remarkable spectacles. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
The ancient Greek Olympic games, according to the Stoic philosopher Epictetus, presented Western man with what we are now pleased to call a metaphor for human existence. Life is struggle and strife. Out in the dusty arena, all is desire, practice, noise, hope, exertion, sweat, agony -- and at the end of the day stand few winners and many, many losers. Athletes got to prove their mettle, and victory meant certain fame. But what was in it for those in the stands? Why would so many people travel vast, arduous distances to witness repeated renditions of human frustration? To see the winners crowned with laurel, some say; to sympathize with and celebrate the human condition, say others. But mostly they flocked to them, the old philosopher said, because the games were "an unforgettable spectacle," the ultimate amusement. The games were, in a word -- and in all senses of the word -- vulgar.So we might also say of war, that other proving ground for manhood. Yet an ongoing athletic gathering posed a splendid way for young men to test their physical prowess, and even to gain immortality of a sort, without hacking off limbs. As we might expect of this hardy people, they played as hard as they fought. The reigning images of classical Greek culture for us now may include the philosopher and poet, warrior and statesman, but the ancient Greeks were also like the rest of us, which is another way of saying that they were frivolous as well as profound. Just in time for the modern Olympic games to return to Greece this summer for the first time in more than a century, Tony Perrottet offers up a diverting primer on the Olympics of the ancient kind. For while the modern games still bear the marks of their ancestry, the old and the new Olympics should not be confused. The title points to the first and most obvious difference. Athletes in the original events at Olympia, "the focus of the greatest recurring festival in Western history," performed largely gymnos -- in the nude, an ancient practice unlikely to be revived. (From gymnos comes the word "gymnasium.") The ancient Olympic games, which began in 776 B.C. and were little interrupted for 12 centuries, came tightly -- and for us, inexplicably -- entwined with Greek religion. Hercules, a demigod, was said to have blocked off the paces of the runners' track. "Greece is full of wonderful sights and stories," wrote Pausanias in the second century A.D., "but nowhere is the aura of divinity so powerful as during . . . the Olympic Games." And the original games could also be, as Perrottet reveals, revoltingly bloody. The ancient games at Olympia lasted five days and followed a ritual much like a cultic liturgy. The first day saw the swearing in of athletes, trainers and judges, after which athletes would make sacrifices to the gods and, if they wished, seek advice from oracles. Later in the day, attendees could wander the Sacred Grove of Zeus to view paintings and statues; poets recited; philosophers philosophized. The second day brought the equestrian events, followed by the pentathlon, that medley of running, jumping, throwing the discus and javelin, and wrestling, all topped off by choral singing and banquets for those who had won the day. The next three days were much the same, an exuberant mix of races, wrestling, boxing, sacrifices, banquets and victory processions. All this, the stuff of Olympic myth, we could learn elsewhere. But Perrottet is keen to turn over a few dirty rocks and expose them. The legend should not be whitewashed. He refutes any view that the games were somehow freer from the lust for lucre than their modern, brazenly commercial counterparts. Nor were the games, contrary to the stubbornly repeated legend, guarantees of truce from the Mediterranean world's interminable wars. We're treated to some peculiarly amusing bits. Spectators found themselves spectacularly uncomfortable. Accommodations went only to the rich, and probably not to all of them. Hygiene was unknown, to put it delicately (and let's leave it at that). Mostly on account of the crowds and filth, not everyone fancied the games, despite their popularity. So bad were the conditions that a disobedient slave was once threatened with a trip to Olympia. And eroticism was everywhere. "Not for nothing," Perrottet tells us, "does our word chaos derive from the ancient Greek; with its lack of sanitation or facilities, the Olympic festival was the Woodstock of antiquity." No wonder the Christians shut the games down in the fourth century A.D. Perrottet has done his homework. The Naked Olympics is not a work of scholarship as commonly understood, studded with extensive footnoting, though it's well researched; his sources are as solid as sources come. It's also well written, which might not have been true of a more conventional study. It could have been much longer, but it didn't need to be. Perhaps no book of the season will show us so briefly and entertainingly just how complete is our inheritance from the Greeks, vulgarity and all. Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.


Review
“A vivid evocation of the blood and guts, not to mention sheer guts, that marked the original Olympic Games more than two thousand years ago. Tony Perrottet tells the gripping story of a festival of physical attainment during which athletes risked and sometimes lost their lives. Today's champions have it easy.” —Anthony Everitt, author of Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician

“This is the book to read if you want to know what it felt like to be a spectator or a contestant at the ancient Olympic Games. Perrottet brings the scene to life in all its pageantry and squalor, with its beautiful bodies, rotting meat, flies, and broiling heat. Then, as now, the Games brought out the best and the worst of human potential, and blood, sweat, tears, sex, and money were all part of the Olympic experience, along with religion, bribery and politics.
—Mary Lefkowitz, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Wellesley College and author of Greek Gods, Human Lives: What We Can Learn from Myths

"This lively account of the classical Olympics portrays them as "the Woodstock of antiquity," and claims that the Games, while taken seriously, were also where Greeks gathered for a five-day debauch. A prostitute could earn a year's wages in the course of the tournament, Thessalonian peddlers sold love potions made from horse's sweat and minced lizard, and pentathletes competed to the accompaniment of flutes, perhaps the ancient equivalent of stadium rock. The festival offered beauty pageants and Homer-recitation contests, numerologists and fire-swallowers, and such culinary delicacies as roasted sow's womb. Athletic events also fuelled a thriving pickup scene: a message etched into the wall of a stadium at Nemea reads, "Look up Moschos in Philippi - he's cute."
--The New Yorker

"Erudite, colorful and frequently hilarious, Perrottet's The Naked Olympics is a marvelous resource for athletes, spectators, and scholars alike. I will never watch the Olympic games in quite the same way again."
—Michael Curtis Ford, author of  The Ten Thousand and The Last King

"I considered myself a pretty solid researcher on ancient Greece, till Tony Perrottet's The Naked Olympics blew me out of the water.  I never knew (just two among hundreds of delicious factoids) that there was no separate event for discus and javelin -- they were part of the pentathlon -- or that the chariot race ran 24 laps and took fifteen hair-raising minutes.  (Not to mention the distinction between various attendant types of groupies, courtesans, and pornai.)  Mr. Perrottet's vivid cinematic prose not only delivers encyclopedic intelligence of the ancient games but spirits you back in time with such immediacy that you can smell the sweat and feel the hot Greek sun.  If you're gonna be glued to the modern Athens Games like I will, you must read The Naked Olympics.  No other book communicates with such authenticity  ' where it all came from, '  back in the days when you didn't need wardrobe malfunctions to get naked."
—Steven Pressfield, author of Gates of Fire, Tides of War, and Last of the Amazons

"The Naked Olympics presents the Greeks in all their glory, brutality, and vulgarity. It is a fascinating picture and popular history at its best."
—Norman Cantor, Professor Emeritus, New York University, and author of Antiquity: The Civilization of the Ancient World

" Fans of Tony Perrottet's Pagan Holiday (aka Route 66 AD) will kill to read his follow-up The Naked Olympics. A seasoned traveller, Perrottet follows all the highways and byways of ancient Olympic lore. He really makes you feel what it was like to be at the ancient Olympics, conjuring up the sights, sounds and smells (especially the smells) of the Games with a sure and vivid touch. The Naked Olympics would be just the thing to cover your nakedness as you watch the 2004 Athens Olympics or go to visit the ancient site of Olympia - figleaves need not apply. "
—Paul Cartledge, Professor of Classics, Cambridge University, and author of The Spartans

"Short of building your own time machine, reading Tony Perrottet’s The Naked Olympics will be the closest you’ll come to experiencing the blood, sweat, glory, and greed that were the ancient Olympic Games. And if you do somehow happen upon a time machine, you’d still be wise to trust Tony Perrottet as your guide. Steeped in scholarship, leavened by humor, and lighted by the same flames of history and love of sport that illuminated the works of Homer, Lucian, Herodotus, Thucydides, Pausanias and Dio the Golden-Tongued, Perrottet’s The Naked Olympics: The True Story of the Ancient Games is one of those rare books that you’ll be citing for years to come."
—Dan Simmons, author of Ilium

"It was the Woodstock of antiquity: a five-day spectacle of heroic performance and after-hours debauchery dedicated to the Greek gods and held every fourth year at the rural religious sanctuary of Olympia. There were no team sports in the first Olympics, no torch marathon - that staple of the modern games was the brainchild of Adolf Hitler - and there was certainly no spandex. The original Olympics , travel writer Tony Perrottet tells us in this fun, light-hearted primer on the Greek competition that began it all, competed buck naked. Except, that is, for a generous coating of olive oil. ('Boy rubbers' were on hand to massage the oil in.) Wrestling, sprinting, boxing and chariot racing were the center-ring events of the competition, which ran uninterrupted and largely unaltered for 1,200 years, beginning in 776 B.C. Released to coincide with this summer's Athens games, The Naked Olympics is an engaging history lesson on an event that has apparently always been as much about pomp and politics as it has about superhuman strength."
---National Geographic Adventure


From the Inside Flap
What was it like to attend the ancient Olympic Games?

With the summer Olympics’ return to Athens, Tony Perrottet delves into the ancient world and lets the Greek Games begin again. The acclaimed author of Pagan Holiday brings attitude, erudition, and humor to the fascinating story of the original Olympic festival, tracking the event day by day to re-create the experience in all its compelling spectacle.

Using firsthand reports and little-known sources—including an actual Handbook for a Sports Coach used by the Greeks—The Naked Olympics creates a vivid picture of an extravaganza performed before as many as forty thousand people, featuring contests as timeless as the javelin throw and as exotic as the chariot race.

Peeling away the layers of myth, Perrottet lays bare the ancient sporting experience—including the round-the-clock bacchanal inside the tents of the Olympic Village, the all-male nude workouts under the statue of Eros, and history’s first corruption scandals involving athletes. Featuring sometimes scandalous cameos by sports enthusiasts Plato, Socrates, and Herodotus, The Naked Olympics offers essential insight into today’s Games and an unforgettable guide to the world’s first and most influential athletic festival.

"Just in time for the modern Olympic games to return to Greece this summer for the first time in more than a century, Tony Perrottet offers up a diverting primer on the Olympics of the ancient kind….Well researched; his sources are as solid as sources come. It's also well writen….Perhaps no book of the season will show us so briefly and entertainingly just how complete is our inheritance from the Greeks, vulgarity and all."
--The Washington Post

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Peeling away the layers of myth, Perrottet lays bare the ancient sporting experience - including the round-the-clock bacchanal inside the tents of the Olympic Village, the all-male nude workouts under the statue of Eros, and history's first corruption scandals involving athletes. Featuring sometimes scandalous cameos by sports enthusiasts Plato, Socrates, and Herodotus, The Naked Olympics offers essential insight into today's Games and an unforgettable guide to the world's first and most influential athletic festival.

FROM THE CRITICS

Tracy Lee Simmons - The Washington Post

Perrottet has done his homework. The Naked Olympics is not a work of scholarship as commonly understood, studded with extensive footnoting, though it's well researched; his sources are as solid as sources come. It's also well written, which might not have been true of a more conventional study. It could have been much longer, but it didn't need to be. Perhaps no book of the season will show us so briefly and entertainingly just how complete is our inheritance from the Greeks, vulgarity and all.

The New Yorker

This lively account of the classical Olympics portrays them as “the Woodstock of antiquity,” and claims that the Games, while taken seriously, were also where Greeks gathered for a five-day debauch. A prostitute could earn a year’s wages in the course of the tournament, Thessalonian peddlers sold love potions made from horse’s sweat and minced lizard, and pentathletes competed to the accompaniment of flutes, perhaps the ancient equivalent of stadium rock. The festival offered beauty pageants and Homer-recitation contests, numerologists and fire-swallowers, and such culinary delicacies as roasted sow’s womb. Athletic events also fuelled a thriving pickup scene: a message etched into the wall of a stadium at Nemea reads, “Look up Moschos in Philippi—he’s cute.”

Publishers Weekly

Combining a wealth of vivid details with a knack for narrative pacing and subtle humor, Perrottet (Pagan Holiday) renders a striking portrayal of the Greek Olympics and their role in the ancient world. While our modern games certainly pay homage to the Greek festival that was held uninterrupted for more than 1,200 years, the book's title refers to the most pronounced difference between the two: Ancient athletes competed in the nude, adorned only with olive oil. While Perrottet also outlines events ranging from the merciless chariot races to the pankration a sort of early predecessor of ultimate fighting in which strangulation was seen as the surest means of attaining victory he also puts the games in their heavy religious context and gives readers a strong sense of what they were like from a spectator's point of view. That they were cramped, hot and dizzyingly unsanitary apparently did little to dissuade throngs of people from the often treacherous journey to Olympia to catch glimpses of their heroes. And their experiences provided by Perrottet are what separate this book from staid history. His goal, he writes at the outset, is "to create the ancient games in their sprawling, human entirety," so readers are treated not only to a thorough picture of the games' proceedings but also to glimpses of the shameless bacchanalia, numerous (and often lascivious) entertainments and even corruption that accompanied them. It's an entertaining, edifying account that puts a human face on one of humanity's most remarkable spectacles. Agent, Elizabeth Sheinkman. (June) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Neither the title nor the subtitle does justice to Perrottet's (Pagan Holiday) engaging work. This lay reader's guide to the ancient games at Olympia presents events as they were scheduled, moving from the athletes' required preparations to the closing ceremonies and the spectators' trip home. Within this framework, he also describes the buildings, the sponsors, and what it was like for the fans in attendance. Employing numerous sources (poorly referenced, alas), Perrottet describes the 1000 years of games, how the Mediterranean world viewed the contests and the participants, and what that might say about the concomitant cultures. The illustrations reveal an idea of the importance the games played in Greek and Roman art, and Perrottet gives generous literary references, from the games' Homeric foundations to the beautiful poems written about the athletes over the centuries. One comes away with an understanding of the role played by the games in the various cultures before Christians decided the contests celebrated the wrong gods and shut them down. Recommended for all public libraries. Clay Williams, Hunter Coll., New York Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews