0581NOTHestia_SLCOlympics

0581NotHestia_SLCOlympics

full .pdf from DesNews
Ovid Met.

Dennis Romboy, "A Jealously Guarded Fire," Deseret Morning News, 15 November 2001, A37/40.

Author reports unwitting erroneous information about the kindling of the Olympic Flame, "a solemn Greek ceremony dating back more than 2,000 years."

While the ancient Greeks clearly venerated Hestia and preserved many fire ceremonies in their ancient cults, still the generation of a sacred flame for the Olympic games themselves is an entirely modern contrivance, a neo-classicizing invention of Carl Diem in the 1936 Berlin Games. (John MacAloon, quoted in the story.)

The author's mention of the Hera Temple and of the [Roman] Vestals causes me to speculate that a misunderstanding between Hestia's sacred flame and other goddess cults seems possible.

Illustration detailing the lighting of the Olympic flame with a solar collector, a vestal priestess, and ancient Olympic history

The running of the torch has been named the Lampadedromia. (Der Spiegel 2 August 2004)

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
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