The origin of the Olympic Games is linked with many myths referred to in ancient sources, but in the historic years their founder is said to be Oxylos whose descendant Ifitos later rejuvenated the games.
According to tradition, the Olympic Games began in 776 B.C. when Ifitos made a treaty with Lycourgos the king and famous legislator of Sparta and Cleisthenes the king of Pissa. The text of the treaty was written on a disc and kept in the Heraion.
In this treaty that was the decisive event for the developement of the sanctuary as a Panhellenic centre, the "sacred truce" was agreed. That is to say the ceasing of fighting in all of the Greek world for as long as the Olympic Games were on.
As a reward for the victors, the cotinus, which was a wreath made from a branch of wild olive tree that was growing next to the opisthodomus of the temple of Zeus in the sacred Altis, was established after an order of the Delphic oracle.
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