Then dusty winds
and flooding rivers began to cover up what was left. Kladeos piled up
sand fifteen feet deep. Alpheios swung out of its banks and washed away
the race-course for chariots. Under the rains and floods the sun-dried
bricks of Hera's walls melted again into clay and covered the floor.
Again the earth quaked, and Hermes fell forward on his face, and little
was left of the beautiful old Olympia. Grass and flowers crept in from
the sides. Seeds blew in and shrubs and trees took the place of columns.
Soon the flowers and the animals had Olympia to themselves. A few gray
stones thrust up through the soil. So it was for hundreds of years.
Greece was conquered by the men of Venice and then by the Turks. But
Olympia, in its far corner, was forgotten and untouched except when a
Turkish officer or farmer went there to dig a few stones out of the
ground. And they knew nothing of the ancient gods and the ancient
festival and the old story of the place, for they were foreigners and
new people.
But about a hundred years ago Englishmen and Germans and Frenchmen began
to visit Greece. They went to see, not her new Turkish houses or her
Venetian castles or the strange dress of her new people, but her old
ruins and the signs of her old glory. These men had read of Olympia in
ancient Greek books and they knew what statues and buildings had once
stood there.
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