But with this entertainment came the Olympic Games which were to honor Zeus. The games were started in 776 B.C. where the only prize for victory was a wreath of wild olives. These games were held once every four years in Olympia in Elis which is in southern Greece. .
Hardy's next subject to touch on was Greek thought and philosophy. Thales of Miletus in Asia Minor was the first to light the torch of Greek thought. Thales could not except the Greek legends of how the world came into being so he tried to solve the riddle by reasoning. Thales had two pupils, the first was Anaximander. Anaximander developed further than Thales the theory of opposites. The second pupil was Anaximenes and his basic substance was air. Hardy then goes on to explain Plato's Republic and how it is probably his most widely read works. Plato's pupil was Aristotle, who after Plato's death became the tutor of Alexander the Great. Hippocrates is the next philosopher Hardy discusses. Hippocratese was the founder of the medical oath still used today, the Hippocratic Oath. .
Hardy then moves onto Rome and explains that from earliest times the family lay at the center of all personal and social relations in Rome and even influenced public and political activities. Religion was the other principal element that shaped early Roman life, and religion and family remained closely intertwined as the twin pillars of Roman society for the five centuries of the Roman Republic.
The Roman aristocrats provided the leadership for the establishment of the Roman Republic, and they continued to dominate it for centuries. During the five centuries of the republic, Rome grew from a small city of 10,000 into a great cosmopolitan metropolis of 1 million whose empire of 15 million subjects encompassed the entire Mediterranean basin. Social and political conflict inevitably arose as the conservative Romans attempted to keep their old values and institutions in place while exercising their authority over subjects of many different nationalities.