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Since its modern revival in 1896, the Olympics, which has now been split into summer and winter versions, has attracted increasingly fervent attention world-wide. The original Olympic games were started in ancient Greece, where Mt. Olympia in Greece was considered to be the home of the gods, ruled by Zeus. The various Greek city-states such as Corinth, Athens, and Sparta would gather together every few years to compete in athletic events similar to those of today – the discus and javelin throw, footraces, and long and high jumping. They had the pentathlon, a series of five events whose scores were totaled together to determine the winner, which we have today. The ancient Greeks also had chariot races but of course we have the equivalent, bicycle races.
The hero of Test of Valor, by James Wesley Ingles, is Nicias, a large, fast, strong athlete who will represent Athens in the pentathlon at the Olympics. He is twenty years old and is an outstanding athlete and a good man. His friends Cleon and Menander are going with him to compete at the Olympics. One event in the ancient Olympics, which is different from today, was called the pancration, a brutal combination of wrestling and boxing. You might compare it to today’s sport of mixed martial arts but with a difference: the pancration had no rules. None. People were sometimes killed in those bouts. Nicias’ father, Lycon, had been a star pancration athlete twelve years before and had been crippled by a massive, brutal man named Ajax, from Corinth, who won the bout and then, after clearly being the winner, deliberately crippled Lycon. Nicias longs to compete in this Olympic event against Ajax and defeat him, bringing revenge and justice for his father. This historical novel starts with training in Athens, defeating an evil rival, secret training for the pancration, and ends with the Olympic Games and the triumphant return of Nicias to Athens. This exciting book gives a good picture of life at that time in that pagan culture. The reading level is at the high school or upper middle school level.