Greek investment immigration listens to the Greek story: In this information age, a significant symbol of international sports is the Olympic flame that burns during the Olympic Games and the process by which several torchbearers cross continents to carry the flame from Olympia, Greece to the main Olympic venue.
According to regulations, to maintain the purity of the Olympic flame, only the flame collected from Olympia can be used throughout the torch relay, and the flame must not be mixed with any fire that has symbolic meaning, which has its roots in ancient Greek culture.
The Special Meaning of the Ancient Greek Flame
Fire is a tool and symbol of humanity's conquest of nature and acquisition of great energy. Throughout history, many civilizations and nations have regarded fire as a totem and belief.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the light of fire is a symbol of human civilization. In Western mythology, the god Prometheus stole fire from the heavens and brought it to humanity, allowing them to escape ignorance, and thus faced the cruel persecution of Zeus, the king of the gods.
Interestingly, archaeological findings suggest that the earliest ancient Olympic Games gradually developed from the rituals of the Greeks worshipping Zeus. Zeus is the god of lightning, and in the consciousness of ancient society, lightning was a symbol of the most powerful force and the embodiment of the highest power of natural fire. The earliest fire collection activities by humans were realized during natural fires caused by lightning.
Therefore, in the ancient Olympic Games, the so-called sacred fire was the eternal flame on the altar of the Temple of Hera during the rituals to worship Zeus—it symbolized the legitimate inheritance of humanity's acquisition of divine power from Zeus. Thus, Zeus was the spiritual ruler of the ancient Olympic Games and the supreme deity in the celebrations of various city-states in ancient Greece. The ancient Olympic Games were held in Olympia, about 300 kilometers southwest of modern Athens, precisely because it was considered the place where Zeus convened the gods for a representative assembly (Zeus's residence was on Mount Olympus in northern Greece), a "sacred domain," where the statue of Zeus, one of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World, was worshipped.
The modern Olympic flame is ignited by the High Priestess of Greece (currently played by an actress) using a concave mirror to focus sunlight in Olympia, creating what is known as the "Flame of Peace." This reflects modern people's understanding and definition of rituals. The sacred fire of the ancient Olympics was collected from the heavenly fire brought by lightning, thus it was the "fire of reverence." However, the method of collecting fire from heavenly fire is ultimately unstable and unsafe, and from the perspective of modern people, who have established property concepts, heavenly fire is a natural disaster (such as the forest fire in Greece last August), and it certainly cannot be ritualized and conflated with the sacred Olympic Games in the minds of modern people.
From the perspective of the ancient Greeks, the modern flame comes from sunlight, which is to say from the sun god Apollo (known as "Phoebus" in ancient Greece), rather than from Zeus, the king of the gods—this distinction is significant.
Ancient Greece was not a unified country but a cultural circle composed of numerous city-states (the concept of an "empire" only began to emerge later). Each city-state had its own patron deity; for example, Athena was the guardian of Athens, Hera was the guardian of Sparta, and Ares was the guardian of Macedonia. However, all these independent factions revered Zeus as the common supreme god.
The Sacred Fire was once the "Fire of Reverence"
In those times, Sparta had the strongest military power and longed to annex the city-state of Elis, where Olympia is located, launching several wars. Elis was in a precarious situation and thus invited many city-states to mediate, which led to a truce with Sparta. The king of Elis, Iphitus, and the king of Sparta, Lycurgus, established the "Sacred Treaty," which stipulated that Olympia was a sacred and inviolable peace sanctuary, where grand sacrificial ceremonies would be held regularly (known as the "Sacred Truce Month"). During this period, no force or person was allowed to enter with weapons. The "Sacred Truce Month" was originally one month but was later extended to three months. At the beginning of the "Sacred Truce Month," people gathered in front of the Temple of Zeus in Olympia to hold sacrificial ceremonies, lighting torches on the altar. Wherever the sacred fire went, the flames of war must be extinguished. During the truce, no one was allowed to use weapons, initiate wars, enter Olympia with weapons, or attack those coming to Olympia.
This is the origin of the so-called "Fire of Reverence," which represents the divine power of Zeus: to violate the sacred fire is to defy Zeus, and it is equivalent to declaring war on all city-states. Therefore, even if two city-states were in fierce battle, once the sacred fire arrived, they had to cease hostilities immediately. Additionally, all legal disputes and death sentences were also to be suspended.
In 420 BC (during the later period of the Peloponnesian War), the Spartans attacked another city-state during the truce month and were immediately stripped of their rights to participate in the Olympic Games and fined heavily; in 490 BC, a Macedonian soldier robbed Athenians on their way to the Olympic Games and was sentenced to death.
The Modern Flame is the "Flame of Peace"
Ancient Greece did not have the communication facilities of today, and the primary mission of the torchbearers was to notify each city-state of the opening of the Games. Before the ancient Olympic Games, priests and other clergy gathered in front of the Temple of Zeus in Olympia to hold a ceremony, allowing the torchbearers, as "messengers of the gods," to light their torches from the altar and then rush to various city-states in Greece. The torchbearers raised their torches high while running and shouting: Stop all wars and participate in the Games! Thus, people from various city-states in Greece put away their weapons and began pre-competition training.
Unlike the ancient Olympic flame, which brought about a brief truce in Greece through reverence, the current "Olympic Truce" is initiated by the hosting of the Olympic Games, through a resolution formed by the United Nations, calling on signatory countries to cease all armed conflicts during the Olympic Games, devoid of the divine faith of ancient Greece. On October 31, 2007, the 62nd United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted the "Olympic Truce Resolution" proposed by China, co-signed by 186 member states—this marked the eighth consecutive time the General Assembly passed the "Olympic Truce Resolution."
In recent years, the collection and relay of the sacred fire have been further influenced by developed media networks, reaching every international information terminal and spreading the seeds of peace.