Olympiad

Olympiad, unit of a chronological era of ancient Greece, a four-year period, each one beginning with the Olympic games. Timaeus (c.356–c.260 b.c.) of Sicily was the first to use, as a check on chronology, the list of victors kept in the gymnasium at Olympia. The first Olympiad was reckoned to have begun in 776 b.c.

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