My ideal reader would begin reading at the end of the book. (Maybe I ought to have written it in Hebrew.) The final chapter explores the ways the modern Olympic movement and its boosters seek to enhance its status by invoking the traditions of the ancient Olympics. In fact, many of the elements of the Olympics often alleged to have Greek roots—the motto, the torch relay, the marathon—were never a part of the Greek festival. More surprisingly: the modern Olympics were revived—successfully—by Greek and English movements long before Baron Pierre de Coubertin’s first Athens Olympics of 1896. Coubertin’s version caught on because he had the support of an international elite who shared his vision of competition among amateurs—those wealthy enough to train and travel without the hope of a material reward. This vision too was based on and justified by Greek practices. But Coubertin and the others got it wrong.The Greeks had no notion of amateurism. Though Olympic winners took home symbolic prizes only, they were generously rewarded—by law—on their return. And nothing prevented them from entering any of the very numerous Greek festivals which did offer prizes of value, the equivalents of the purses in golf tournaments today. The irony is that today’s Olympics, with their competitions between professionals and their cash bonuses for medalists, are closer to the Greek games than Coubertin’s were.I hope that my book will persuade people to rethink how they use the past for the present’s purposes. Take the Olympic truce campaign: no one could quarrel with its aims, to put a stop to war during the Olympic games. But the original proposal was based on a misunderstanding about the ancient Olympic truce. This was not a cease-fire, merely a guarantee of safe passage for athletes and spectators on their way to Olympia, and the Greek sponsors and United Nations supporters of the campaign no longer foster this myth. However, the Olympic truce campaign has still had virtually no success. It would be better to model a modern Olympic peace movement on actual ancient practices: for example, those who broke the truce could be—and were—excluded from subsequent Olympic festivals. This tactic has been used effectively in the modern Olympics too: some belligerents—on the losing sides—were kept out of the games after both the First and Second World War.Or perhaps we should not limit ourselves to what the Greeks did. Some modern problems, war certainly among them, challenge us to express our own creativity and courage. This is a kind of competition the Greeks themselves would admire.