A story told by Aelian gives us a lively picture of the conditions for the audience at the Olympic Games.
Chap. XVIII. How one that was angry threatned to punish his Servant.
A Chian being angry with his Servant, “I, saith he, will not put you into the Mill, but will carry you to Olympia.” He thought, it seems, that it was a farre greater punishment to be spectator of the Olympick Game, in the excessive heat of the Sun, then to be put to work in a Mill.
——Various History, Book XIV, chapter XVIII, translated by Thomas Stanley.