Olympiad

Ancient GreekHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)

Four years, the interval between ancient Olympic Games. The Greeks dated events by the Olympiad.

1 olympiad = 126,227,808 seconds (exactly).

About the olympiad

Greek historians dated events by Olympiads, the four-year cycles that began with each celebration of the Games at Olympia. The traditional first Olympiad starts in the summer of 776 BC, the date given for the victory of Coroebus. Hippias of Elis compiled the first full list of victors, now lost, and Timaeus of Tauromenium used the system consistently in the 3rd century BC.

Some ancient writers called an Olympiad a five-year period, but that came from inclusive counting, and each cycle was in fact four years long. Because the Games took place in midsummer, an Olympiad year ran from one summer to the next and did not match the Roman consular year beginning in January. Early dates were applied backwards and are less reliable. The modern Olympiad is also four years, but it starts on 1 January of years divisible by four, beginning with 1896. Four Gregorian years is about 126.2 million seconds.

Sources: Wikipedia: Olympiad

Olympiad conversion chart

1 olympiad expressed in every other time unit:

More Ancient Greek units

• stadion (length)
• Greek foot (Olympic) (length)
• Attic talent (weight & mass)
• Attic mina (weight & mass)
• Attic drachma (weight & mass)
• obol (weight & mass)
• myriad (counting & quantity)

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