The modern Olympic games have been beset by their fair share of criminal activity. In 1913, for example, Olympic pentathlon and decathlon winner James Thorpe was forced to relinquish his medals for violating an Olympic amateurism statute (Young, 55). At the Atlanta games in the summer of 1996, a planted pipe bomb exploded during a concert at Olympic Park, and at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, 12 Israeli athletes were murdered in their living quarters.

Because these crimes attest to the strict protocol governing modern games, they perhaps prompt one to question what was permissible in the ancient games. In his Description of Greece, Pausanius notes that before the ancient games commenced, umpires, athletes, athletes' male relatives, and trainers all swore oaths over boars' flesh that they would uphold the Olympic rules (Pausanius, 5.24.9). Similarly, before the Pythian games began at Delphi, participants vowed to uphold fairness and peace. Yet, when one considers the political and social status that competitors and city-states achieved through victory at ancient Greek games, it is not surprising that such games were threatened by parties willing to betray their oaths. It is also plausible, in light of all the wealth amassed at the games' sites, that rule violations were not the only illegal activities plaguing panhellenic localities like Olympia and Delphi. By banning money as a reward for competition, the Olympian and Pythian games attempted to prevent corrupt activity from emerging in any form in the events, but just as the modern games and the places in which they are held are subject to law-breaking athletes, umpires, and spectators, the festivals in ancient Greece were also breeding grounds for scandals.

According to Greek religious rituals, all such misconduct could be considered crimes of sacrilege. Based on information revealed in ancient texts like those of Pausanius, Thucydides, and Pindar, it is possible to further categorize these impieties, as well as the ultimate punishments inflicted on wrongdoers: