Olympia was named for Mount Olympus, the mythical home of the gods. The most prominent building in Olympia held one of the ancient wonders of the world, an enormous statue of Zeus, made of gold and ivory. Just outside this building was a less-staggering set of statues that told a story of a king, his daughter, a handsome suitor, and a scheme.

The ancient king Oenomaus had been warned the man who married his daughter would kill him. To ensure his own survival, Oenomaos, who had the world’s fastest horses, decreed any man who wished to wed his daughter must first beat him in a chariot race. For a long time, he was safe. As quickly as suitors lined up to wed his daughter, Oenomaos outraced them, and, according to some versions of the story, beheaded them and nailed the heads to his home. That was, until Pelops, a handsome young man intent on marrying Oenomaos’ daughter, came along. Unlike the other suitors, Pelops’s plan involved more than swift horses. He bribed a man to swap out the linchpin on Oenomaos’s chariot with one made of wax.

A series of statues in Olympia were believed to depict the moment before this race began, when both father and suitor stood on either side of Zeus and swore an oath to play fairly. Of course, when the race heated up, the wax pin broke, Oenomaos fell from the chariot, and died. Pelops won his bride.

For this, the southern region of Greece, the one that includes Olympia, took Pelops’ name (it still bears it). Pelops founded the Olympic Games to commemorate his triumph, and so every four years Greek men competed to prove who was best, swearing to Zeus they would not cheat. It might be high hypocrisy, but the ancient Greeks were perhaps a bit more practical when it came to their acknowledgment of human nature. Their gods, at least, reflected this. Greek mythology is full of jealousy, greed, trickery, and deceit. Not that they accepted this as part of the Olympics, or encouraged it. In fact, they built statues to shame these cheaters.

On the road to Olympia, competitors walked past a line of statues, also of Zeus, except they called these “Zanes.” Each statue had a small plaque that chastised competitors accused of misconduct. The Greeks built the first of these statues after the 98th Olympiad, dedicated to the boxer Eupolus of Thessaly, who bribed his opponents to let him win. The Olympic officials of the day fined Eupolus, as well as those who accepted the bribes, and the payment built six Zanes. The first statue’s plaque reminded athletes the Olympics were meant to judge “swiftness of foot and strength of body,” not an athlete’s purse. The other statues called out his coconspirators, and the final statue warned the coming competitors against deceiving the gods and disgracing the sacred games as these men had done. It is a wonder, wrote Pausanias, the ancient Greek traveler, geographer, and writer, that “man has so little respect for the god of Olympia as to take or give a bribe.”