As pointed out in Section 2.8, Hippias could have calculated a date for the first Olympiad in one of five ways. He may have assembled the most complete possible list of Olympic victors and ended up with a register that began in 776. He may have worked backward from the earliest written records to 776 using oral traditions or numerology. He may have used written records, synchronizations, or generational reckoning to place a major reform of the Olympics in the years corresponding to 576 or 476 and worked backward from there to 776 using oral traditions or numerology. He may have synchronized the first Olympiad with the outbreak of the First Messenian War and provided a date for that war, and hence the first Olympiad, using the Spartan king list. Or he may have linked what he believed to be the first of the series of continuous Olympiads to a specific individual and then established a date for that individual by means of a king list with regnal years or by generational reckoning.

The most likely possibility is that when Hippias calculated the date of 776, he linked the first Olympiad to Lycurgus and then made use of Lycurgus' connection to the kings of Sparta, of the Spartan king list, and of generational reckoning. This possibility is treated in detail in Section 2.8. The discussion here centers on the other four scenarios, which are less likely but which cannot be ruled out.