Women are proving themselves in Athens merican women aren't the only ones movin' on up.

What a difference a millennium -- or two-and-change -- makes.

Consider the status of women in Greece during the ancientOlympics. Those august competitions began with a foot race of 200meters in 776 B.C. At the height of Greece's so-called Golden Age,all women, of course, were barred from participation. Married womenwere even barred as spectators.

The wealthy stags who came to watch younger males compete in thenude, fully anointed and gleaming with oil, brought their unmarrieddaughters along in a bizarre ritual related to husband-hunting.Single beauties could point and say, "Papa, I like this specimen."But even then, the maidens were privy only to sloppy …