CHAPTER XXVIII

.

PAN-HELLENIC FESTIVALS — OLYMPIC, PYTHIAN, NEMEAN, AND ISTHMIAN.

In the preceding chapters I have been under the necessity of presenting to the reader a picture altogether incoherent and destitute of central effect,—to specify briefly each of the two or three hundred towns which agreed in bearing the Hellenic name, and to recount its birth and early life, as far as our evidence goes,—but without being able to point out any action and reaction, exploits or sufferings, prosperity or misfortune, glory or disgrace, common to all. To a great degree, this is a characteristic inseparable from the history of Greece from its beginning to its end, for the only political unity which it ever receives is the melancholy unity of subjection under all-conquering Rome. Nothing short of force will efface in the mind of a free Greek the idea of his city as an autonomous and separate organization; the village is a fraction, but the city is an unit,—and the highest of all political units, not admitting of being consolidated with others into a ten or a hundred, to the sacrifice of its own separate and individual mark. Such is the character of the race, both in their primitive country and in their colonial settlements,—in their early as well as in their late history,—splitting by natural fracture into a multitude of self-administering, indivisible cities. But that which marks the early historical period before Peisistratus, and which impresses upon it an incoherence at once so fatiguing and so irremediable, is, that as yet no causes have arisen to counteract this political isolation. Each city, whether progressive or stationary, prudent or adventurous, turbulent or tranquil, follows out its own thread of existence, having no partnership or common purposes with the rest, and not yet constrained into any active partnership with them by extraneous forces. In like manner, the races which on every side surround the Hellenic world appear distinct and unconnected, not yet taken up into any coöperating mass or system.

Contemporaneously with the accession of Peisistratus, this state of things becomes altered both in and out of Hellas,—the former as a consequence of the latter: for at that time begins the formation of the great Persian empire, which absorbs into itself not only Upper Asia and Asia Minor, but also Phenicia, Egypt, Thrace, Macedonia, and a considerable number of the Grecian cities themselves; and the common danger, threatening the greater states of Greece proper from this vast aggregate, drives them, in spite of great reluctance and jealousy, into active union. Hence arises a new impulse, counterworking the natural tendency to political isolation in the Hellenic cities, and centralizing their proceedings to a certain extent for the two centuries succeeding 560 B. C.; Athens and Sparta both availing themselves of the centralizing tendencies which had grown out of the Persian war. But during the interval between 776-560 B. C., no such tendency can be traced even in commencement, nor any constraining force calculated to bring it about. Even Thucydidês, as we may see by his excellent preface, knew of nothing during these two centuries except separate city-politics and occasional wars between neighbors: the only event, according to him, in which any considerable number of Grecian cities were jointly concerned, was the war between Chalkis and Eretria, the date of which we do not know. In this war, several cities took part as allies; Samos, among others, with Eretria,—Milêtus with Chalkis:[101] how far the alliances of either may have extended, we have no evidence to inform us, but the presumption is that no great number of Grecian cities was comprehended in them. Such as it was, however, this war between Chalkis and Eretria was the nearest approach, and the only approach, to a Pan-Hellenic proceeding which Thucydidês indicates between the Trojan and the Persian wars. Both he and Herodotus present this early period only by way of preface and contrast to that which follows,—when the Pan-Hellenic spirit and tendencies, though never at any time predominant, yet counted for a powerful element in history, and sensibly modified the universal instinct of city-isolation. They tell us little about it, either because they could find no trustworthy informants, or because there was nothing in it to captivate the imagination in the same manner as the Persian or the Peloponnesian wars. From whatever cause their silence arises, it is deeply to be regretted, since the phenomena of the two centuries from 776-560 B. C., though not susceptible of any central grouping, must have presented the most instructive matter for study, had they been preserved. In no period of history have there ever been formed a greater number of new political communities, under such variety of circumstances, personal as well as local. And a few chronicles, however destitute of philosophy, reporting the exact march of some of these colonies from their commencement,—amidst all the difficulties attendant on amalgamation with strange natives, as well as on a fresh distribution of land,—would have added greatly to our knowledge both of Greek character and Greek social existence.

[101] Thucyd. i, 15.

Taking the two centuries now under review, then, it will appear that there is not only no growing political unity among the Grecian states, but a tendency even to the contrary,—to dissemination and mutual estrangement. Not so, however, in regard to the other feelings of unity capable of subsisting between men who acknowledge no common political authority,—sympathies founded on common religion, language, belief of race, legends, tastes and customs, intellectual appetencies, sense of proportion and artistic excellence, recreative enjoyments, etc. On all these points the manifestations of Hellenic unity become more and more pronounced and comprehensive, in spite of increased political dissemination, throughout the same period. The breadth of common sentiment and sympathy between Greek and Greek, together with the conception of multitudinous periodical meetings as an indispensable portion of existence, appears decidedly greater in 560 B. C. than it had been a century before. It was fostered by the increased conviction of the superiority of Greeks as compared with foreigners,—a conviction gradually more and more justified as Grecian art and intellect improved, and as the survey of foreign countries became extended,—as well as by the many new efforts of men of genius in the field of music, poetry, statuary, and architecture, each of whom touched chords of feeling belonging to other Greeks hardly less than to his own peculiar city. At the same time, the life of each peculiar city continues distinct, and even gathers to itself a greater abundance of facts and internal interests. So that during the two centuries now under review there was in the mind of every Greek an increase both of the city-feeling and of the Pan-Hellenic feeling, but on the other hand a decline of the old sentiment of separate race,—Doric, Ionic, Æolic.

I have already, in my former volume, touched upon the many-sided character of the Grecian religion, entering as it did into all the enjoyments and sufferings, the hopes and fears, the affections and antipathies, of the people,—not simply imposing restraints and obligations, but protecting, multiplying, and diversifying all the social pleasures and all the decorations of existence. Each city and even each village had its peculiar religious festivals, wherein the sacrifices to the gods were usually followed by public recreations of one kind or other,—by feasting on the victims, processional marches, singing and dancing, or competition in strong and active exercises. The festival was originally local, but friendship or communion of race was shown by inviting others, non-residents, to partake in its attractions. In the case of a colony and its metropolis, it was a frequent practice that citizens of the metropolis were honored with a privileged seat at the festivals of the colony, or that one of their number was presented with the first taste of the sacrificial victim.[102] Reciprocal frequentation of religious festivals was thus the standing evidence of friendship and fraternity among cities not politically united. That it must have existed to a certain degree from the earliest days, there can be no reasonable doubt; though in Homer and Hesiod we find only the celebration of funeral games, by a chief at his own private expense, in honor of his deceased father or friend,—with all the accompanying recreations, however, of a public festival, and with strangers not only present, but also contending for valuable prizes.[103] Passing to historical Greece during the seventh century B. C., we find evidence of two festivals, even then very considerable, and frequented by Greeks from many different cities and districts,—the festival at Delos, in honor of Apollo, the great place of meeting for Ionians throughout the Ægean,—and the Olympic games. The Homeric Hymn to the Delian Apollo, which must be placed earlier than 600 B. C., dwells with emphasis on the splendor of the Delian festival,—unrivalled throughout Greece, as it would appear, during all the first period of this history, for wealth, finery of attire, and variety of exhibitions as well in poetical genius as in bodily activity,[104]—equalling probably at that time, if not surpassing, the Olympic games. The complete and undiminished grandeur of this Delian Pan-Ionic festival is one of our chief marks of the first period of Grecian history, before the comparative prostration of the Ionic Greeks through the rise of Persia: it was celebrated periodically in every fourth year, to the honor of Apollo and Artemis. It was distinguished from the Olympic games by two circumstances both deserving of notice,—first, by including solemn matches not only of gymnastic, but also of musical and poetical excellence, whereas the latter had no place at Olympia; secondly, by the admission of men, women, and children indiscriminately as spectators, whereas women were formally excluded from the Olympic ceremony.[105] Such exclusion may have depended in part on the inland situation of Olympia, less easily approachable by females than the island of Delos; but even making allowance for this circumstance, both the one distinction and the other mark the rougher character of the Ætolo-Dorians in Peloponnesus. The Delian festival, which greatly dwindled away during the subjection of the Asiatic and insular Greeks to Persia, was revived afterwards by Athens during the period of her empire, when she was seeking in every way to strengthen her central ascendency in the Ægean. But though it continued to be ostentatiously celebrated under her management, it never regained that commanding sanctity and crowded frequentation which we find attested in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo for its earlier period.

[102] Thucyd. i, 26. See the tale in Pausanias (v, 25, 1) of the ancient chorus sent annually from Messênê in Sicily across the strait to Rhegium, to a local festival of the Rhegians,—thirty-five boys with a chorus-master and a flute-player: on one unfortunate occasion, all of them perished in crossing. For the Theôry (or solemn religious deputation) periodically sent by the Athenians to Delos, see Plutarch, Nicias, c. 3; Plato, Phædon, c. 1, p. 58. Compare also Strabo, ix, p. 419, on the general subject.

[103] Homer, Iliad, xi, 879, xxiii, 679; Hesiod, Opp. Di. 651.

[104] Homer, Hymn. Apoll. 150; Thucyd. iii, 104.

[105] Pausan. v, 6, 5; Ælian, N. H. x, 1; Thucyd. iii, 104. When Ephesus, and the festival called Ephesia, had become the great place of Ionic meeting, the presence of women was still continued (Dionys. Hal. A. R. iv, 25).

Very different was the fate of the Olympic festival,—on the banks of the Alpheius[106] in Peloponnesus, near the old oracular temple of the Olympian Zeus,—which not only grew up uninterruptedly from small beginnings to the maximum of Pan-Hellenic importance, but even preserved its crowds of visitors and its celebrity for many centuries after the extinction of Greek freedom, and only received its final abolition, after more than eleven hundred years of continuance, from the decree of the Christian emperor Theodosius in 394 A. D. I have already recounted, in the preceding volume of this history, the attempt made by Pheidon, despot of Argos, to restore to the Pisatans, or to acquire for himself, the administration of this festival,—an event which proves the importance of the festival in Peloponnesus, even so early as 740 B. C. At that time, and for some years afterwards, it seems to have been frequented chiefly, if not exclusively, by the neighboring inhabitants of central and western Peloponnesus,—Spartans, Messenians, Arkadians, Triphylians, Pisatans, Eleians, and Achæans,[107]—and it forms an important link connecting the Etolo-Eleians, and their privileges as Agonothets to solemnize and preside over it, with Sparta. From the year 720 B. C., we trace positive evidences of the gradual presence of more distant Greeks,—Corinthians, Megarians, Bœotians, Athenians, and even Smyrnæans from Asia.

[106] Strabo, viii, p. 353; Pindar, Olymp. viii, 2; Xenophon, Hellen. iv, 7, 2; iii, 2, 22.

[107] See K. F. Hermann, Lehrbuch der Griechischen Staats-Alterthümer, sect. 10.

We observe also another proof of growing importance, in the increased number and variety of matches exhibited to the spectators, and in the substitution of the simple crown of olive, an honorary reward, in place of the more substantial present which the Olympic festival and all other Grecian festivals began by conferring upon the victor. The humble constitution of the Olympic games presented originally nothing more than a match of runners in the measured course called the Stadium: a continuous series of the victorious runners was formally inscribed and preserved by the Eleians, beginning with Korœbus in 776 B. C., and was made to serve by chronological inquirers from the third century B. C. downwards, as a means of measuring the chronological sequence of Grecian events. It was on the occasion of the 7th Olympiad after Korœbus, that Daiklês the Messenian first received for his victory in the stadium no farther recompense than a wreath from the sacred olive-tree near Olympia:[108] the honor of being proclaimed victor was found sufficient, without any pecuniary addition. But until the 14th Olympiad, there was no other match for the spectators to witness beside that of simple runners in the stadium. On that occasion a second race was first introduced, of runners in the double stadium, or up and down the course; in the next, or 15th Olympiad (720 B. C.), a third match, the long course for runners, or several times up and down the stadium. There were thus three races,—the simple stadium, the double stadium, or diaulos, and the long course, or dolichos, all for runners,—which continued without addition until the 18th Olympiad, when the wrestling-match and the complicated pentathlon—including jumping, running, the quoit, the javelin, and wrestling—were both added. A farther novelty appears in the 23rd Olympiad (688 B. C.), the boxing-match; and another, still more important, in the 25th (680 B. C.), the chariot with four full-grown horses. This last-mentioned addition is deserving of special notice, not merely as it diversified the scene by the introduction of horses, but also as it brought in a totally new class of competitors,—rich men and women, who possessed the finest horses and could hire the most skilful drivers, without any personal superiority, or power of bodily display, in themselves.[109] The prodigious exhibition of wealth in which the chariot proprietors indulged, is not only an evidence of growing importance in the Olympic games, but also served materially to increase that importance, and to heighten the interest of spectators. Two farther matches were added in the 33rd Olympiad (648 B. C.),—the pankration, or boxing and wrestling conjoined,[110] with the hand unarmed or divested of that hard leather cestus[111] worn by the pugilist, which rendered the blow of the latter more terrible, but at the same time prevented him from grasping or keeping hold of his adversary,—and the single race-horse. Many other novelties were introduced one after the other, which it is unnecessary fully to enumerate,—the race between men clothed in full panoply, and bearing each his shield,—the different matches between boys, analogous to those between full-grown men, and between colts, of the same nature as between full-grown horses. At the maximum of its attraction the Olympic solemnity occupied five days, but until the 77th Olympiad, all the various matches had been compressed into one,—beginning at daybreak and not always closing before dark.[112] The 77th Olympiad follows immediately after the successful expulsion of the Persian invaders from Greece, when the Pan-Hellenic feeling had been keenly stimulated by resistance to a common enemy; and we may easily conceive that this was a suitable moment for imparting additional dignity to the chief national festival.

[108] Dionys. Halikarn. Ant. Rom. i, 71; Phlegon. De Olympiad. p. 140. For an illustration of the stress laid by the Greeks on the purely honorary rewards of Olympia, and on the credit which they took to themselves as competitors, not for money, but for glory, see Herodot. viii, 26. Compare the Scholia on Pindar, Nem. and Isthm. Argument, pp. 425-514, ed. Boeckh.

[109] See the sentiment of Agesilaus, somewhat contemptuous, respecting the chariot-race, as described by Xenophon (Agesilaus, ix, 6); the general feeling of Greece, however, is more in conformity with what Thucydidês (vi, 16) puts into the mouth of Alkibiadês, and Xenophon into that of Simonidês (Xenophon, Hiero, xi, 5). The great respect attached to a family which had gained chariot victories is amply attested: see Herodot. vi, 35, 36, 103, 126,—οἰκίη τεθριπποτρόφος,—and vi, 70, about Demaratus king of Sparta.

[110] Antholog. Palatin. ix, 588; vol. ii. p. 299, Jacobs.

[111] The original Greek word for this covering (which surrounded the middle hand and upper portion of the fingers, leaving both the ends of the fingers and the thumb exposed) was ἱμὰς, the word for a thong, strap, or whip, of leather: the special word μύρμηξ seems to have been afterwards introduced (Hesychius, v. Ἱμάς): see Homer, Iliad, xxiii, 686. Cestus, or Cæstus, is the Latin word (Virg. Æn. v, 404), the Greek word κεστός is an adjective annexed to ἱμὰς—κεστὸν ἱμάντα—πολύκεστος ἱμὰς (Iliad, xiv, 214; iii, 371). See Pausan. viii, 40, 3, for the description of the incident which caused an alteration in this hand-covering at the Nemean games: ultimately, it was still farther hardened by the addition of iron.

[112] Ἀέθλων πεμπαμέρους ἁμίλλαις,—Pindar, Olymp. v, 6: compare Schol. ad Pindar. Olymp. iii, 33.

See the facts respecting the Olympic Agôn collected by Corsini (Dissertationes Agonisticæ, Dissert. i, sects. 8, 9, 10), and still more amply set forth with a valuable commentary, by Krause (Olympia, oder Darstellung der grossen Olympischen Spiele, Wien, 1838, sects. 8-11 especially).

We are thus enabled partially to trace the steps by which, during the two centuries succeeding 776 B. C., the festival of the Olympic Zeus in the Pisatid gradually passed from a local to a national character, and acquired an attractive force capable of bringing together into temporary union the dispersed fragments of Hellas, from Marseilles to Trebizond. In this important function it did not long stand alone. During the sixth century B. C., three other festivals, at first local, became successively nationalized,—the Pythia near Delphi, the Isthmia, near Corinth, the Nemea near Kleônæ, between Sikyôn and Argos.

In regard to the Pythian festival, we find a short notice of the

## particular incidents and individuals by whom its reconstitution

and enlargement were brought about,—a notice the more interesting, inasmuch as these very incidents are themselves a manifestation of something like Pan-Hellenic patriotism, standing almost alone in an age which presents little else in operation except distinct city-interests. At the time when the Homeric Hymn to the Delphinian Apollo was composed (probably in the seventh century B. C.), the Pythian festival had as yet acquired little eminence. The rich and holy temple of Apollo was then purely oracular, established for the purpose of communicating to pious inquirers “the counsels of the immortals.” Multitudes of visitors came to consult it, as well as to sacrifice victims and to deposit costly offerings; but while the god delighted in the sound of the harp as an accompaniment to the singing of pæans, he was by no means anxious to encourage horse-races and chariot-races in the neighborhood,—nay, this psalmist considers that the noise of horses would be “a nuisance,” the drinking of mules a desecration to the sacred fountains, and the ostentation of fine-built chariots objectionable,[113] as tending to divert the attention of spectators away from the great temple and its wealth.

[113] Hom. Hymn. Apoll. 262.

Πημανέει σ᾽ αἰεὶ κτυπὸς ἵππων ὠκειάων, Ἀρδόμενοί τ᾽ οὐρῆες ἐμῶν ἱερῶν ἀπὸ πηγέων· Ἔνθα τις ἀνθρώπων βουλήσεται εἰσοράασθαι Ἅρματά τ᾽ εὐποίητα καὶ ὠκυπόδων κτυπὸν ἵππων, Ἢ νηόν τε μέγαν καὶ κτήματα πόλλ᾽ ἐνεόντα.

Also v. 288-394. γυάλων ὑπὸ Παρνήσοιο—484. ὑπὸ πτυχὶ Παρνήσοιο—Pindar, Pyth. viii, 90. Πυθῶνος ἐν γυάλοις—Strabo, ix, p. 418. πετρωδὲς χώριον καὶ θεατροειδὲς—Heliodorus, Æthiop. ii, 26: compare Will. Götte, Das Delphische Orakel (Leipzig, 1839), pp. 39-42.

From such inconveniences the god was protected by placing his sanctuary “in the rocky Pytho,”—a rugged and uneven recess, of no great dimensions, embosomed in the southern declivity of Parnassus, and about two thousand feet above the level of the sea, while the topmost Parnassian summits reach a height of near eight thousand feet. The situation was extremely imposing, but unsuited by nature for the congregation of any considerable number of spectators,—altogether impracticable for chariot-races,—and only rendered practicable by later art and outlay for the theatre as well as for the stadium; the original stadium, when first established, was placed in the plain beneath. It furnished little means of subsistence, but the sacrifices and presents of visitors enabled the ministers of the temple to live in abundance,[114] and gathered together by degrees a village around it. Near the sanctuary of Pytho, and about the same altitude, was situated the ancient Phocian town of Krissa, on a projecting spur of Parnassus,—overhung above by the line of rocky precipice called the Phædriades, and itself overhanging below the deep ravine through which flows the river Pleistus. On the other side of this river rises the steep mountain Kirphis, which projects southward into the Corinthian gulf,—the river reaching that gulf through the broad Krissæan or Kirrhæan plain, which stretches westward nearly to the Lokrian town of Amphissa; a plain for the most part fertile and productive, though least so in its eastern

## part immediately under the Kirphis, where the seaport Kirrha was

placed.[115] The temple, the oracle, and the wealth of Pytho, belong to the very earliest periods of Grecian antiquity; but the octennial solemnity in honor of the god included at first no other competition except that of bards, who sang each a pæan with the harp. It has been already mentioned, in my preceding volume, that the Amphiktyonic assembly held one of its half-yearly meetings near the temple of Pytho, the other at Thermopylæ.

[114] Βωμοί μ᾽ ἔφερβον, οὕπιών τ᾽ ἀεὶ ξένος, says Ion (in Euripidês, Ion. 334) the slave of Apollo, and the verger of his Delphian temple, who waters it from the Kastalian spring, sweeps it with laurel boughs, and keeps off with his bow and arrows the obtrusive birds (Ion, 105, 143, 154). Whoever reads the description of Professor Ulrichs (Reisen und Forschungen in Griechenland, ch. 7, p. 110) will see that the birds—eagles, vultures, and crows—are quite numerous enough to have been exceedingly troublesome. The whole play of Ion conveys a lively idea of the Delphian temple and its scenery, with which Euripidês was doubtless familiar.

[115] There is considerable perplexity respecting Krissa and Kirrha, and it still remains a question among scholars whether the two names denote the same place or different places; the former is the opinion of O. Müller (Orchomenos, p. 495). Strabo distinguishes the two. Pausanias identifies them, conceiving no other town to have ever existed except the seaport (x, 37, 4). Mannert (Geogr. Gr. Röm. viii, p. 148) follows Strabo, and represents them as different.

I consider the latter to be the correct opinion, upon the grounds, and partly, also, on the careful topographical examination of Professor Ulrichs, which affords an excellent account of the whole scenery of Delphi (Reisen und Forschungen in Griechenland, Bremen, 1840, chapters 1, 2, 3). The ruins described by him on the high ground near Kastri, called the Forty Saints, may fairly be considered as the ruins of Krissa; the ruins of Kirrha are on the sea-shore near the mouth of the Pleistus. The plain beneath might without impropriety be called either the Krissæan or the Kirrhæan plain (Herodot. viii, 32; Strabo, ix, p. 419). Though Strabo was right in distinguishing Krissa from Kirrha, and right also in the position of the latter under Kirphis, he conceived incorrectly the situation of Krissa; and his representation that there were two wars,—in the first of which, Kirrha was destroyed by the Krissæans, while in the second, Krissa itself was conquered by the Amphiktyons,—is not confirmed by any other authority.

The mere circumstance that Pindar gives us in three separate passages, Κρίσᾳ, Κρισαῖον, Κρισαίοις (Isth. ii, 26; Pyth. v, 49, vi, 18), and in five other passages, Κίῤῥᾳ, Κίῤῥας, Κίῤῥαθεν (Pyth. iii, 33, vii, 14, viii, 26, x, 24, xi, 20), renders it almost certain that the two names belong to different places, and are not merely two different names for the same place; the poet could not in this case have any metrical reason for varying the denomination, as the metre of the two words is similar.

In those early times when the Homeric Hymn to Apollo was composed, the town of Krissa appears to have been great and powerful, possessing all the broad plain between Parnassus, Kirphis, and the gulf, to which latter it gave its name,—and possessing also, what was a property not less valuable, the adjoining sanctuary of Pytho itself, which the Hymn identifies with Krissa, not indicating Delphi as a separate place. The Krissæans, doubtless, derived great profits from the number of visitors who came to visit Delphi, both by land and by sea, and Kirrha was originally only the name for their seaport. Gradually, however, the port appears to have grown in importance at the expense of the town, just as Apollonia and Ptolemais came to equal Kyrênê and Barka, and as Plymouth Dock has swelled into Devonport; while at the same time, the sanctuary of Pytho with its administrators expanded into the town of Delphi, and came to claim an independent existence of its own. The original relations between Krissa, Kirrha, and Delphi, were in this manner at length subverted, the first declining and the two latter rising. The Krissæans found themselves dispossessed of the management of the temple, which passed to the Delphians, as well as of the profits arising from the visitors, whose disbursements went to enrich the inhabitants of Kirrha. Krissa was a primitive city of the Phocian name, and could boast of a place as such in the Homeric Catalogue, so that her loss of importance was not likely to be quietly endured. Moreover, in addition to the above facts, already sufficient in themselves as seeds of quarrel, we are told that the Kirrhæans abused their position as masters of the avenue to the temple by sea, and levied exorbitant tolls on the visitors who landed there,—a number constantly increasing from the multiplication of the transmarine colonies, and from the prosperity of those in Italy and Sicily. Besides such offence against the general Grecian public, they had also incurred the enmity of their Phocian neighbors by outrages upon women, Phocian as well as Argeian, who were returning from the temple.[116]

[116] Athenæus, xiii, p. 560; Æschinês cont. Ktesiphont. c. 36, p. 406; Strabo, ix, p. 418. Of the Akragallidæ, or Kraugallidæ, whom Æschinês mentions along with the Kirrhæans as another impious race who dwelt in the neighborhood of the god,—and who were overthrown along with the Kirrhæans,—we have no farther information. O. Müller’s conjecture would identify them with the Dryopes (Dorians, i, 2, 5, and his Orchomenos, p. 496); Harpokration, v. Κραυγαλλίδαι.

Thus stood the case, apparently, about 595 B. C., when the Amphiktyonic meeting interfered—either prompted by the Phocians, or perhaps on their own spontaneous impulse, out of regard to the temple—to punish the Kirrhæans. After a war of ten years, the first Sacred War in Greece, this object was completely accomplished, by a joint force of Thessalians under Eurylochus, Sikyonians under Kleisthenês, and Athenians under Alkmæon; the Athenian Solon being the person who originated and enforced, in the Amphiktyonic council, the proposition of interference. Kirrha appears to have made a strenuous resistance until its supplies from the sea were intercepted by the naval force of the Sikyonian Kleisthenês; and even after the town was taken, its inhabitants defended themselves for some time on the heights of Kirphis.[117] At length, however, they were thoroughly subdued. Their town was destroyed, or left to subsist merely as a landing-place; and the whole adjoining plain was consecrated to the Delphian god, whose domains thus touched the sea. Under this sentence, pronounced by the religious feeling of Greece, and sanctified by a solemn oath publicly sworn and inscribed at Delphi, the land was condemned to remain untilled and unplanted, without any species of human care, and serving only for the pasturage of cattle. The latter circumstance was convenient to the temple, inasmuch as it furnished abundance of victims for the pilgrims who landed and came to sacrifice,—for without preliminary sacrifice no man could consult the oracle;[118] while the entire prohibition of tillage was the only means of obviating the growth of another troublesome neighbor on the sea-board. The fate of Kirrha in this war is ascertained: that of Krissa is not so clear, nor do we know whether it was destroyed, or left subsisting in a position of inferiority with regard to Delphi. From this time forward, however, the Delphian community appears as substantive and autonomous, exercising in their own right the management of the temple; though we shall find, on more than one occasion, that the Phocians contest this right, and lay claim to the management of it for themselves,[119]—a remnant of that early period when the oracle stood in the domain of the Phocian Krissa. There seems, moreover, to have been a standing antipathy between the Delphians and the Phocians.

[117] Schol. ad Pindar, Pyth. Introduct.: Schol. ad Pindar, Nem. ix, 2; Plutarch, Solon, c. 11; Pausan. ii, 9, 6. Pausanias (x, 37, 4) and Polyænus (Strateg. iii, 6) relate a stratagem of Solon, or of Eurylochus, to poison the water of the Kirrhæans with hellebore.

[118] Eurip. Ion, 230.

[119] Thucyd. i, 112.

The Sacred War just mentioned, emanating from a solemn Amphiktyonic decree, carried on jointly by troops of different states whom we do not know to have ever before coöperated, and directed exclusively towards an object of common interest, is in itself a fact of high importance as manifesting a decided growth of Pan-Hellenic feeling. Sparta is not named as interfering,—a circumstance which seems remarkable when we consider both her power, even as it then stood, and her intimate connection with the Delphian oracle,—while the Athenians appear as the prime movers, through the greatest and best of their citizens: the credit of a large-minded patriotism rests prominently upon them.

But if this Sacred War itself is a proof that the Pan-Hellenic spirit was growing stronger, the positive result in which it ended reinforced that spirit still farther. The spoils of Kirrha were employed by the victorious allies in founding the Pythian games. The octennial festival hitherto celebrated at Delphi in honor of the god, including no other competition except in the harp and the pæan, was expanded into comprehensive games on the model of the Olympic, with matches not only of music, but also of gymnastics and chariots,—celebrated, not at Delphi itself, but on the maritime plain near the ruined Kirrha,—and under the direct superintendence of the Amphiktyons themselves. I have already mentioned that Solon provided large rewards for such Athenians as gained victories in the Olympic and Isthmian games, thereby indicating his sense of the great value of the national games as a means of promoting Hellenic intercommunion. It was the same feeling which instigated the foundation of the new games on the Kirrhæan plain, in commemoration of the vindicated honor of Apollo, and in the territory newly made over to him. They were celebrated in the latter half of summer, or first half of every third Olympic year,—the Amphiktyons being the ostensible agonothets, or administrators, and appointing persons to discharge the duty in their names.[120] At the first Pythian ceremony (in 586 B. C.), valuable rewards were given to the different victors; at the second (582 B. C.), nothing was conferred but wreaths of laurel,—the rapidly attained celebrity of the games being such as to render any farther reward superfluous. The Sikyonian despot Kleisthenês himself, one of the leaders in the conquest of Kirrha, gained the prize at the chariot-race of the second Pythia. We find other great personages in Greece frequently mentioned as competitors, and the games long maintained a dignity second only to the Olympic, over which, indeed, they had some advantages; first, that they were not abused for the purpose of promoting petty jealousies and antipathies of any administering state, as the Olympic games were perverted by the Eleians, on more than one occasion; next, that they comprised music and poetry as well as bodily display. From the circumstances attending their foundation, the Pythian games deserved, even more than the Olympic, the title bestowed on them by Demosthenês,—“The common Agôn of the Greeks.”[121]

[120] Mr. Clinton thinks that the Pythian games were celebrated in the autumn: M. Boeckh refers the celebration to the spring: Krause agrees with Boeckh. (Clinton, Fast. Hell. vol. ii, p. 200, Appendix; Boeckh, ad Corp. Inscr. No. 1688, p. 813; Krause, Die Pythien, Nemeen und Isthmien, vol. ii, pp. 29-35.)

Mr. Clinton’s opinion appears to me nearly the truth; the real time, as I conceive it, being about the beginning of August, or end of July. Boeckh admits that, with the exception of Thucydidês (v, 1-19), the other authorities go to sustain it; but he relies on Thucydidês to outweigh them. Now the passage of Thucydidês, properly understood, seems to me as much against Boeckh’s view as the rest.

I may remark, as a certain additional reason in the case, that the Isthmia appear to have been celebrated in the third year of each Olympiad, and in the spring (Krause, p. 187). It seems improbable that these two great festivals should have come one immediately after the other, which, nevertheless, must be supposed, if we adopt the opinion of Boeckh and Krause.

The Pythian games would be sometimes a little earlier, sometimes a little later, in consequence of the time of full moon: notice being always sent round by the administrators beforehand of the commencement of the sacred month. See the references in K. F. Hermann, Lehrbuch der gottesdienstl. Alterth. der Griechen, ch. 49, not. 12.—This note has been somewhat modified since my first edition,—see the note vol. vi, ch. liv.

[121] Demosthen. Philipp. iii, p. 119.

The Olympic and Pythian games continued always to be the most venerated solemnities in Greece: yet the Nemea and Isthmia acquired a celebrity not much inferior; the Olympic prize counting for the highest of all.[122] Both the Nemea and the Isthmia were distinguished from the other two festivals by occurring, not once in four years, but once in two years; the former in the second and fourth years of each Olympiad, the latter in the first and third years. To both is assigned, according to Greek custom, an origin connected with the interesting persons and circumstances of Grecian antiquity: but our historical knowledge of both begins with the sixth century B. C. The first historical Nemead is presented as belonging to Olympiad 52 or 53 (572-568 B. C.), a few years subsequent to the Sacred War above mentioned and to the origin of the Pythia. The festival was celebrated in honor of the Nemean Zeus, in the valley of Nemea, between Phlius and Kleônæ,—and originally by the Kleônæans themselves, until, at some period after 460 B. C., the Argeians deprived them of that honor and assumed the honors of administration to themselves.[123] The Nemean games had their Hellanodikæ[124] to superintend, to keep order, and to distribute the prizes, as well as the Olympic. Respecting the Isthmian festival, our first historical information is a little earlier, for it has already been stated that Solon conferred a premium upon every Athenian citizen who gained a prize at that festival as well as at the Olympian,—in or after 594 B. C. It was celebrated by the Corinthians at their isthmus, in honor of Poseidôn; and if we may draw any inference from the legends respecting its foundation, which is ascribed sometimes to Theseus, the Athenians appear to have identified it with the antiquities of their own state.[125]

[122] Pindar, Nem. x, 28-33.

[123] Strabo, viii, p. 377; Plutarch, Arat. c. 28; Mannert. Geogr. Gr. Röm. pt. viii, p. 650. Compare the second chapter in Krause, Die Pythien, Nemeen und Isthmien, vol. ii. p. 108, _seq._

That the Kleônæans continued without interruption to administer the Nemean festival down to Olympiad 80 (460 B. C.), or thereabouts, is the rational inference from Pindar, Nem. x, 42: compare Nem. iv, 17. Eusebius, indeed, states that the Argeians seized the administration for themselves in Olympiad 53, and in order to reconcile this statement with the above passage in Pindar, critics have concluded that the Argeians lost it again, and that the Kleônæans resumed it a little before Olympiad 80. I take a different view, and am disposed to reject the statement of Eusebius altogether; the more so as Pindar’s tenth Nemean ode is addressed to an Argeian citizen named Theiæus. If there had been at that time a standing dispute between Argos and Kleônæ on the subject of the administration of the Nemea, the poet would hardly have introduced the mention of the Nemean prizes gained by the ancestors of Theiæus, under the untoward designation of “prizes received from Kleônæan men.”

[124] See Boeckh, Corp. Inscript. No. 1126.

[125] K. F. Hermann, in his Lehrbuch der Griechischen Staatsalterthümer (ch. 32, not. 7. and ch. 65, not. 3), and again in his more recent work (Lehrbuch der gottesdienstlichen Alterthümer der Griechen, part iii, ch. 49, also not. 6), both highly valuable publications, maintains,—1. That the exaltation of the Isthmian and Nemean games into Pan-Hellenic importance arose directly after and out of the fall of the despots of Corinth and Sikyon. 2. That it was brought about by the paramount influence of the Dorians, especially by Sparta. 3. That the Spartans put down the despots of both these two cities.

The last of these three propositions appears to me untrue in respect to Sikyon,—improbable in respect to Corinth: my reasons for thinking so have been given in a former chapter. And if this be so, the reason for presuming Spartan intervention as to the Isthmian and Nemean games falls to the ground; for there is no other proof of it, nor does Sparta appear to have interested herself in any of the four national festivals except the Olympic, with which she was from an early period peculiarly connected.

Nor can I think that the first of Hermann’s three propositions is at all tenable. No connection whatever can be shown between Sikyon and the Nemean games; and it is the more improbable in this case that the Sikyonians should have been active, inasmuch as they had under Kleisthenês a little before contributed to nationalize the Pythian games: a second interference for a similar purpose ought not to be presumed without some evidence. To prove his point about the Isthmia, Hermann cites only a passage of Solinus (vii, 14), “Hoc spectaculum, per Cypselum tyrannum intermissum, Corinthii Olymp. 49 solemnitati pristinæ reddiderunt.” To render this passage at all credible, we must read _Cypselidas_ instead of _Cypselum_, which deducts from the value of a witness whose testimony can never under any circumstances be rated high. But granting the alteration, there are two reasons against the assertion of Solinus. One, a positive reason, that Solon offered a large reward to Athenian victors at the Isthmian games: his legislation falls in 594 B. C., ten years before the time when the Isthmia are said by Solinus to have been renewed after a long intermission. The other reason (negative, though to my mind also powerful) is the silence of Herodotus in that long invective which he puts into the mouth of Sosiklês against the Kypselids (v, 92). If Kypselus had really been guilty of so great an insult to the feelings of the people as to suppress their most solemn festival, the fact would hardly have been omitted in the indictment which Sosiklês is made to urge against him. Aristotle, indeed, representing Kypselus as a mild and popular despot, introduces a contrary view of his character, which, if we admitted it, would of itself suffice to negative the supposition that he had suppressed the Isthmia.

We thus perceive that the interval between 600-560 B. C. exhibits the first historical manifestation of the Pythia, Isthmia, and Nemea,—the first expansion of all the three from local into Pan-Hellenic festivals. To the Olympic games, for some time the only great centre of union among all the widely dispersed Greeks, are now added three other sacred agônes of the like public, open, national character; constituting visible marks, as well as tutelary bonds, of collective Hellenism, and insuring to every Greek who went to compete in the matches, a safe and inviolate transit even through hostile Hellenic states.[126] These four, all in or near Peloponnesus, and one of which occurred in each year, formed the period, or cycle, of sacred games, and those who had gained prizes at all the four received the enviable designation of periodonikes:[127] the honors paid to Olympic victors on their return to their native city were prodigious, even in the sixth century B. C., and became even more extravagant afterwards. We may remark that in the Olympic games alone, the oldest as well as the most illustrious of the four, the musical and intellectual element was wanting: all the three more recent agônes included crowns for exercises of music and poetry, along with gymnastics, chariots, and horses.

[126] Plutarch, Arat. c. 28. καὶ συνεχύθη τότε πρῶτον (by order of Aratus) ἡ δεδομένη τοῖς ἀγωνισταῖς ἀσυλία καὶ ἀσφάλεια, a deadly stain on the character of Aratus.

[127] Festus, v, Perihodos, p. 217, ed. Müller. See the animated protest of the philosopher Xenophanês against the great rewards given to Olympic victors (540-520 B. C.), Xenophan. Fragment. 2, p 357, ed. Bergk.

Nor was it only in the distinguishing national stamp set upon these four great festivals that the gradual increase of Hellenic family-feeling exhibited itself, during the course of this earliest period of our history. Pursuant to the same tendencies, religious festivals in all the considerable towns gradually became more and more open and accessible, and attracted guests as well as competitors from beyond the border; the dignity of the state, as well as the honor rendered to the presiding god, being measured by numbers, admiration, and envy, in the frequenting visitors.[128] There is no positive evidence, indeed, of such expansion in the Attic festivals earlier than the reign of Peisistratus, who first added the quadrennial or greater Panathenæa to the ancient annual or lesser Panathenæa; nor can we trace the steps of progress in regard to Thebes, Orchomenus, Thespiæ, Megara, Sikyôn, Pellênê, Ægina, Argos, etc., but we find full reason for believing that such was the general reality. Of the Olympic or Isthmian victors whom Pindar and Simonidês celebrated, many derived a portion of their renown from previous victories acquired at several of these local contests,[129]—victories sometimes so numerous, as to prove how wide-spread the habit of mutual frequentation had become;[130] though we find, even in the third century B. C., treaties of alliance between different cities, in which it is thought necessary to confer this mutual right by express stipulation. Temptation was offered, to the distinguished gymnastic or musical competitors, by prizes of great value; and Timæus even asserted, as a proof of the overweening pride of Kroton and Sybaris, that these cities tried to supplant the preëminence of the Olympic games, by instituting games of their own with the richest prizes, to be celebrated at the same time,[131]—a statement in itself not worthy of credit, but nevertheless illustrating the animated rivalry known to prevail among the Grecian cities in procuring for themselves splendid and crowded games. At the time when the Homeric Hymn to Dêmêtêr was composed, the worship of that goddess seems to have been purely local at Eleusis; but before the Persian war, the festival celebrated by the Athenians every year, in honor of the Eleusinian Dêmêtêr, admitted Greeks of all cities to be initiated, and was attended by vast crowds of them.[132]

[128] Thucyd. vi, 16. Alkibiadês says, καὶ ὅσα αὖ ἐν τῇ πόλει χορηγίαις ἢ ἄλλῳ τῳ λαμπρύνομαι, τοῖς μὲν ἀστοῖς φθονεῖται φύσει, πρὸς δὲ τοὺς ξένους καὶ αὐτὴ ἰσχὺς φαίνεται.

The greater Panathenæa are ascribed to Peisistratus by the Scholiast on Aristeidês, vol. iii, p. 323, ed. Dindorf: judging by what immediately precedes, the statement seems to come from Aristotle.

[129] Simonidês, Fragm. 154-158, ed. Bergk; Pindar, Nem. x, 45; Olymp. xiii, 107.

The distinguished athlete Theagenês is affirmed to have gained twelve hundred prizes in these various agônes: according to some, fourteen hundred prizes (Pausan. vi, 11, 2; Plutarch, Præcept. Reip. Ger. c. 15, p. 811).

An athlete named Apollonius arrived too late for the Olympic games, having stayed away too long, from his anxiety to get money at various agônes in Ionia (Pausan. v, 21, 5).

[130] See, particularly, the treaty between the inhabitants of Latus and those of Olûs in Krête, in Boeckh’s Corp. Inscr. No. 2554, wherein this reciprocity is expressly stipulated. Boeckh places this Inscription in the third century B. C.

[131] Timæus, Fragm. 82, ed. Didot. The Krotoniates furnished a great number of victors both to the Olympic and to the Pythian games (Herodot. viii, 47; Pausan. x, 5, 5–x, 7, 3; Krause, Gymnastik und Agonistik der Hellenen, vol. ii, sect. 29, p. 752).

[132] Herodot. viii, 65. καὶ αὐτῶν ὁ βουλόμενος καὶ τῶν ἄλλων Ἑλλήνων μυεῖται.

The exclusion of all competitors, natives of Lampsakus, from the games celebrated in the Chersonesus to the honor of the œkist Miltiadês, is mentioned by Herodotus as something special (Herodot. vi, 38).

It was thus that the simplicity and strict local application of the primitive religious festival, among the greater states in Greece, gradually expanded, on certain great occasions periodically recurring, into an elaborate and regulated series of exhibitions,—not merely admitting, but soliciting the fraternal presence of all Hellenic spectators. In this respect Sparta seems to have formed an exception to the remaining states: her festivals were for herself alone, and her general rudeness towards other Greeks was not materially softened even at the Karneia,[133] or Hyakinthia, or Gymnopædiæ. On the other hand, the Attic Dionysia were gradually exalted, from their original rude spontaneous outburst of village feeling in thankfulness to the god, followed by song, dance, and revelry of various kinds,—into costly and diversified performances, first, by a trained chorus, next, by actors superadded to it;[134] and the dramatic compositions thus produced, as they embodied the perfection of Grecian art, so they were eminently calculated to invite a Pan-Hellenic audience and to encourage the sentiment of Hellenic unity. The dramatic literature of Athens, however, belongs properly to a later period; previous to the year 560 B. C., we see only those commencements of innovation which drew upon Thespis[135] the rebuke of Solon, who himself contributed to impart to the Panathenaic festival a more solemn and attractive character, by checking the license of the rhapsodes, and insuring to those present a full, orderly recital of the Iliad.

[133] See the remarks, upon the Lacedæmonian discouragement of stranger-visitors at their public festivals, put by Thucydidês into the mouth of Periklês (Thucyd. ii, 39).

Lichas the Spartan gained great renown by treating hospitably the strangers who came to the Gymnopædiæ at Sparta (Xenophon, Memorab. i, 2, 61; Plutarch, Kimon, c. 10),—a story which proves that _some_ strangers came to the Spartan festivals, but which also proves that they were not many in number, and that to show them hospitality was a striking distinction from the general character of Spartans.

[134] Aristot. Poetic, c. 3 and 4; Maximus Tyrius. Diss. xxi. p. 215; Plutarch. De Cupidine Divitiarum. c. 8. p. 527: compare the treatise, “Quod non potest suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum.” c. 16. p. 1098. The old oracles quoted by Demosthenês, cont. Meidiam (c. 15. p. 531. and cont. Makartat. p. 1072: see also Buttmann’s note on the former passage), convey the idea of the ancient simple Athenian festival.

[135] Plutarch. Solon, c. 29: see above, chap. xi. vol. iii. p. 195.

The sacred games and festivals, here alluded to as a class, took hold of the Greek mind by so great a variety of feelings,[136] as to counterbalance in a high degree the political disseverance, and to keep alive among their wide-spread cities, in the midst of constant jealousy and frequent quarrel, a feeling of brotherhood and congenial sentiment such as must otherwise have died away. The Theôrs, or sacred envoys, who came to Olympia or Delphi from so many different points, all sacrificed to the same god and at the same altar, witnessed the same sports, and contributed by their donatives to enrich or adorn one respected scene. Nor must we forget that the festival afforded opportunity for a sort of fair, including much traffic amid so large a mass of spectators,[137] and besides the exhibitions of the games themselves, there were recitations and lectures in a spacious council-room for those who chose to listen to them, by poets, rhapsodes, philosophers, and historians,—among which last, the history of Herodotus is said to have been publicly read by its author.[138] Of the wealthy and great men in the various cities, many contended simply for the chariot victories and horse victories. But there were others whose ambition was of a character more strictly personal, and who stripped naked as runners, wrestlers, boxers, or pankratiasts, having gone through the extreme fatigue of a complete previous training. Kylon, whose unfortunate attempt to usurp the sceptre at Athens has been recounted, had gained the prize in the Olympic stadium: Alexander son of Amyntas, the prince of Macedon, had run for it.[139] The great family of the Diagoridæ at Rhodes, who furnished magistrates and generals to their native city, supplied a still greater number of successful boxers and pankratiasts at Olympia, while other instances also occur of generals named by various cities from the lists of successful Olympic gymnasts; and the odes of Pindar, always dearly purchased, attest how many of the great and wealthy were found in that list.[140] The perfect popularity and equality of persons at these great games, is a feature not less remarkable than the exact adherence to predetermined rule, and the self-imposed submission of the immense crowd to a handful of servants armed with sticks,[141] who executed the orders of the Eleian Hellanodikæ. The ground upon which the ceremony took place, and even the territory of the administering state, was protected by a “Truce of God,” during the month of the festival, the commencement of which was formally announced by heralds sent round to the different states. Treaties of peace between different cities were often formally commemorated by pillars there erected, and the general impression of the scene suggested nothing but ideas of peace and brotherhood among Greeks.[142] And I may remark that the impression of the games as belonging to all Greeks, and to none but Greeks, was stronger and clearer during the interval between 600-300 B. C., than it came to be afterwards. For the Macedonian conquests had the effect of diluting and corrupting Hellenism, by spreading an exterior varnish of Hellenic tastes and manners over a wide area of incongruous foreigners, who were incapable of the real elevation of the Hellenic character; so that although in later times the games continued undiminished, both in attraction and in number of visitors, the spirit of Pan-Hellenic communion, which had once animated the scene, was gone forever.

[136] The orator Lysias, in a fragment of his lost Panegyrical Oration preserved by Dionysius of Halikarnassus (vol. v. p. 520 R.), describes the influence of the games with great force and simplicity. Hêraklês, the founder of them, ἀγῶνα μὲν σωμάτων ἐποίησε, φιλοτιμίαν δὲ πλούτῳ, γνώμης δ᾽ ἐπίδειξιν ἐν τῷ καλλίστῳ τῆς Ἑλλάδος· ἵνα τούτων ἁπάντων ἕνεκα ἐς τὸ αὐτὸ ἔλθωμεν, τὰ μὲν ὀψόμενοι, τὰ δὲ ἀκουσόμενοι. Ἡγήσατο γὰρ τὸν ἐνθάδε σύλλογον ~ἀρχὴν γενέσθαι τοῖς Ἕλλησι τῆς πρὸς ἀλλήλους φιλίας~.

[137] Cicero, Tusc. Quæst. v, 3. “_Mercatum_ eum, qui haberetur maximo ludorum apparatu totius Græciæ celebritate: nam ut illic alii corporibus exercitatis gloriam et nobilitatem coronæ peterent, alii emendi aut vendendi quæstu et lucro ducerentur,” etc.

Both Velleius Paterculus also (i, 8) and Justin (xiii, 5), call the Olympic festival by the name _mercatus_.

There were booths all round the Altis, or sacred precinct of Zeus (Schol. Pindar. Olymp. xi, 55), during the time of the games.

Strabo observes with justice, respecting the multitudinous festivals generally—Ἡ πανήγυρις, ἐμπορικόν τι πρᾶγμα (x, p. 486), especially in reference to Delos: see Cicero pro Lege Maniliâ, c. 18: compare Pausanias, x, 32, 9, about the Panegyris and fair at Tithorea in Phokis, and Becker, Chariklês, vol. i, p. 283.

At the Attic festival of the Herakleia, celebrated by the communion called Mesogei, or a certain number of the demes constituting Mesogæa, a regular market-due, or ἀγοραστικὸν, was levied upon those who brought goods to sell (Inscriptiones Atticæ nuper repertæ 12, by E. Curtius, pp. 3-7).

[138] Pausan. vi, 23, 5; Diodor. xiv, 109, xv, 7; Lucian, Quomodo Historia sit conscribenda, c. 42. See Krause, Olympia, sect. 29. pp. 183-186.

[139] Thucyd. i, 120; Herodot. v, 22-71. Eurybatês of Argos (Herodot. vi, 92); Philippus and Phayllus of Kroton (v, 47; viii, 47); Eualkidês of Eretria (v, 102); Hermolykus of Athens (ix, 105).

Pindar (Nem. iv and vi) gives the numerous victories of the Bassidæ and Theandridræ at Ægina: also Melissus the pankratiast and his ancestors the Kleonymidæ of Thebes—τιμάεντες ἀρχᾶθεν πρόξενοί τ᾽ ἐπιχωρίων (Isthm. iii, 25).

Respecting the extreme celebrity of Diagoras and his sons, of the Rhodian gens Eratidæ, Damagêtus, Akusilaus, and Dorieus, see Pindar, Olymp. vii, 16-145, with the Scholia; Thucyd. iii, 11; Pausan. vi, 7, 1-2; Xenophon, Hellenic. i, 5, 19: compare Strabo. xiv, p. 655.

[140] The Latin writers remark it as a peculiarity of Grecian feeling, as distinguished from Roman, that men of great station accounted it an honor to contend in the games: see, as a specimen, Tacitus, Dialogus de Orator. c. 9. “Ac si in Græciâ natus esses, ubi ludicras quoque artes exercere honestum est, ac tibi Nicostrati robur Dii dedissent, non paterer immanes illos et ad pugnam natos lacertos levitate jaculi vanescere.” Again, Cicero, pro Flacco, c. 13, in his sarcastic style: “Quid si etiam occisus est a piratis Adramyttenus, homo nobilis, cujus est fere nobis omnibus nomen auditum, Atinas pugil, Olympionices? hoc est apud Græcos (quoniam de corum _gravitate_ dicimus) prope majus et gloriosius, quam Romæ triumphasse.”

[141] Lichas, one of the chief men of Sparta, and moreover a chariot-victor, received actual chastisement on the ground, from these staff-bearers, for an infringement of the regulations (Thucyd. v, 50).

[142] Thucyd. v, 18-47. and the curious ancient Inscription in Boeckh’s Corpus Inscr. No. 11. p. 28. recording the convention between the Eleians and the inhabitants of the Arcadian town of Heræa.

The comparison of various passages referring to the Olympia, Isthmia, and Nemea (Thucydidês iii, 11; viii, 9-10; v, 49-51; and Xenophon, Hellenic. iv, 7, 2; v, 1, 29) shows that various political business was often discussed at these Games,—that diplomatists made use of the intercourse for the purpose of detecting the secret designs of states whom they suspected, and that the administering state often practised manœuvres in respect to the obligations of truce for the Hieromenia, or Holy Month.

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