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Discovering Diverse Content Through
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not, for that reserved and silent people had too much pride and
dourness; moreover athletics to them were but a means to an end,
the training of soldier citizens. Certainly from this date they ceased
to figure in the victors’ lists, engrossed perhaps in more serious
contests and schemes of aggrandizement, or else estranged from
the festival by the new democratic, Panhellenic spirit introduced
there by the colonies, and unwilling to suffer defeat at the hands of
upstarts.
The influence of the colonies was great. Their competition gave a
fresh impulse to that wave of athleticism which reached its height in
the sixth century. To Olympia they gave a Panhellenic character as a
meeting-place for all the scattered members of the Greek race, and
thereby tended to preserve and strengthen that feeling of unity
which contact with other nations had already quickened into life. No
foreigner could enter as a competitor at Olympia, no barbarous
potentates sent offerings to its shrines or consulted its oracle.
Olympia remained throughout its history purely and exclusively
Hellenic. Again, the colonies brought Olympia into touch with the
democratic spirit of the age, and broke down the barriers of Elean
and Spartan exclusiveness. The colonial claimed admission purely by
virtue of his Greek birth, and no distinctions of rank or caste or
wealth were known in the Olympic games. Sport, especially national
sport, is a great leveller of social distinctions.
The political importance of such a festival, which drew competitors
and spectators from all quarters of the Greek world, could not
escape the notice of the clear-sighted and ambitious tyrants and
nobles of the seventh century. But the sanctity of the place and the
new democratic spirit of the festival were too strong for them.
Pheidon of Argos had tried to make himself master of Olympia by
force of arms. Other tyrants tried more peaceful means, seeking to
win popularity among the assembled crowds and influence with the
powers of Olympia by victories in the chariot-race, or by sumptuous
offerings to Olympian Zeus. In the middle of the seventh century
Myron of Sicyon won a victory in the chariot-race and
commemorated his success by dedicating two treasure-chests of
solid bronze, one of which weighed 500 talents. These treasure-
chests were afterwards placed in the treasure-house of the
Sicyonians, built in the fifth century possibly in the place of some
more ancient structure. The excavations of Olympia have revealed
the solid floor intended to bear the weight of these treasure-chests.
His grandson Cleisthenes, himself a victor, took advantage of the
festival to proclaim the famous competition for the hand of his
daughter Agariste, which Herodotus describes. Cypselus of Corinth,
too, dedicated at Olympia a golden statue of Zeus made in the style
of the early metal-workers, of beaten gold plates riveted together.
His son Periander was victor in the chariot-race, and gave to Olympia
the famous chest of Cypselus in which, according to the story, the
infant Cypselus had been hidden by his mother from the assassins
sent by the oligarchs of Corinth to murder him. From Athens came
the would-be tyrant Cylon, who won the diaulos race in Ol. 35; and
in the next generation the chariot-race was won by Alcmaeon, the
son of that Megacles who was responsible as archon for the death of
Cylon and the consequent pollution of the Alcmaeonidae, and the
father of Megacles, the successful suitor of Agariste. Yet, in spite of
their victories and their offerings, no tyrant secured influence at
Olympia, no building there bore a tyrant’s name. The so-called
treasuries were the communal houses of states, that of the
Megarians, which dates about this time, being set up probably not
by the tyrant Theagenes but by the people after his fall, and before
their power was weakened by the successes of Athens.
Thus at the beginning of the sixth century Olympia had acquired a
unique position as the national festival of Hellas. Competitors and
spectators of all classes gathered there from every part of Greece.
The sacred truce-bearers proclaimed the month of peace throughout
the Greek world, and in response, cities of Asia and of Sicily vied
with one another in the splendour of the official embassies (θεωρίαι)
sent to represent them at the festival. The old aristocratic character
survived in the chariot-race and horse-race, which afforded to
tyrants and nobles an opportunity of displaying their riches and their
power. The athletic programme was now practically complete, the
only important innovation of later times being the race in full armour
introduced 520 B.C., and this programme was truly democratic. In
athletic events noble and peasant met on equal terms. The
aristocratic prejudice against these popular contests did not yet
exist; and though the honour of the Olympic crown was open to the
poorest citizen of Greek birth, such was the prestige of the festival
that it was coveted even by the highest. The representative
character of Olympia was due to a variety of causes. The
geographical position of the place, its ancient sanctity, the athletic
vigour of the pre-Dorian Greeks, the discipline and training of the
Spartans, the enthusiastic patriotism of the colonies, the ambition of
tyrants, the new spirit of democracy,—these and other causes
contributed to the result, and the importance of the result was
recognized by the founding within the next half-century of three
other Panhellenic festivals at Delphi, at Nemea, and at the Isthmus,
and of many another festival which, like the Panathenaea, aspired to
but never attained Panhellenic dignity.
Yet, despite the growth of the festival and the development of
athletics, there was little change in the appearance of the Altis or the
organization of the games. Some of the wooden pillars of the
Heraeum were perhaps replaced by stone, but no fresh building
appeared till the treasuries, the earliest of which date from the close
of the seventh century. The games still took place near the altar,
where a course could be easily measured and marked out before
each meeting. The new events added were merely variations of
those which we find in Homer. Popularity and competition had no
doubt improved the standard of performance, but athletic training
did not yet exist. In the towns, indeed, gymnasia and palaestrae
were already springing up; but these were educational rather than
athletic, intended to train and discipline the young as useful soldiers
rather than to produce champion athletes. The bulk of the
population living an open-air country life in which war, hunting, and
games played a considerable part, had no need of training. Thus,
though athletics had become popular, they still maintained the
spontaneity and joy of the Homeric age: they were still pure
recreation.
 CHAPTER IV
THE AGE OF ATHLETIC FESTIVALS, SIXTH CENTURY
B.C.

The sixth century is the age of organized athletics. The rise of Sparta
and her success in sport and war gave to the Greek world an object
lesson on the value of systematic training, and henceforth the
training of the body was an essential part of Greek education.
Palaestrae and gymnasia were established everywhere, and Solon
found it necessary to lay down laws for their conduct. These
institutions were originally intended for the training of the young,
but the growth of athletic competition soon called into being a new
and specialized form of training, the training of competitors for the
great games. An art of training sprung up, and in the time of Pindar
the professors of the new art, besides reaping a rich harvest from
their pupils, received honour scarcely inferior to that of the victors
themselves. The rapid development of the Olympic festival had
shown the value of athletics as a bond of union between Greeks
throughout the world, and the general yearning after a unity which
was destined never to be realized found expression in the
establishment of other festivals for which Olympia served as a
model.
At Delphi, the Isthmus, and Nemea, local festivals and competitions
had long existed.[72] The oracle of Delphi had already acquired a
Panhellenic, almost a cosmopolitan importance, rivalling that of
Olympia. The Pythian festival was said to have been founded to
commemorate Apollo’s victory over the Python. To expiate the death
of the dragon, Apollo had been condemned to nine years of exile,
and the festival was therefore held every ninth year, or, according to
our reckoning, once in eight years. Later legend asserted that there
had been athletic games at Delphi, and various heroes were named
as victors in these sports. But it seems probable that the original
competitions at Delphi were purely musical, and in the hymn for
Apollo Delphusa expressly commends Delphi as the home for the
god on the ground that there his altar will be undisturbed by the
“whirling of fair chariots or the sound of swift-footed steeds.” The
innate ambition of the Greek and his desire to outshine his fellows
found vent in competitions of every sort. Musical competitions were
specially connected with the worship of Apollo at Delos and at
Sparta; at Delphi a prize was given for a hymn to Apollo chanted to
the accompaniment of the cithara.
Such the festival remained till the outbreak of the first Sacred war.
The war was due to the impious conduct of the Crisaeans, who,
having command of the plain and the harbour of Cirrha, had
enriched themselves at the expense of the Delphians and Apollo, by
levying exorbitant tolls on the pilgrims who landed at Cirrha on their
way to the oracle. The Delphians appealed to their natural
protectors, the Amphictyonic League at Thermopylae, who
straightway proclaimed a sacred war. The command of the
expedition was given to the Thessalian Eurylochus; the Athenians,
on the advice of Solon, sent a contingent under Alcmaeon, while
Cleisthenes, the ambitious tyrant of Sicyon, eagerly embraced the
opportunity of posing as a champion of Greek religion. The festival
was restored and reorganized in 590 B.C. New musical events were
added, a solo on the flute and a song accompanied by the flute;
athletic and equestrian competitions also were introduced on the
model of those at Olympia; but since Delphi as yet had no stadium,
the games were held in the plain of Crisa below. The chariot-race for
some reason or other was omitted, but two additional athletic events
found a place, a long race and a diaulos race for boys.
The war, however, broke out afresh and lasted for six years, at the
end of which, in 582, the festival was finally reorganized out of the
spoil of Crisa as a pentaëteris, and placed under the control of the
Amphictyons. The year 582 dates as the first Pythiad, and from this
time the festival was held every fourth year, in the August of the
third year of each Olympiad. The valuable prizes which had been
offered of old were abolished, and in their place was substituted a
crown of bay leaves plucked from the Vale of Tempe. The somewhat
scanty details which we possess as to the festival and its history will
be discussed in a later chapter. For the present it is sufficient to note
one significant fact: the chariot-race which had been omitted in 590
was introduced in 582, and the first victor was Cleisthenes of Sicyon
himself. The plains of Sicyon were admirably adapted for breeding
horses, a pursuit which afforded its tyrants a ready means of
increasing and displaying their wealth. Myron had already gained a
victory in the chariot-race at Olympia, and his grandson Cleisthenes,
shortly after his Pythian success, secured the same honour on the
occasion when he issued his invitation to the suitors for the hand of
Agariste. At Sicyon itself he commemorated the part which he had
played in the Sacred war by a splendid colonnade built out of the
spoils of Cirrha, and at the same time he reorganized as a local
Pythia an ancient festival connected with the Argive hero Adrastus,
whose memory he delighted to insult.[73] We may therefore safely
regard the introduction of the chariot-race at Delphi as due to the
tyrant’s influence, and the remodelling of the festival as part of his
pushing Panhellenic policy.
Almost at the same time, perhaps in the same year, 582 B.C., the
Isthmian festival was reorganized. This festival, which claimed an
antiquity greater even than that of Olympia, was celebrated at the
sanctuary of Poseidon, which stood in a grove of pine-trees at the
south-east of the Isthmus, a little to the south of the eastern end of
the present Corinth canal. The various legends of its origin are all
connected directly or indirectly with the worship of Poseidon. The
wreath of dry celery leaves, which in the time of Pindar was the
prize, recalled the story that the games were first founded in honour
of the luckless Melicertes at the spot to which his dead body was
carried by a dolphin. According to another legend they were
instituted by the Attic hero Theseus, when he had freed the land
from the terror of the robber Sinis. This story points to the close
connexion of the Isthmia with Athens. The Athenian envoys enjoyed
the privilege of precedence (προεδρία) at this festival, and a space
was reserved for them, as much as could be covered by the sail of
the ship which brought them to the Isthmus. No other festival was
so conveniently situated for the Athenians. Athens and Corinth had
much in common, and were on most friendly terms before the
relations between them were embittered by commercial rivalry, and
their friendship was especially close in the period following the fall of
the Cypselidae. Another version of the Theseus legend represents
him as founding the Isthmia in rivalry of Heracles, who had founded
the Olympic games; and here we may trace a certain jealousy
existing between the two festivals.[74] We know on good authority
that the Eleans were not allowed to compete at the Isthmia. This
ban, which Elean tradition represented as a self-denying ordinance
imposed by the curse of Molione, may well have originated in this
rivalry. We can imagine that the Elean authorities regarded with no
favour the rise of a rival festival on a site so central, the meeting-
place of the trade of East and West. Yet, after all, Olympia had no
reason to fear its rival. The central position of Corinth involving her
in all the feuds and wars of Greek history, prevented the Isthmia
from ever acquiring that unique independence which characterized
the more remote Olympia. There can be little doubt, too, that from
the first the festival reflected the luxurious commercial character of
Corinth. There the joyous life of the Ionian race found vent in a sort
of cosmopolitan carnival which contrasted strangely with the more
strenuous Dorian festival of remote Olympia.
The remodelled festival was a trieteris, held in the spring of the
second and fourth years of each Olympiad. The programme was a
varied one, including, besides athletics and horse-races, musical
competitions, and possibly a regatta. The presidency of the festival
belonged to the Corinthians. Whether its establishment as a
Panhellenic festival was due to the tyrant Periander or expressed the
joy of the people at their liberation from his rule, the evidence does
not allow us to determine. The latter seems to me more probable.
The great tyrant, laid by his victory in the chariot-race at Olympia,
and by costly offerings to Olympia and Delphi, tried to win the
support of the authorities at these places, and it may well be that
the founding of a rival festival marked the popular reaction against
his policy. Be this as it may, the establishment of the Isthmia is
another sign of the great national movement towards unity. Tyrants
recognized and tried to utilize the movement for their own
advantage. But Panhellenism was independent of tyrants; it was a
spontaneous movement of the people, and it need cause no surprise
that one Panhellenic festival should owe its origin to a tyrant,
another to the people.
A similar doubt attaches to the last of the Greek festivals, the
Nemea. The cypress grove of Nemea, where stood the temple of the
Nemean Zeus, lay in a secluded valley among the hills, half-way
between Phlius and Cleonae. Here under the presidency of the latter
state local games had long been celebrated. They were said to have
been founded by Adrastus as funeral games in honour of the child
Opheltes, who, having been left by his nurse in the grove, had been
devoured by a serpent. According to another story, they were
founded by Heracles after his slaying of the Nemean lion, and by
him dedicated to Zeus. They were reorganized in the year 573 B.C. as
a trieteris, and took place like the Isthmia in the second and fourth
year of each Olympiad, probably at the very beginning of the
Olympic year in July. The prize was a wreath of fresh celery, but was
said to have been originally a wreath of olive. As at Olympia, the
managers of the games bore the title of Hellanodicae. As at Olympia,
the contests were until later times purely athletic and equestrian.
The striking resemblances to Olympia are clearly due to Dorian
influence, and may perhaps help us to understand how it was that,
within a few years of the founding of the Isthmia, a second
Panhellenic festival was established in its immediate neighbourhood.
The little town of Cleonae, which held the presidency of the Nemea
down to the time of Pindar, could certainly never have raised its
festival unaided to Panhellenic dignity. Cleonae seems to have been
for a time under the dominion of Cleisthenes of Sicyon; yet it seems
hardly likely that the tyrant, who had already helped in establishing
the Pythia at Delphi, besides a local Pythia at Sicyon, and whose
policy was so markedly anti-Dorian, should have founded a second
Panhellenic festival of so purely Dorian a type. Moreover, it seems
that Cleonae had already thrown off the yoke of Cleisthenes, whose
power was on the decline. Argos, too, was on the decline, and
though Argos in the year 460 B.C. usurped the presidency of the
games, we find similar claims put forward by Corinth and by
Mycenae. The fact that so many states claimed the presidency of the
festival suggests that its re-establishment was not the work of any
one state but of the Dorians of the north-eastern Peloponnese
generally. If we are right about the jealousy felt by the authorities of
Olympia towards the newly-founded Isthmia, and the character of
the latter festival, we may perhaps see in the founding of the Nemea
the protest of Dorian puritanism against innovations which seemed
to degrade the serious business of athletics. Scandalized by the
laxness of the new festival, with its traffic and its pleasures and its
multitude of entertainments, the Dorians of Argolis conceived the
idea of founding at Cleonae an eastern counterpart of Olympia. The
strenuousness of athletics in Argolis is surely indicated in the
strength and severity characterizing the athletic school of sculpture
which had its origin in Sicyon and Argos, half-way between which
places appropriately lay Cleonae. The view suggested above is of
course hypothetical, but it accords with what we know of the Isthmia
and the Nemea, and satisfactorily explains the Panhellenic character
of the latter.
Thus by the year 570 the four Panhellenic festivals were established.
They were distinctively the sacred meetings (ἱεροὶ ἀγῶνες) and the
games of the crown (στεφανῖται), so called to distinguish them from
the numerous games where prizes of value were given (θεματικοί).
It is no little proof of the true athletic feeling of the Greeks that in
their four greatest festivals no prize was given but the simple crown
of leaves. The cycle of these festivals will be best understood by a
glance at the following table, which shows the order of the festivals
during a single Olympiad.[75] It must be remembered that the Greek
year began with the summer solstice, and consequently belongs half
to one, half to the next year, according to our reckoning.

Olympiad. B.C.
55. 1 560/559 560 Late Olympia.
Summer
2 559/8 { 559 Summer Nemea.
{ 558 Spring Isthmia.
3 558/7 558 August Pythia.
4 557/6 { 557 Summer Nemea.
{ 556 Spring Isthmia.
56. 1 556/5 556 Late Olympia.
Summer
Thus we see that in the even years there were two Panhellenic
festivals, in the odd years one.
The competition of other Panhellenic festivals threatened the
supremacy of Olympia, and forced the easy-going conservative
authorities of that place into activity. Hitherto they had allowed the
festival to develop from without; they had allowed Gela and Megara
to build treasuries overlooking the Altis, and so to establish some
sort of claim to a share in the management; content with their
traditional customs they had made no attempt to provide adequate
organization for an athletic meeting of such importance. Now they
saw that if they were to maintain their position they must set their
house in order. A significant story is told by Herodotus.[76] In the
reign of Psammetichus II. (594-589 B.C.) some Elean ambassadors
visited Egypt to see if the Egyptians could suggest any improvement
in the rules for the Olympic games, which they boasted were the
fairest and best that could be devised. The Egyptians, after
considering a while, asked if they allowed their own citizens to
compete. The Eleans replied that the games were open to all
Greeks, whether they belonged to Elis or any other state. To this the
Egyptians, with true commercial instinct, answered that the rules
were far from just, for that it was impossible but that they would
favour their own countrymen and deal unfairly with foreigners; if,
therefore, they wished to manage the games with fairness they must
confine the games to strangers and allow no native of Elis to
compete. It is to the credit of the Greeks that no such self-denying
ordinance was introduced or found to be necessary, and that the
Greeks themselves never raised any such objection till a much later
date. It is only when sport becomes too competitive and too
lucrative and the professional and commercial spirit enters in that
elaborate safeguards are required against unfairness.
This story is valuable evidence that the Eleans were at this time
seeking to improve their arrangements. What the improvements
were we do not know, but that some sort of reorganization took
place is rendered probable by the tradition recorded above, that in
Ol. 50 a second Hellanodicas was first appointed. Possibly the
Olympic Council was remodelled. We find this Council in the fourth
century acting as a court of appeal, and in Imperial times it is
mentioned in inscriptions as authorizing the setting up of honorific
statues.[77] The Hellanodicae were its executive officers, and from
their history and numbers it seems probable that the Council
represented the various tribes which formed a sort of amphictyony
originally controlling the festival. Their existence in the sixth century
is proved by the remains of their Council-house. This building lay
below the south wall of the Altis. It consists of two long buildings,
terminated at the west end by an apse, parallel to each other, and
united by a square chamber between them. The northern wing of
the building dates from the middle of the sixth century at the latest.
The apsidal chamber at the end was divided by a partition, and
served probably for the storage of archives and treasure, while the
rest of the building formed the business quarters of the Council and
the Hellanodicae. There the competitors had to appear and take an
oath before the altar of Zeus Horkios that they had observed, and
would observe the conditions of the festival. Another building
connected with the permanent management of the festival was the
Prytaneum, also built about the same time. In it was the altar of
Hestia, on which the sacred fire was kept always burning. The ashes
from this altar, collected and mixed with the water of the Alpheus,
were used to build up the great altar of Zeus. Here, when the games
were ended, distinguished guests and victors were feasted, and
songs of victory were chanted in their honour.
The Council must have exercised a control over all new buildings
erected at Olympia. In the second half of the sixth century fresh
treasuries were built by the states of Selinus, Sybaris, Byzantium,
and Cyrene, a list which sufficiently illustrates the widespread
influence of the festival. The planning and alignment of these
buildings clearly implies the supervision of some local authority.
Significant of the new energy of these authorities and of their desire
to render Olympia itself worthy of the festival, was a practice, which
began in this century, of allowing victors to commemorate their
victories by votive statues. The earliest of these statues, according
to Pausanias, were those of Praxidamas of Aegina, who won the
boxing in Ol. 59, and of Rhexibius of Opus who won the pankration
two Olympiads later. These statues were of wood, and we may,
therefore, suspect that those seen by Pausanias were not really the
first but only the oldest which had survived. Certainly there were
statues of earlier victors. Some of these, like that of the
Lacedaemonian Chionis, or that of the famous pankratiast
Arrhichion, at his native home Phigalia, were set up by their
countrymen many years after their death. Others, like that of the
Spartan boy Eutelidas, who won the boys’ wrestling and the boys’
pentathlon, may have been contemporary. The first sculptors of
athletic statues, whose names we know, are Chrysothemis and
Eutelidas of Argos, who made the statues for the Heraean
Damaretus, who won the race in armour in Ols. 65, 66, and for his
son Theopompus, who won two victories in the pentathlon. On the
inscriptions beneath these statues the artists claimed to have learnt
their art from former artists. Argos and Sicyon, the homes of the
earliest athletic sculpture, were, as we have seen, closely connected
with the newly organized Panhellenic festivals, in addition to which
there were a number of minor local festivals throughout that district.
We may, therefore, safely connect the rise of the athletic school of
art with the athletic movement that produced these festivals. These
early statues were, of course, not portrait statues. We learn from
Pliny that the right of setting up a portrait statue was confined to
winners of a triple victory. The accuracy of this statement is open to
doubt; certainly it cannot have been true before the fourth century,
previous to which portrait statues were practically unknown. The
early artists must have contented themselves with type statues,
representing the various events in which victory had been gained.
Towards the close of the century certain additions were made to the
programme. In Ol. 65 (520 B.C.) the race in heavy armour was
introduced at Olympia, and in 498 B.C. at Delphi. This innovation was
clearly due to the growing importance of the heavy-armed infantry in
Greek warfare. Greek sports were, as we have seen, in their origin
practical and military, but with changed conditions of warfare they
had lost their military character and become purely athletic. The
chieftain no longer went to war in his chariot; his men no longer
threw stones or light javelins. Individual warfare was giving place to
the manœuvring of masses of heavy-armed troops. The introduction
of the race in armour was an attempt to restore to athletics their
practical character. The race was a diaulos, i.e. up the stadium and
back to the starting-point, a distance of about four hundred yards.
The men wore helmets, greaves, and round shields. At a later time
the greaves were discarded, perhaps as a concession to athletes
who regarded such a race as a spurious sort of athletics. Certainly
the race never attained to the same prestige as the other events.
In Ol. 70 (500 B.C.) a mule chariot-race (ἀπήνη) was introduced, and
in the next Olympiad a riding race for mares (κάλπη), in which the
riders dismounted in the last lap and ran with their steeds. In both
these events, which were discontinued after a short trial in Ol. 84,
we may see the influence of the Elean nobility, whose wealth and
power were derived largely from their horses and cattle. The
introduction of mule chariot-races may have been partly due to the
influence of the Lords of Sicily; the victory of Anaxilas is
commemorated on the coins of Rhegium and Messana (Fig. 168).
The κάλπη is of especial interest. Helbig has shown that the Hippeis
of Athens and other Greek states in the sixth century were not
cavalry soldiers in the strict sense of the word, but mounted infantry,
the true successors of the Homeric chieftains.[78] Just as the latter
went to war in their chariots, but dismounted in order to fight,
leaving the chariot in charge of the charioteer, and remounting for
flight or for pursuit, so the Hippeis of the sixth century merely used
their horses for advance or for retreat, dismounting when they came
into close contact with the foe, and leaving their horses with their
squires, who accompanied them, either mounted behind them en
croupe, or on horses of their own. The Homeric custom survived
only in sports, in the ἀποβατής, whom we see represented on the
frieze of the Parthenon in the act of dismounting; the later custom
was represented for a brief time only by the κάλπη. As we have seen
in discussing the race in armour, the system of individual warfare
was passing away. Sparta had shown the superiority of masses of
armed infantry. Previous to the Persian wars, Thessalian cavalry had
already been employed by Peisistratus, and these served in the fifth
century as the model on which corps of cavalry proper were
organized in Athens and other states. But in 500 B.C. there were no
cavalry in the Peloponnese, and the conservative nobles may well
have regarded with jealousy a change which threatened to put them
on a level with the ordinary foot-soldier. The introduction of the
κάλπη then was an attempt to stimulate and encourage the older
style of fighting. But the attempt was doomed to failure; the
progress of military tactics was not to be checked by the Eleans, and
while the hoplite race survived as long as the festival itself, the
κάλπη was ignominiously abandoned in 444 B.C.
Besides the four great festivals of the Crown there were countless
local festivals where competitions of various sorts were held.[79] The
prizes offered were often tripods, and bowls of silver or of bronze;
sometimes articles of local manufacture, such as a cloak at Pellene,
a shield at Argos, vases of olive-oil at Athens; sometimes a portion
of the victim sacrificed, or the victim to be sacrificed. The British
Museum possesses a bronze caldron[80] of about the sixth century,
which was found at Cyme in Italy, and was given as a prize at some
local games founded by, or held in honour of, a certain Onomastus.
It bears the inscription, “I was a prize at the games of Onomastus.”
Many of these festivals were connected with the cults of local
heroes, and had existed for generations. Sometimes the
competitions themselves bore a distinctly ritual character; thus the
torch-race, which we meet with in many parts of Greece, was
connected with the primitive custom of periodically distributing new
and holy fire from the sacred hearth where it had been kindled.
Sometimes the competitions were musical, as at the Spartan Carnea;
more frequently they were purely athletic. The athletic competitions
acquired fresh life from the stimulus given to athletics by the growth
of the Panhellenic festivals. At first purely local, even these minor
gatherings in Pindar’s time drew competitors from various parts of
Greece. Many fresh festivals were added, and old ones reorganized
during the sixth century, especially in the eastern parts of Greece,
but of most of these we know little besides the names. The greatest
of all was the Panathenaic Festival.
Athenian nobles had won distinction at Olympia in the seventh
century. Four Athenian victories are chronicled in the stade-race.
Cylon, as already mentioned, won a victory in the diaulos in Ol. 35
(640 B.C.), a victory which perhaps cost him dear. Having consulted
the Delphic oracle as to the success of his plot to make himself
master of Athens, he was advised to carry out his plan at the
greatest festival of Zeus. The former Olympic victor naturally
concluded that the oracle meant the Olympia, and not the Athenian
Diasia, and this mistake is said to have led to his failure and his
death. Another prominent Athenian victor was Phrynon, who in the
Olympiad after Cylon’s victory won the pankration, an event in which
the Athenians seem to have excelled. He was general in the
Athenian expedition to Sigeum, where he fell in single combat
against Pittacus of Mitylene, who, according to later tradition,
arraying himself as a fisherman, entangled Phrynon in his net and
then ran him through with his trident in true gladiatorial style. Early
in the sixth century we find Hippocrates, the father of Peisistratus,
present as one of the Athenian envoys to Olympia. It was on this
occasion, says Herodotus,[81] that he had a dream respecting the
birth of Peisistratus, which dream was explained to him by the
Spartan Ephor Chilon. Chilon, who was reckoned among the seven
wise men of Greece, is said to have died some years later at Olympia
from joy at the victory of his son Damagetus in boxing.[82] During the
sixth century we have no record of Athenian successes in athletic
contests, but many of the rival nobles won victories in the chariot-
race. Peisistratus himself was proclaimed victor under strange
circumstances. Cimon, the half-brother of Miltiades, the tyrant of the
Chersonnese, himself a victor, had been banished from Athens by
Peisistratus. This Cimon had a remarkable record. He won the
chariot-race with the same team of mares at three successive
Olympiads. At the second he agreed with Peisistratus that if he
proclaimed the tyrant winner, he should be recalled from exile.[83] In
spite of this he was put to death by the thankless sons of
Peisistratus shortly after his last victory. Curtius ascribes to
Peisistratus an inscription on the altar of the twelve gods at Athens
recording the distance from Athens to Olympia.[84]
The value of athletics and their political importance had been
realised by Solon. Besides making rules for the conduct of gymnasia
he offered a public reward of 500 drachmae to each Olympian victor,
100 to each Isthmian victor, and so on to the victors in other games.
This measure is sometimes misrepresented as an attempt on the
part of Solon to check the extravagant rewards lavished on athletes.
Such a view is utterly false. There is no evidence that athletes did
receive extravagant rewards in Solon’s time: and 500 drachmae,
though perhaps a trivial sum to the professional athletes of a later
and degenerate age, was then a considerable amount.[85] Rather we
may see in this measure an attempt to encourage athletics among
the people, and perhaps to counteract the growing love of chariot-
racing among the aristocracy.
It is tempting to ascribe to Solon’s influence and policy the founding
of the Panathenaea, or rather the remodelling of the old Athenaea,
under this name. This event is assigned to the year 566 B.C., about
the time when Athens, by the efforts of Solon and Peisistratus,
finally made herself mistress of Salamis, and thus, by securing the
control of the bay of Eleusis, was at last enabled to develop,
unchecked, her maritime and commercial policy. The founding of the
Panathenaea is attributed to Peisistratus, who certainly encouraged
athletics and developed the festival; but, if the date 566 B.C. is
correct, the festival was founded six years before he became tyrant,
and while he was still the trusted friend of Solon, and, owing to his
success in war, the hero of the people. The name Panathenaea
seems significant, both of that unity of the Athenian people, which
Solon tried with somewhat chequered success to promote, and also
of that dream of expansion which Athens, freed from the rivalry of
Megara, was now beginning to cherish. At the same time we can see
in the name why the Panathenaea could never become truly
Panhellenic. Olympia, Delphi, Nemea were fitted to become
Panhellenic by virtue of the political insignificance of the states that
controlled them; even the Isthmia, though held under the presidency
of Corinth, was by its name dissociated from that power, and Corinth
herself was in her own way a Panhellenic centre where politics were
as yet subordinate to commerce. In such places the national desire
for unity found a natural expression. But the Panathenaic festival
was in the first place the festival of the union of Attica in the worship
of Athene, and the only unity which it could offer to the rest of
Greece was unity beneath the Aegis of Athene. Thus, while at the
Panhellenic festivals all events were open to the whole of Greece, at
Athens, besides such open events, we find others confined to her
own citizens.
The Panathenaea were said to have been founded, or perhaps
refounded, by Theseus, who, according to legend, united into one
state the village communities of Attica. Certainly there existed an
ancient yearly festival in honour of Athene, though we cannot say if
it bore the name Panathenaea. This festival continued to be
celebrated every year after the founding of the greater festival, and
was called the Little Panathenaea.[86] The Great Panathenaea were a
pentaëteris, and were held in the third year of each Olympiad in the
month of Hekatombaion or about the end of July. The programme of
the festival was even more varied than that of the Isthmia. The
great event of the festival, the procession that bore the peplos to the
temple of Athene on the Acropolis, afforded an opportunity for the
display of all the forces of Athens. The competitions included,
besides athletics and horse-races, musical contests, recitations,
torch-races, Pyrrhic dances, a regatta, and even a competition for
good looks. For most of the events the prizes consisted in jars of
Attic oil. Olive-oil was the most valuable product of Attica: the olive
trees were under the control of the state, and the export of olive-oil
was a state monopoly. As many as 1300 amphorae of oil were
distributed as prizes, the winner in the chariot-race receiving as
many as 140 amphorae. As even at a later period an amphora of oil
was worth 12 drachmae, it is clear that the prizes had a considerable
commercial value. Some of the jars containing the oil were
ornamented with scenes representing the various competitions. It is
probable that only one such painted vase was given for each victory.
The manufacture and painting of vases was already an important
industry at Athens, and the prize vase full of oil represented,
therefore, the chief natural product and the chief industry of early
Attica. These prize vases must have been greatly cherished.
Numbers of them have been found in Italian tombs and elsewhere,
and the variety of the subjects depicted throws no little light on the
events of the festival. But details must be reserved for another
chapter.
The multiplication of athletic festivals and the valuable prizes offered
at them must have been a source of no small profit to the successful
athlete. The victor at the Panhellenic games, it is true, received no
other reward from the authorities than the wreath of leaves;[87] but
at the lesser festivals, where he would be a welcome and an
honoured guest, he was sure of a rich harvest of prizes. Moreover,
he received substantial rewards at the hands of his grateful fellow-
citizens. For in these games the individual was regarded as the
representative of his state: the herald who proclaimed his victory
proclaimed, too, the name of his state, and in his success the whole
state shared and rejoiced. Hence we can understand the righteous
indignation of the people of Croton in Ol. 75, when their famous
fellow-countryman, Astylus, who had already won the stade-race
and the diaulos in two successive Olympiads, on the third occasion
entered himself as a Syracusan in order to ingratiate himself with the
tyrant Hieron. Such an act was felt to be almost a sacrilege, and the
Crotoniats in their wrath destroyed the statue of Astylus, which they
had erected in the precinct of Lacinian Hera, and converted his
house, perhaps the house which they had given him, into a common
prison.[88]
The representative character of the Panhellenic athlete and the
connexion of the games with the national religion explain the
honours paid to him by his fellow-citizens.[89] His homecoming was
an occasion of public rejoicing. The whole city turned out to
welcome him and escort him in triumph to his home and to the chief
temples of the city, where he offered thanksgiving and paid his vows
to the gods and heroes to whom he owed his victory. Songs were
composed expressly for the occasion by the greatest poets of the
age, and sung by choirs of youths and maidens before the temples
or before his house. His exploits were recorded on pillars of stone,
and his statue was set up in some public place, or even in the
sanctuary of the gods, to serve as an incentive to posterity. He
received, too, more substantial rewards. We have seen how Solon
granted considerable sums of money to the victors in the great
games, and we may be sure that the example of Athens was
followed by other states. At Athens and elsewhere the victor had the
privilege of a front seat at all public festivals, and sometimes, too,
the right of free meals in the Prytaneum. At a later time he was
exempted from taxation. At Sparta, which seems to have stood
somewhat aloof from the athletic movement, he was rewarded
characteristically with the right of fighting in battle next to the king
and defending his person. In the rich cities of the West the adulation
of the victor, at a somewhat later date, took the most extravagant
forms. Exaenetus of Agrigentum, who won the foot-race at Olympia
in Ol. 92, was drawn into the city in a four-horse chariot, attended
by three hundred of the chief citizens, each riding in a chariot drawn
by a pair of white horses. Sometimes, it seems, a breach in the city
walls was made for the victor’s entry. It is in Italy that we first hear
of the worship of the athlete as a hero. Philippus of Croton, an
Olympic victor, renowned as the handsomest man in Greece, was
worshipped as a hero after his death.[90] Euthymus of Locri
Epizephyrii, who won three Olympic victories in boxing in Ols. 74,
76, 77, was even said to have been so worshipped during his
lifetime. It was perhaps a righteous retribution for such impiety that
his statues at Locri and Olympia were, according to the story, struck
by lightning on the same day.[91] Theagenes of Thasos and
Polydamas of Scotussa were also worshipped as heroes, and the
statue of Theagenes was credited with the power of healing fevers.
[92]
But these extravagances, if true, belong to a later period, and
must have been repugnant to the religious feeling and sound sense
of the Peloponnese before the Persian wars.
Of all these honours the most significant are the hymn of victory and
the statue. It was not merely that the greatest artists and poets
were employed to immortalise the victor, and that they demanded a
high price for their services. The statue and the hymn were honours
confined originally to gods and heroes, and, bestowed on mortal
athletes, did literally lift these “lords of earth to the gods.” “Not even
the mighty Polydeuces nor the iron son of Alcmene could hold up
their hands against him.” So wrote Simonides of Ceos, the earliest
writer of epinikia, of the famous boxer Glaucus of Carystus,
language which, as the late Sir Richard Jebb remarks, would have
sounded very like an impiety to Alcman. The words are significant of
the changed attitude towards athletics, and the hero-worship
founded by the artist and the poet was perhaps largely responsible
for the extravagances of a later age. But the influence of athletics on
art and literature, and that of art and literature on athletics, are
subjects that belong chiefly to the fifth century, and will be dealt
with in the next chapter.
The growing popularity of athletics and the excessive honours
showered upon physical excellence could hardly escape criticism. In
that age of intense intellectual activity there must have been many
far-sighted observers who resented the predominance of athletics,
though perhaps they feared to express their feelings. One at least
there was who knew no such fear, and fortunately his protest has
survived. The bold and original thinker, Xenophanes of Colophon,
was exactly contemporary with the movement which we have been
describing. Born at Colophon about the year 576 B.C. he was forced
to leave his native place at the age of twenty-five, and for sixty-five
years travelled about the cities of Greece and Sicily, finally settling at
Elea in Italy, where he became the founder of the Eleatic school of
philosophy, and died in the year 480 B.C. A fearless critic of the
current ideas about the gods, denying that the godhead could be
like unto man, he may well have been scandalized at the
representation of gods and heroes as athletes, and at the offering of
divine honours to victors in the games; and his wide experience of
men and cities showed him clearly the danger of the growing
worship of athletics. After enumerating the honours shown to the
athlete he continues: “Yet is he not so worthy as I, and my wisdom
is better than the strength of men and horses. Nay, this is a foolish
custom, nor is it right to honour strength more than excellent
wisdom. Not though there were among the people a man good at
boxing, or in the pentathlon, or in wrestling, nay, nor one with
swiftness of foot which is most honoured in all contests of human
strength—not for his presence would the city be better governed.
And small joy would there be for a city should one in contests win a
victory by the banks of Pisa. These things do not make fat the dark
corners of the city.”
Less than a century later the words of Xenophanes are echoed by
Euripides, but the object of the protest is no longer the same. The
class of professional athletes whom Euripides denounces did not
exist in the days of the older poet. It is against the excessive
importance attached to athletics, the false and one-sided ideal, that
Xenophanes protests. In his wanderings through the cities of Greece
he has learnt by bitter experience the evils that exist, evils of
tyranny and party strife, extremes of luxury and poverty, and he
feels that the energies of his countrymen are being misdirected. It is
not a little curious that foreign writers, deceived by the glamour of
Olympia, are wont to treat the protest of Xenophanes as the
captious utterance of a soured and peevish cynic. Yet the fragments
of his writings which exist show him to have been a man of wide
experience and sympathies; and in England, where we have
witnessed a similar wave of athleticism, his wisdom is generally
recognized. Let us pause to consider what was the state of athletics
in the time of Xenophanes.
The popularity of athletics, the growth of competition, and the
rewards lavished on successful athletes completely changed the
character of athletics in the sixth century. The actual events
remained the same, but a change came over the attitude of
performers and spectators. It was a change which will be readily
understood by any one familiar with the history of our own sports
and games during the last century, the change from spontaneous to
organized sport. The change brought with it both good and evil; the
standard of performance was greatly improved, but athletics ceased
to be pure recreation, and something of the old Homeric joy was
lost; and though the spirit of sport survived for a century more, even
in the sixth century we can trace signs of the evils which over-
competition inevitably brings in its train.
In every Greek state all boys, whatever their station, received a
thorough physical training. Sometimes, as in Sparta, this training
was extended to girls. This training consisted partly in the traditional
exercises of the public games, partly in dances which corresponded
to our musical drill in which the performers went through the various
movements of the palaestra or of actual war to the accompaniment
of music. Thus every boy was trained to take his part in athletic
competitions. Local festivals provided the promising athlete with an
opportunity of testing his strength and skill from early boyhood. At
Olympia there had been only two classes of competition, for boys
and for men. In the festivals of the sixth century we find a third
class added for those betwixt the age of boy and man, the beardless
(ἀγένειοι). In local festivals of a later date we find three or even four
classes for boys only, sometimes confined to local competitors; and
perhaps, if we had details of the local festivals of the sixth century,
we should find the same. These boys’ events were clearly intended
to foster local talent. The youth who won success in his home
festival would try his luck in the neighbouring competitions, and if
still successful would go farther afield and perhaps enter for the
Panhellenic games. Hence the competitors, especially at the
Olympia, represented the picked athletes of all the states. The prizes
offered at the various festivals enabled many to compete, who in a
previous age could not have afforded the necessary time or money;
and we may be sure that the emulation of the various states would
not have allowed any citizen to lose his chance of the crown for lack
of funds. The popular character of athletics is illustrated by a
fragment of an epigram ascribed to Simonides on an Olympic victor
“who once carried fish from Argos to Tegea.”[93] At the same time the
noble families which had for generations been famed in athletics
exerted themselves to their utmost to maintain their hereditary
prestige. All classes caught the athletic mania. It was at the close of
the century that Alexander, the son of Amyntas, king of Macedon,
competed in the foot-race at Olympia.
Competition naturally raised the standard of athletics. Natural ability
and ordinary exercise were no longer sufficient to secure success
without long and careful training. Hence there arose a class of
professional trainers. These men, who were often old athletes,
acquired considerable repute, and doubtless were handsomely
rewarded by the rich individuals or states that employed them. In
their hands athletics became scientific; instead of being regarded as
a recreation and a training for war they became an end in
themselves. One state alone, Sparta, held aloof from the new
athletics and competitions. At Sparta the one object was to produce
a race of hardy soldiers, and the new science, which aimed at
producing athletes, could find no place there. No Spartan was
allowed to employ a trainer in wrestling. Boxing was said to have
been introduced by the Spartans, but though they recognized the
value of boxing as a sport, they realized the dangers of it as a
competition, and forbade their citizens to take part in competitions
for boxing or the pankration, on the ground that it was disgraceful
for a Spartan to acknowledge defeat. Hence the disappearance of
Sparta from the list of the Olympic victors which has already been
noticed. Sparta in athletics fell behind the rest of Greece, and
Philostratus, comparing them with the more scientific athletics,
describes them as somewhat boorish.[94] Yet perhaps the Spartans
and Xenophanes were right.
The new training required no little expenditure of time and money.
The would-be victor at Olympia must have lived in a constant state
of training and competition, which left time for little else. Theagenes
of Thasos, who lived at the time of the Persian wars, is said to have
won no less than fourteen hundred crowns.[95] To such men athletics
were no longer a recreation, but an absorbing occupation. The
professional amateur is but a short step removed from the true
professional. For a time wealth and leisure gave a great advantage
to the wealthy individual, and the wealthy city. In the sixth century
the most successful states are the rich cities of Sicily and Italy. The
sons of noble families still figure prominently in the epinikia of Pindar
and Bacchylides. But the increase of rich prizes was soon to put the
poor man on a level with the rich. Before the close of the fifth
century we shall find athletics left to the professional, while princes
and nobles compete only in the chariot-races and horse-races. For
this result states like Sybaris and Croton were hugely responsible.
They thought to encourage athletics by offering large money prizes;
in reality they killed the spirit of sport. Sybaris indeed—or, according
to another account, Croton—endeavoured to outshine Olympia by
holding a festival of her own at the same time as the Olympia, and
attracting away the pick of the athletes by the magnificence of the
prizes.[96] When such an attempt was possible, professionalism was
near at hand.
These evils, however, did not yet exist in the sixth century, though
implied already in that excessive love of athletics which aroused the
indignation of Xenophanes. The nation had become a nation of
athletes, and not the least important characteristic which
distinguished the Greek from the barbarian was henceforth his
athletic training. The result was a standard of athletic excellence
never again perhaps equalled. Most of the athletes whose names
were household words for centuries, belong to the sixth and the first
half of the fifth centuries. Such were Milo of Croton, Glaucus of
Carystus, Theagenes of Thasos. Though we occasionally find
distinguished runners, such as Phanas of Pellene, who, by winning
three races at Olympia in one day, won the title of triple victor
(τριαστής), or a little later Astylus of Croton, of whom we have
heard already, the typical athlete of the sixth century was the strong
man—the boxer, the wrestler, or the pankratiast. The object of the
old gymnastic was to produce strength only, says Philostratus,[97]
contrasting the ancient athletes with their degenerate successors,
and the success of the old training was shown in the fact that these
old athletes maintained their strength for eight or even nine
Olympiads. There was nothing artificial or unnatural about their
training: the careful dieting, the elaborate massage, the rules for
exercise and sleep introduced by later trainers were unknown. The
trainers of those days confined themselves to actual athletics, to the
art of boxing or wrestling especially, and the athletes owed their
strength to a healthy, vigorous, out-of-door life.
This fact is illustrated by the legends that sprang up about the
famous athletes of this age, which, amid much invention and
exaggeration, probably contain some substratum of truth. The father
of Glaucus discovered his son’s strength from seeing him one day
hammer a ploughshare into the plough with his naked fist.
Theagenes first displayed his strength at the age of nine in a
youthful escapade. Taking a fancy to a certain bronze statue in the
market-place, he one day shouldered it and carried it off. The
exploits of Samson with wild beasts find many parallels in the stories
of Greek athletes; but the most characteristic exercise of the sixth
century was weight-lifting. Milo practised weight-lifting on most
scientific principles with a young bull calf, which he lifted and carried
every day till it was fully grown. A still more famous weight-lifter was
Titormus, a gigantic shepherd who lived in Aetolia, and did not, as
far as we know, compete in any competitions. Challenged by Milo to
show his strength, he took him down to the river Euenus, threw off
his mantle, and seized a huge boulder which Milo could hardly move.
He first raised it to his knees, then on to his shoulders, and after
carrying it sixteen yards, threw it.[98] He next showed his strength
and courage by seizing and holding fast by the heels two wild bulls.
These stories of weight-lifting have been strangely confirmed by
discoveries in Greece. At Olympia a block of red sandstone was
found, bearing a sixth-century inscription to the effect that one
Bybon with one hand threw it over his head.[99] The stone weighs
143-1/2 kilos (315 lbs.), and measures 68 × 33 × 38 cms. A one-
handed lift of such an object is clearly impossible, and I can only
suggest that Bybon lifted the weight with both hands in the manner
described above, then balanced it on one hand and threw it. At
Santorin another such block has been found, a mass of black
volcanic rock, weighing 480 kilos. The inscription on it, which
belongs to the close of the sixth century, runs as follows: “Eumastas
the son of Critobulus lifted me from the ground.” To lift such a
weight from the ground, though possible, is quite a good
performance.
Swimming, too, was a favourite exercise, and Philostratus tells us
that Tisander, a boxer of Naxos, who lived, on a promontory of the
island, kept himself in training by swimming out to sea. These old
athletes, says the same author, hardened themselves by bathing in
the rivers, and sleeping in the open air on skins or heaps of fodder.
Living such a life they had healthy appetites, and were not particular
about their food, living on porridge and unleavened bread, and such
meat as they could get. The strong man is naturally a large eater,
and all sorts of tales were current as to the voracity of these
athletes. Milo, according to an epigram, after carrying a four-year-old
heifer around the Altis, ate it all on the same day; and a similar feat
is ascribed to Titormus and Theagenes.[100] These tales are clearly
the invention of a later age, when the strong man trained on vast
quantities of meat; and as Milo excelled all men in strength, it
followed that he must also have excelled them in voracity. But
whatever the truth of these stories, it is certain that the athletes of
those times were healthy and free from disease, preserved their
strength, and lived long. If athletic training did occupy an undue
share of their time, it did not unfit them for the duties of ordinary life
and military service. Many of them won distinction as soldiers and
generals, while the effects of athletic training on the nation were
shown in the Persian wars.
When we turn to the records of art we still find strength the
predominant characteristic of the period. We see this in those early
nude statues, so widely distributed throughout Greece and the
islands, which are generally classed under the name of Apollo. In all
we see the same attempt to render the muscles of the body,
whether we regard the tall spare type of the Apollo of Tenea, or the
shorter heavier type of the Argive statues. It is in the muscles of the
trunk rather than of the limbs that real strength lies, and it is the
careful marking of these muscles that distinguishes early Greek
sculpture from all other early art, and the sculpture of the
Peloponnese in particular from the softer school of Ionia. Perhaps
the most characteristic figure of the sixth century is that of the
bearded Heracles, not the clumsy giant of later days, but the
personification of endurance and trained strength, a man, as Pindar
says, short of stature, but of unbending soul. So we see him on
many a black-figured vase of the sixth century, and the type survives
in the pediments of Aegina or the Metopes of Olympia in the next
century. Matched against giants and monsters he represents the
triumph of training and endurance over mere brute force. If we
compare the figures of athletes on these vases with those on the
red-figured vases of the next century, we find the same result; the
ideal of the fifth century is the grace of athletic youth, that of the
sixth is the strength of fully developed manhood; the hero of the
former is Theseus, of the latter Heracles. Finally, if we would realise
the true greatness of sixth-century athletics, let us remember that it
was this century which rendered possible and inspired the athletic
ideal of Pindar in the next.
“For if a man rejoice to suffer cost and toil, and achieve god-builded
excellence, and therewithal fate plant for him fair renown, already at
the farthest bonds of bliss hath such an one cast anchor.”
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