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Rh enthusiastic reception of Brasidas at Scione. The state, he says, voted him a crown of gold, and the multitude flocked round him and decked him with garlands, as though he were an athlete.

The Pythian games originated in a local festival held at Delphi, anciently called Pytho, in honour of the Pythian Apollo, and were limited to musical competitions. The date at which they became a Panhellenic  (so Demosthenes calls them) cannot be determined, but the Pythiads as a chronological era date from 527, by which time music had been added to all the Panhellenic contests. Now, too, these were held at the end of every fourth year; previously there had been an interval of eight years. The Amphictyones presided and the prize was a chaplet of laurel.

The Nemean games were biennial and date from 516 They were by origin an Argive festival in honour of Nemean Zeus, but in historical times were open to all Greece and provided the established round of contests, except that no mention is made of a chariot-race. A wreath of wild celery was the prize.

The Isthmian games, held on the Isthmus of Corinth in the first and third year of each Olympiad, date, according to Eusebius, from 523 They are variously reported to have been founded by Poseidon or Sisyphus in honour of Melicertes, or by Theseus to celebrate his victory over the robbers Sinis and Sciron. Their early importance is attested by the law of Solon which bestowed a reward of 100 drachmae on every Athenian who gained a victory. The festival was managed by the Corinthians; and after the city was destroyed by Mummius (146 ) the presidency passed to the Sicyonians until Julius Caesar rebuilt Corinth (46 ). They probably continued to exist till Christianity became the religion of the Roman empire. The Athenians were closely connected with the festival, and had the privilege of proedria, the foremost seat at the games, while the Eleans were absolutely excluded from participation. The games included gymnastic, equestrian and musical contests, differing little from those of the other great festivals, and the prize was a crown made at one time of parsley (more probably wild celery), at a later period of pine. The importance of the Isthmian games in later times is shown by the fact that Flamininus chose the occasion for proclaiming the liberation of Greece, 196 That at a later anniversary ( 67) Nero repeated the proclamation of Flamininus, and coupled with it the announcement of his own infamous victory at Olympia, shows alike the hollowness of the first gift and the degradation which had befallen the Greek games, the last faint relic of Greek nationality.

The Ludi Publici of the Romans included feasts and theatrical exhibitions as well as the public games with which alone we are concerned. As in Greece, they were intimately connected with religion. At the

beginning of each civil year it was the duty of the consuls to vow to the gods games for the safety of the commonwealth, and the expenses were defrayed by the treasury. Thus, at no cost to themselves, the Roman public were enabled to indulge at the same time their religious feelings and their love of amusement. Their taste for games naturally grew till it became a passion, and under the empire games were looked upon by the mob as one of the two necessaries of life. The aediles who succeeded to this duty of the consuls were expected to supplement the state allowance from their private purse. Political adventurers were not slow to discover so ready a road to popularity, and what at first had been exclusively a state charge devolved upon men of wealth and ambition. A victory over some barbarian horde or the death of a relation served as the pretext for a magnificent display. But the worst extravagance of private citizens was eclipsed by the reckless prodigality of the Caesars, who squandered the revenues of whole provinces in catering for the mob of idle sightseers on whose favour their throne depended. But though public games played as important a part in Roman as in Greek history, and must be studied by the Roman historian as an integral factor in social and political life, yet, regarded solely as exhibitions, they are comparatively devoid of interest, and we sympathize with Pliny, who asks his friend how any man of sense can go day after day to view the same dreary round of fights and races.

It is easy to explain the different feelings which the games of Greece and of Rome excite. The Greeks at their best were actors, the Romans from first to last were spectators. It is true that even in Greek games the professional element played a large and ever-increasing part. As early as the 6th century Xenophanes complains that the wrestler’s strength is preferred to the wisdom of the philosopher, and Euripides, in a well-known fragment, holds up to scorn the brawny swaggering athlete. But what in Greece was a perversion and acknowledged to be such, the Romans not only practised but held up as their ideal. No Greek, however high in birth, was ashamed to compete in person for the Olympic crown. The Roman, though little inferior in gymnastic exercises, kept strictly to the privacy of the palaestra; and for a patrician to appear in public as a charioteer is stigmatized by the satirist as a mark of shameless effrontery.

Roman games are generally classified as fixed, extraordinary and votive; but they may be more conveniently grouped according to the place where they were held, viz. the circus or the amphitheatre.

For the Roman world the circus was at once a political club, a fashionable lounge, a rendezvous of gallantry, a betting ring, and a playground for the million. Juvenal, speaking loosely, says that in his day it held the whole of Rome; but there is no reason to doubt the precise statement of P. Victor, that in the Circus Maximus there were seats for 350,000 spectators.

Of the various Ludi Circenses it may be enough here to give a short account of the most important, the Ludi Magni or Maximi.

Initiated according to legend by Tarquinius Priscus, the Ludi Magni were originally a votive feast to Capitoline Jupiter, promised by the general when he took the field, and performed on his return from the annual campaign. They thus presented the appearance of a military spectacle, or rather a review of the whole burgess force, which marched in solemn procession from the capitol to the forum and thence to the circus, which lay between the Palatine and Aventine. First came the sons of patricians mounted on horseback, next the rest of the burghers ranged according to their military classes, after them the athletes, naked save for the girdle round their loins, then the company of dancers with the harp and flute players, next the priestly colleges bearing censers and other sacred instruments, and lastly the simulacra of the gods, carried aloft on their shoulders or drawn in cars. The games themselves were fourfold:—(1) the chariot race; (2) the ludus Troiae; (3) the military review; and (4) gymnastic contests. Of these only the first two call for any comment. (1) The chariot employed in the circus was the two-wheeled war car, at first drawn by two, afterwards by four, and more rarely by three horses. Originally only two chariots started for the prize, but under Caligula we read of as many as twenty-four heats run in the day, each of four chariots. The distance traversed was fourteen times the length of the circus or nearly 5 m. The charioteers were apparently from the first professionals, though the stigma under which the gladiator lay never attached to their calling. Indeed a successful driver may compare in popularity and fortune with a modern jockey. The drivers were divided into companies distinguished by the colours of their tunics, whence arose the faction of the circus which assumed such importance under the later emperors. In republican times there were two factions, the white and the red; two more, the green and the blue, were added under the empire, and for a short time in Domitian’s reign there were also the gold and the purple. Even in Juvenal’s day party spirit ran so high that a defeat of the green was looked upon as a second Cannae. After the seat of empire had been transferred to Constantinople these factions of the circus were made the basis of political cabals, and frequently resulted in sanguinary tumults, such as the famous Nika revolt ( 532), in which 30,000 citizens lost their lives. (2) The Ludus Troiae was a sham-fight on horseback in which the actors were patrician youths. A spirited description of it will be found in the 5th Aeneid. (See also .)

The two exhibitions we shall next notice, though occasionally given in the circus, belong more properly to the amphitheatre. Venatio was the baiting of wild animals who were pitted either with one another or with men—captives, criminals or trained hunters called bestiarii. The first certain instance on record of this amusement is in 186, when M. Fulvius exhibited lions and tigers in the arena. The taste for these brutalizing spectacles grew apace, and the most distant provinces were ransacked by generals and proconsuls to supply the arena with rare animals—giraffes, tigers and crocodiles. Sulla provided for a single show 100 lions, and Pompey 600 lions, besides elephants, which were matched with Gaetulian hunters. Julius Caesar enjoys the doubtful honour of inventing the bull-fight. At the inauguration of the Colosseum 5000 wild and 4000 tame beasts were killed, and to commemorate