Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/74

Rh G4 anointed themselves. - herald proclaimed—“ Let the runners p11t their feet to the line,” and called on the spectators to challenge any disqualified by blood or charactcr. If no objection vas made, they were started by the note of the trumpet, running in heats of four, ranged in the places assigned them by lot. The presidents seated near the goal adjudged the victory. The footrace was only one of twenty-four Olympian contests which I’-ausanias enumerates, though we must not suppose that these were all exhibited at any one festival. Till the 77th Olympiad all was concluded in one day, but afterwards the feast was extended to five. The order of the games is for the most part a. matter of conjecture, but, roughly speaking, the historical order of their institution was followed. We will now describe in this order the most important. (1.) The foot-race. For the ﬁrst 13 Olympiads the Spépos, or single lap of the stadium, which was 200 yards long, was the only co11test. The 3L'a.v}o9. in which the course was traversed twice, was added in the 14th Olympiad, and in the 15th the Séluxoc, or long race, of 7, 1:2, or, according to the highest computation, 24 laps, over 3 miles in length. We are told that the Spartan Ladas, after winning this race, dropped dovn dead at the goal. There was also, for a short time, a race in heavy armour, which Plato highly commends as a preparation for active service. (2.) ll'restlin_q was introduced in the lb'th Olympiad. The importance attached to this exercise is shown by the very word palcestra, a.nd Plutarch calls it the most artistic and cunning of athletic games. The practice differed little from that of modern times, save that the wrestler’s limbs were anointed with oil and sprinkled with sand. The third throw, which decided the victory, passed into a proverb, and struggling on the ground, such as we see in the famous statue at Florence, was not allowed, at least at the Olympia. (3.) In the same year was introduced the -rre'vra6lAov, a com- bination of the ﬁve games enumerated in the well-known pentameter ascribed to Sinionides :—- c'i,ya, 1ro8wKef-nu, Bfcrkov, lixoura, 1ra'.)-nu. Only the first of these calls for any comment. The only leap practised seems to have been the long jump. The leapers increased their momentum by means of ¢i.}'r7]p£9 or dumb-bells, whichjthey swung in the act of leaping. By the help of them, and of the spring-board, enormous dis- tances were covered, though the leap of 55 feet with which Phayllus is credited is simply incredible. It is disputed whether a victory in all ﬁve contests, or in three at least, was required to win the 7.-e'vra6l)ov. Boxing was added in the 23d Olympiad. The rules were much the same as those of the modern ring, except that the boxer’s fists and wrists were armed with straps of leather. The force of the blow was thereby increased ; but no arm so terrible as the cestus of the Romans can ever have been admitted in Greek contests, seeing that the death of an antagonist not only disqualified a combatant, but was severely punished. In the pcmcralimn, a combination of wrestling and boxing, the use of these straps, and even of the clenched ﬁst, was disallowed. (5.) The chariot-race had its origin in the 23-1 Olympiad. It was held in the hippodrome, a race-course 1200 feet long by 400 broad, laid out on the left side of the hill of Kronos. The whole circuit had to be traversed twelve times. In the centre near the further end was the pillar or goal (the spina of the Romans), round which the chariots had to turn. “ To slmn the goal with rapid wheels” has been well selected by Milton as the most graphic feature of the Olympian games. So dangerous indeed was the manoeuvre that, according to Pausanias, a mysterious horror attached to the spot, and horses -- hen they passed it would start in terror without visible cause, upsetting the chariot and wounding the driver. G A M E S The number of chariots that might appear on the course at once is uncertain. l‘indar (I ’_z/I/1., v. 46) praises Arcesilaus of C‘yrene for having brought off his chariot uninjured in a contest where no fewer than forty took part. The large outlay involved excluded all but rich competitors, and even kings and tyrants eagerly contested the palm. Thus in the list of victors we find the names of Cylon, the would-be tyrant of Athens, Pausanias the Spartan king, Archclaus of Macedon, (lelon and lliero of Syracuse, and Theron of Agrigentum. Chariotrraces with mules, with mares, with two horses in place of four, were successively introduced, b11t none of these present any special interest. liaces on horseback date from the 33d Olympiad. As the course was the same, success nmst have depended on skill as nmch as on swiftness. Lastly, there were athletic con- tests of the same description for boys, and a competition of heralds and trumpeters, introduced in the 93d Olympiad. The prizes were at ﬁrst, as in the Homeric times, of some intrinsic value, b11t after the 6th Olympiad the only prize for each contest was a garland of wild olive, which was cut with a golden sickle from the kallistephanos, the sacred tree brought by Hercules “from the dark fountains of Ister in the land of the Hyperboreans, to be a shelter common to all men and a crown of noble deeds” (Pindar, 0]., iii. 18). Greek writers from Herodotus to Plutarch dwell with com~ placency on the magnanimity of a race who cared for no- thing but honour and were content to struggle for a corrup- tible crown. But though the Greek games present in this respect a favourable contrast to the greed and gambling of the modern race-course, yet to represent men like Milan and Damoxenus as actuated by pure love of glory is a pleasing fiction of the moralists. The successful athlete received in addition to the immediate honours very substantial rewards. A herald proclaimed his name, his parentage, and his country; the Hellanodicze took from a table of ivory and gold the olive crown and placed it on his head, and in his hand a branch of palm; as he marched in the sacred revel to the temple of Zeus, his friends and admirers showered in his path ﬂowers and costly gifts, singing the old song of .-rchilochus, —r1jve))a Ka})L'vu<£, and his name was canonized in the Greek calendar. Fresh honours and rewards awaited him on his return home. If he was an Athenian he received, according to the law of Solon, 500 drachmae, and free rations for life in the Prytancum ; if a Spartan, he had as his prerogative the post of honour in battle. Poets like Pindar, Simonides, and Euripides sung his praises, and sculptors like Phidias and Praxiteles were engaged by the state to carve his statue. We even read of a breach in the town walls being made to admit him, as if the common road were not good enough for such a hero; and there are well- attested instances of altars being built and sacrifices offered to a successful athlete. No wonder then that an Olympian prize was regarded as the crown of human happiness. Cicero, with a 1loman’s contempt for Greek frivolity, observes with a sueer that an Olympian victor receives more honours than a triumphant general at Rome, and tells the story of the llhodian Diagoras, who, having himself won the prize at Olympia, and seen his two sons crowned on the same day, was addressed by a Laconian in these words :— “ Die, Diagoras, for thou hast nothing short of divinity to desire.” Alcibiades, when setting forth his services to the state, puts first his victory at Olympia, and the prestige he had won for .Athens by his magniﬁcent display. lut perhaps the most remarkable evidence of the exaggerated value which the Greeks attached to athletic prowess is a casual expression which T hucydides employs when descril» ing the enthusiastic reception of Brasidas at Scione. The Government, he says, voted him a crown of gold, and the multitude flocked round him and decked him with garlands, as t/mug/z [[6 were an athlete.