Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/73

Rh the four great national festivals—at Olympia in Elis, at Nemea in Argolis, on the Isthmus of Corinth, and the Pythian near Delphi. Though they probably existed long before, they began about this time to be important. By enforcing the rule that only men of Hellenic birth might compete in the contests, they too did something for the unity of Hellas. Men from all states met at them, and during the Olympic festival at any rate a kind of Truce of God was observed in the quarrels and petty wars so frequently raging between the states. The fact of the rewards being merely wreaths of olive or other trees, of no intrinsic value, was at least on the side of a disinterested quest of honour; while the general belief in the impartiality of the judges was not without its use in a country where the venality of officials was notorious. The pride which the states took in the success of their citizens, and the general admiration felt for the winners, tended to encourage a friendly rivalry in which all were at one.

On the other hand, the exaltation of physical prowess above intellectual and moral qualities was early remarked upon as mischievous in Greece as it has been among ourselves. Xenophanes of Colophon (fl. circ. B.C., 510) complains that higher honours were paid to victories at Olympia than to wisdom, which was so much more valuable than bodily strength or fleetness of foot. During the next century Euripides wrote with greater vehemence or petulance, declaring that the trained athlete was unfitted for all the duties of citizenship, civil and military alike, and that the honour paid to him was one of the worst abuses