Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/258

 242 HISTORY OF GREECE. inasmuch as they supplied historical computers with the oldest backward record of continuous time. It was in the year 776 i<. c., that the Eleians inscribed the name of their countryman, Korcebus, as victor in the competition of runners, and that they began the practice of inscribing in like manner, in each Olympic, or fifth recurring year, the name of the runner who won the prize. Even for a long time after this, however, the Olympic games seem to have remained a local festival ; the prize being uniformly carried off, at the first twelve Olympiads, by some competitor either of Elis or its immediate neighborhood. The Nemean and Isthmian games did not become notorious or fre- quented until later even than the Pythian. Solon, 1 in his legis- lation, proclaimed the large reward of five hundred drachms for every Athenian who gained an Olympic prize, and the lower sum of one hundred drachms for an Isthmiac prize. He counts the former, as Pan-Hellenic rank and renown, an ornament even to the city of which the victor was a member, the latter, as par- tial, and confined to the neighborhood. Of the beginnings of these great solemnities, we cannot prc sume to speak, except in mythical language : we know them only 1 Plutarch, Solon, 23. The Isthmian Agon was to a certain extent a festival of old Athenian origin: for among the many legends respecting its first institution, one of the most notorious represented it as having been founded by Theseus after his victory over Sinis at the Isthmus (see Srhol. a<l Pindar. Isth. Argument.; Pausan. ii. 1, 4), or over Skciron (Plutarch, Theseus, c. 25). Plutarch says that they were first established by Theseus as funeral games for Skeiron, and Pliny gives the same story (H. N. vii 57), According to Hellanikus, the Athenian Theors at the Isthmian games had a privileged place, (Plutarch, /. c.). There is, therefore, good reason why Solon should single out the I?th mionika: as persons to be specially rewarded, not mentioning the Pytfe'.on ikae and Nemeonikae, the Nemean and Pythian games not having the* acquired Hellenic importance. Diogenes Laert. (i. 55) says that Solon provided rewards, not only for victories at the Olympic and Isthmian, but also uvaXoyov enl TUV U/U.GW, which Krause (Pythien, Nemeen und Isthmien, sect. 3, p. 13) supposes to be the truth: I think, very improbably. The sharp invective of Timokreon against Themistocles, charging him among other things with providing nothing but cold meat at the Isthmian game* ('Iai?//ot 6' ktravioKEve -yeTioiuf iffv^pa Kpea trapex^v, Plutarch. Themistoc c- 21 ), seems to imply that the Athenian visitors, whom the Thc6rs were pon to take care of at those games, were n jmerous.