Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/74

 fi6 HISTORY OF GREECE. in the measured course called the Stadium : a continuous series of the victorious runners was formally inscribed and preserved by the Eleians, beginning with Korabus in 776 B.C., and was made to serve by chronological inquirers from the third century B.C. downwards, as a means of measuring the chron- ol )gical sequence of Grecian events. It was on the occasion of the 7th Olympiad after Koroebus, that Daikles the Messenian first received for his victory in the stadium no farther recompense than a wreath from the sacred olive-tree near Olympia :' the honor of being proclaimed victor was found sufficient, without any pecuniary addition. But until the 14th Olympiad, there was no other match for the spectators to witness beside that of simple runners in the stadium. On that occasion a second race was first introduced, of runners in the double stadium, or up and down the course; in the next, or loth Olympiad (720 B.C.), a third match, the long course for runners, or several times up and down the stadium. There were thus three races, the simple stadium, the double stadium, or diaulos, and the long course, ordolichos, all for runners, which continued without addition until the 18th Olympiad, when the wrestling-match and the complicated pen- tathlon including jumping, running, the quoit, the javelin, and wrestling were both added. A farther novelty appears in the 23d Olympiad (688 B.C.), the boxing-match ; and another, still more important, in the 2oth (680 B.C.), the chariot with four full- grown horses. This last-mentioned addition is deserving of special notice, not merely as it diversified the scene by the introduction of horses, but also as it brought in a totally new class of compet- itors, rich men and women, who possessed the finest horses and could hire the most skilful drivers, without any personal superi- ority, or power of bodily display, in themselves. 2 The prodigious 1 Dionys. Halikarn. Ant. Rom. i, 71 ; Phlcgon, De Olympiad, p. 140. For an illustration of the stress laid by the Greeks on the purely honorary rewards of Olympia, and on the credit which they took to themselves as competitors, not for money, but for glory, see Herodot. viii, 26. Compare the Scholia on Pindar, Nnn. and Isthm. Argument, pp. 425-514, ctl. Bocckh. the chariot-race, as described by Xcnophon (Agesilaus, ix, 6) ; the general fcelirjf of Greece, however, is more in conformity with what Thncydid^t
 * Sec the sentiment of Agesilaus, somewhat contemptuous, respecting