Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/84

 66 HISTORY OF GREECE. that Solon conferred a premium upon every Athenian citizen who gained a prize at that festival as well as at the Olympian, in or after 594 B.C. It was celebrated by the Corinthians at their isthmus, in honor of Poseidon ; and if we may draw any in- ference from the legends respecting its foundation, which is ascribed sometimes to Theseus, the Athenians appear to have identified it with the antiquities of their own state. 1 1 K. ~F. Hermann, in his Lehrbuch der Griechischen Staatsalterthiimer (ch. 32, not. 7, and ch. 65, not. 3), and again in K : s more recent work (Lehrbuch der gottesdienstlichen Alterthiimer der (mechen, part iii, ch. 49, also not. 6), both highly valuable publications, maintains, 1. That the exaltation of the Isthmian and Nemean games into Pan-Hellenic impor- tance arose directly after and out of the fall of the despots of Corinth and Sikyon. 2. That it was brought about by the paramount influence of the Dorians, especially by Sparta. 3. That the Spartans put down the despots of both these two cities. The last of these three propositions appears to me untrue in respect to Sikyon, improbable in respect to Corinth : my reasons for thinking so have been given in a former chapter. And if this be so, the reason for pre- suming Spartan intervention as to the Isthmian and Nemean games falls to the ground ; for there is no other proof of it, nor does Sparta appear to have interested herself in any of the four national festivals except the Olympic, with which she was from an early period peculiarly connected. Nor can I think that the first of Hermann's three propositions is at all tenable. No connection whatever can be shown between Sikyon and the Nemean games ; and it is the more improbable in this case that the Sikyo- nians should have been active, inasmuch as they had under Klcisthenes a little before contributed to nationalize the Pythian games : a second inter- ference for a similar purpose ought not to be presumed without some evi- dence. To prove his point about the Isthmia, Hermann cites only a passage of Solinus (vii, 14), "Hoc spectaculum, per Cypselum tyrannam intermissum, Corinthii Olymp. 49 solemnitati pristine reddiderunt." To render this passage at all credible, we must read Cypsdidas instead of Cypse- lum, which deducts from the value of a witness whose testimony can never under any circumstances be rated high. But granting the alteration; there are two reasons against the assertion of Solinus. One, a positive reason, that Solon offered a large reward to Athenian victors at the Isth- mian games: his legislation falls in 594 B.C., ten years before the time when the Isthmia are said by Solinus to have been renewed after a long interims don. The other reason (negative, though to my mind also power- ful} is the silence of Herodotus in that long invective which he puts into the month of Sosikles against the Kvpselids (v, 92). If Kypselus had reall ; bcca puilty of so great an insult to the feelings of the people as tc