Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/71

53 I'h'ODIGlOUS DISPLAY OF ALKIBIADF.S. 53 Rn-i that the Eleian heralds (who came to announce the approach- ing games and proclaim the truce connected with them) again trod the soil of Attica, the Athenian visit, was felt both by themselves and by others as a novelty. Some curiosity was entertained to see what figure the theory of Athens would make as to show and splendor. Nor were there wanting spite- ful rumors, that Athens had been so much impoverished by the war, as to be prevented from appearing with appropriate mag- nificence at the altar and in the presence of Olympic Zeus. Alkibiades took pride in silencing these surmises, as well as in glorifying his own name and person, by a display more imposing than had ever been previously beheld. He had already distin- guished himself in the local festivals and liturgies of Athens by an ostentation surpassing Athenian rivals : but he now felt him- self standing forward as the champion and leader of Athens before Greece. He had discredited his political rival Nikias, given a new direction to the politics of Athens by the Argeian alliance, and was about to commence a series of intra-Pelopon nesian operations against the Lacedaemonians. On all these grounds he determined that his first appearance on the plain of Olympia should impose upon all beholders. The Athenian theory, of which he was a member, was set out with first-rate splendor, and with the amplest show of golden ewers, censers, etc., for the public sacrifice and procession. 1 But when the chariot-races came on, Alkibiades himself appeared as competitor at his own cost, not merely with one well-equipped chariot and four, which the richest Greeks had hitherto counted as an extra- were) sacred persons, who were never molested or hindered from coming to the festival, if they chose to come, under any state of war. Their in viola bility was never disturbed even down to the harsh proceeding of Aratus (Plutarch, Aratus, c. 28). But this does not prove that Ehodian visitors generally, or a Rhodi.in theory, could have come to Olympia between 431-421 in safety. From the presence of individuals, even as spectators, little can be infer- red : because, even at this very Olympic festival of 420 B.C., Lichas the Spartan was present as a spectator, though all Lacedaemonians were fcr rually excluded by proclamation of the Eleians (Thucyd. v, 5. 1 Of the taste and elegance with which these exhibitions weie usually got up in Athens, surpassing generally every othei <_ity in Greece, see a remart able testimony in Xenophon, Memorabil. iii, 3. 12.