Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/75

57 SPARTANS EXCLUDED FROM THE GAMES. 57 pose to do, both of overweening personal vanity, and of that reckless expenditure which he would be compelled to try and overtake by peculation or violence at the public cost. All the unfavorable impressions suggested to prudent Athenians by his previous life, were aggravated by this stupendous display ; much more, of course, the jealousy and hatred of personal competitors. And this feeling was not the less real, though as a political man he war. now in the full tide of public favor. It the festival of the 90th Olympiad was peculiarly distin- guished by the reappearance of Athenians and those connected with them, it was marked by a farther novelty yet more striking, the exclusion of the Lacedaemonians. This exclusion was the consequence of the new political interests of the Eleians, com- bined with their increased consciousness of force arising out of the recent alliance with Argos, Athens, and Mantineia. It has already been mentioned that since the peace with Athens, the Lacedemonians, acting as arbitrators in the case of Lepreurn, which the Eleians claimed as their dependency, had declared it to be autonomous, and had sent a body of troops to defend it. Probably the Eleians had recently renewed their attacks upon the district, since the junction with their new allies ; for the Lacedaemonians had detached thither a fresh body of one thou- sand hoplites immediately prior to the Olympic festival. Out of the mission of this fresh detachment the sentence of exclusion arose. The Eleians were privileged administrators of the festi- val, regulating the details of the ceremony itself, and formally in one race. They were distributed into sets, or batches, of what munbe we know not. Each set ran its own heat, and the victors in each then com peted with each other in a fresh heat ; so that the victor who gained the grand final prize was sure to have won two heats. Now if this practice was adopted with the foot-runners, much more would it be likely to be adopted with the chariot-racers in case many chariots were brought to the same festival. The danger would be lessened, the sport would be increased, and the glory of the competitors enhanced. The Olym- pic festival lasted five days, a long time to provide amusement for so vast *> crowd of spectators. Alkibiades and Lichas may therefore both have gained chariot-victories ~.t the same festival : of course only one of there can have gained the grand haal prize, and which of the two that was it i> impossible to siy. 3*