Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/342

 320 HISTORY OF GREECE. them credit, forded the rivulet, headed by Stratolas with his cho- sen band of three hundred, and vigorously charged first the Area dians, next the Argeians ; both of whom were defeated and driven back. The victorious Eleians forced their way into the Altis, and pressed forward to reach the great altar. But at every step of their advance the resistance became stronger, aided as it wns by nume- rous buildings, the senate-house, the temple of Zeus, and various porticos, which both deranged their ranks, and furnished excel- lent positions of defence for darters and archers on the roofs. Stratolas was here slain ; while his troops, driven out of the sacred ground, were compelled to recross the Kladeus. The festival was then resumed and prosecuted in its usual order. But the Arcadi- ans were so afraid of a renewed attack on the following day, that they not only occupied the roofs of all the buildings more com- pletely than before, but passed the night in erecting a palisade of defence ; tearing down for that purpose the temporary booths which had been carefully put up to accommodate the crowd of visi- tors. 1 Such precautions rendered the place unassailable, so that the Eleians were obliged to return home on the next day ; not without sympathy and admiration among many of the Greeks, for the unwonted boldness which they had displayed. They revenged themselves by pronouncing the 104th Olympiad to be no Olympiad at all, and by registering it as such in their catalogue, when they regained power ; preserving however the names of those who had been proclaimed victors, which appeared in the lists like the rest. 9 Such was the unholy combat which dishonored the sanctuary of Pan-hellenic brotherhood, and in which the great temple, with its enthroned inmate the majestic Zeus of Pheidias, was for the first time turned into a fortress against its habitual presidents the Ele- ians. It was a combat wherein, though both Thebes and Sparta, the competing leaders of Greece, stand clear, Athens as well as most of the Peloponnesian chief states were implicated. It had been brought on by the rapacious ambition of the Arcadians, and its result seemed to confirm them, under color of Pisatan presi- I cannot agree with Colonel Leake however in supposing 'hat Pisa wai at any time a city, and afterwards deserted. 1 Xen. Hellen. vii, 4, 32. wore ovff uveiravcivTO rf/f vvtcrb 'd diaTreTrovjjueva aKTivaftara, etc.
 * Diodor. xv, 78 ; Pausanias, vi, 8, 2.