Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/53

 OLYMPIC FESTIVAL. 27 of fact. Perhaps in the year 388 B. c., but certainly in the yeai 384 B. c. (both of them Olympic years), Dionysius sent tragedies to be recited, and chariots to run, before the crowd assembled i festival at Olympia. The year 387 B. c. was a memorable yeai both in Central Greece and in Sicily. In the former, it was sig- nalized by the momentous peace of Antalkidas, which terminated a g3neral war of eight years' standing : in the latter, it marked the close of the Italian campaign of Dionysius, with the defeat and humiliation of Kroton and the other Italiot Greeks, and sub- version of three Grecian cities, Hipponium, Kaulonia, and Rhegium the fate of the Ilhegines having been characterized by incidents most pathetic and impressive. The first Olympu festival which occurred after 387 B. c. was accordingly a distin- guished epoch. The two festivals immediately preceding (those of 392 B. c. and 388 B. c.) having been celebrated in the midst of a general war, had not been visited by a large proportion of the Hellenic body ; so that the next ensuing festival, the 99th Olympiad in 384 B. c., was stamped with a peculiar character (like the 90th Olympiad 1 in 420 B. c.) as bringing together in religious fraternity those who had long been separated. 2 To eve- ry ambitious Greek (as to Alkibiades in 420 B. c.) it was an ob- ject of unusual ambition to make individual figure at such a festival. To Dionysius, the temptation was peculiarly seductive, since he was triumphant over all neighboring enemies at the pinnacle of his power and disengaged from all war requiring his own per- sonal command. Accordingly he sent thither his Theore, or sol- emn legation for sacrifice, decked in the richest garments, fur- nished with abundant gold and silver plate, and provided with splendid tents to serve for their lodging on the sacred ground of Olympia. He farther sent several chariots-and-four to contend in the regular chariot races : and lastly, he also sent reciters and chorists, skilful as well as highly trained, to exhibit his own poeti- cal compositions before such as were willing to hear them. We 1 See Vol. VII. of this History, Ch. LV. p. 57 seqq. 2 See above, in this work, Vol. X. Ch. LXXVII. p. 76. I have already noticed the peculiarity of this Olympic festival of 384 B. c., in reference to the position and sentiment of the Greeks in Peloponnesus and Asia. I am now obliged to notice it again, in reference to the Greeks of Sicily and Ital.V - especially to Dionysius.