Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/58

 52 HISTORY OF GREECE. We cannot doubt that a large proportion of the spectators on the plain of Olympia felt with greater or less intensity the gener- ous Pan-hellenic patriotism and indignation to which Lysias gavt utterance. To what extent his hearers acted upon the unbecom- ing violence of his practical recommendations how far they ac- tually laid hands on the tents, or tried to hinder the Syracusans from sacrificing, or impeded the bringing out of their chariots for the race we are unable to say. We are told that some ven tured to plunder the tents : l how much was effected we do not hear. It is certain that the superintending Eleian authorities would interfere most strenuously to check any such attempt at desecrating the festival, and to protect the Syracusan envoys iu their tents, their regular sacrifice, and their chariot-running. And chariots actually did run on the lists ; because they were, though by various accidents, disgracefully unsuccessful, or overturned and broken in pieces. 2 To any one however who reflects on the Olympic festival, with all its solemnity and its competition for honors of various kinds, it will appear that the mere manifestation of so violent an antipathy, even though restrained from breaking out into act, would b^ suf- ficiently galling to the Syracusan envoys. But the case woild be far worse, when the poems of Dionysius came to be recited. These were volunteer manifestations, delivered (like the harangue of Lysias) before such persons as chose to come and henr ; not comprised in the regular solemnity, nor therefore under any pecu- liar protection by the Eleian authorities. Dionysius stood for- ward of his own accord to put himself upon his trial as a poet be- fore the auditors. Here therefore the antipathy against the des- pot might be manifested by the most unreserved explosions. And f, iv (f> Tcel'&ei rovf "JLMrjvaf ...... e/c/3uA3.eria [tu?.i^ iiapiruaavrof TIJV rov rvpuvvov dKrjvriv XP va V T ^ " a ^ noptyvpa /cat d/l/Ly ryovry iro7Ji(f> KKoc[tf)fiivijv, etc. Diodor. xiv. 109. Avoiaf . . . .irpoerpeirETO TU TT^^T? fi% Trpocrfc'^ecrt v TOW lepolf uyuoi roiig f uaefJeaTuTTjf rvpawidof inrsaTa^uevovf tieupovf. Compare Plutarch, Vit. x. Orator, p. 836 D. 1 Diodor. xir. 109. uare rivaf TotyTjaai diapirufctv nk VKqvjf.
 * t is farther certain, as far as our account goes, that the Syracusan
 * Piodor. xiv. 109.