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the many religious antiquities of Olympia in Pindar's time was an oracle, far less celebrated indeed than that of Apollo at Delphi, yet greatly venerated, and frequently consulted by such competitors in the games as desired to anticipate the verdict of the judges. Its answers were given, not as at Delphi by an inspired priestess, but by a sacerdotal caste or family who watched the sacrifices burning on the great altar of Olympian Zeus, and interpreted the phenomena which these presented according to certain traditional rules handed down as a family secret from father to son.

The family tie in Greece was exceedingly strong, and it was much cemented by the practice which prevailed of keeping certain sciences and religious rites confined as a sort of heirloom to particular families. Thus the medical art of Greece remained for a long time chiefly in the hands of the Asclepiads, who claimed descent from the hero Asclepius, the mythical inventor of medicine. Again, at Athens, the state religion was administered chiefly by a family known as