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 C22 OLYMPIA OLYMPIC GAMES inlet prevents the approach even of small boats. The mean rise and fall of tides is 9 '2 ft., and the difference between the highest and lowest tides is 24 ft. Two semi-weekly lines of steam- ers run to Victoria and intermediate points, and a daily line of stages connects with the rail- road at Tenino. There are a soap factory, two boot and shoe factories, and a saw mill. The city has several stores, a private banking com- pany, three hotels, two public and three pri- vate schools, and five weekly newspapers. The territorial and good templars' libraries have each more than 6,000 volumes. There are six churches : Baptist, Congregational, Episco- pal, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Roman Cath- olic. The first white settlement was made at Olympia in 1846. It was laid out as a town in 1851, and incorporated as a city in 1859. OLYMPIA, a plain of Elis in ancient Greece, on the right bank of the Alpheus, about a third of a mile from the town of Pisa. It was the scene of the Olympic games, and was also fa- mous for its sacred grove, where stood the great temple of Jupiter Olympius, founded by the Eleans in 512 B. C., and containing the colossal gold and ivory statue of the god, the masterpiece of Phidias. The grove (which was surrounded by a wall) and its immediate neigh- borhood contained numerous other temples and public buildings, collectively, like the plain, called Olympia. OLYMPIAD. See CHRONOLOGY, vol. iv., p. 557. OLYMPIAS, daughter of Neoptolemus I., king of Epirus, wife of Philip of Macedon, and mother of Alexander the Great. Her impe- rious and jealous nature and the infidelity of Philip caused strife between them; and on the marriage of Philip with Cleopatra, the niece of Attalus, in 337 B. C., she fled to the court of her brother Alexander, king of Epi- rus, whom she incited to make war upon Mace- don. On the death of Philip, whose assassina- tion she approved, she returned to Macedon, and put to death her rival Cleopatra and her infant daughter. She was constantly at feud with Antipater, the regent during the expedi- tions of Alexander ; and when in 323 he was placed in absolute control of affairs, Olympias withdrew to Epirus. On the death of Antipa- ter in 319, the new regent Polysperchon sent for her to return to Macedon, but she deter- mined to remain in Epirus until the war should be terminated. In 317 she took the field in person, together with Polysperchon, against Arrhidaeus and Eurydice, whom she defeated and put to death. She also put to death Nica- nor, brother of Cassander, and 100 of his fol- lowers. She was at last defeated and captured by Oassander at Pydna in the spring of 316, and soon after executed. OLYMPIC GAMES, the most ancient and fa- mous of the four great national festivals of the Greeks, celebrated once in four years at Olym- pia. Their origin, like that of the other Hel- lenic games, was probably connected with the rites paid to some deity, and they gradually ex- panded into a festival partly religious and part- ly secular. After being discontinued for a con- siderable period, the Olympic games were re- established in the 9th century B. C. by Iphitus, king of Elis, and Lycurgus, who were com- manded by the Delphic oracle to revive the fes- tival as a remedy for intestine commotions and for pestilence with which Greece was then af- flicted. For more than a century after this the games continued a local festival, frequented chiefly by the neighboring Peloponnesians ; but as they grew in importance, spectators came from the more distant states and from the Greek colonies of Asia, Africa, and Europe. Except in two or three instances, the management of the games was in the hands of the Eleans, who appointed certain of their citizens to preside as judges. As the time approached for the cele- bration of the games, a sacred truce was pro- claimed, and during the month in which they took place any armed invasion of the Elean territory was esteemed sacrilege. At the sama* time hostilities were suspended throughout Greece. At first the festival was confined to a single day, and consisted of the simple match of runners in the stadium, which was about 600 feet long. In 776 B. C. the Eleans in- scribed the name of their countryman Coroebus as victor in the competition of runners, and for nearly 1,000 years afterward we have regular lists of the victors in the foot races, to which in later times the names of those successful in other games were added. This date was subsequently employed by the Greeks as a chronological era, and the Olympiads, as the periods between two celebrations were called, commencing with the year 776 B. C., from which the first is reckoned, have supplied one of the oldest records of continuous time. In the course of time the festival was varied by addi- tional contests, and from the beginning of the 77th Olympiad (472) its duration was extend- ed from one to five days. In the 14th Olym- piad (724) the double stadium for runners was introduced, and in the 15th the long course, in which the stadium was traversed a number of times. In the 18th Olympiad (708) wrestling matches were added, and also the complicated ir&vTadTiov, which included leaping, running, throwing the quoit, throwing the javelin, and wrestling. To gain a victory in the latter con- test the competitor was obliged to conquer in each of its five parts. In the 23d Olympiad (688) boxing was introduced, and in the 33d (648) the Trayicpdrtov, which consisted of boxing and wrestling combined, the cestus, or leather thong about the hands and arms, being allowed in the first contest but not in the second. In both games the combatants fought naked. The race with four-horse chariots, for which a special course called the iTnrdSpoftoe, about 2,400 ft. in circuit, was set apart, was introduced in the 25th Olympiad (680), and became one of the most popular and celebrated of all the match- es ; the chariots were obliged to make the cir- cuit 12 times, a distance of over 5 m. In ad-