OLYMPIA, the scene of the famous Olympic games, is on the right or north bank of the Alpheus (mod. Ruphia), about 11 m. E. of the modern Pyrgos. The course of the river is here from E. to W., and the average breadth of the valley is about m. At this point a small stream, the ancient Cladeus, flows from the north into the Alpheus. The area known as Olympia is bounded on the west by the Cladeus, on the south by the Alpheus, on the north by the low heights which shut in the Alpheus valley, and on the east by the ancient racecourses. One group of the northern heights terminates in a conical hill, about 400 ft. high, which is cut off from the rest by a deep cleft, and descends abruptly on Olympia. This hill is the famous Cronion, sacred to Cronus, the father of Zeus.

The natural situation of Olympia is, in one sense, of great beauty. When Lysias, in his Olympiacus (spoken here), calls it "the fairest spot of Greece," he was doubtless thinking alsoor perhaps chiefly of the masterpieces which art, in all its forms, had contributed to the embellishment of this national sanctuary. But even now the praise seems hardly excessive to a visitor who, looking eastward up the fertile and well-wooded valley of Olympia, sees the snow-crowned chains of Erymanthus and Cyllene rising in the distance. The valley, at once spacious and definite, is a natural precinct, and it is probable that no artificial boundaries of the Altis, or sacred grove, existed until comparatively late times.

History. The importance of Olympia in the history of Greece is religious and political. The religious associations of the place date from the prehistoric age, when, before the states of Elis and Pisa had been founded, there was a centre of worship in this valley which is attested by early votive offerings found beneath the Heraeum and an altar near it. The earliest extant building on the site is the temple of Hera, which probably dates in its original form from about 1000 B.C. There were various traditions as to the origin of the games. According to one of them, the first race was that between Pelops and Oenomaus, who used to challenge the suitors of his daughter Hippodameia and then slay them. According to another, the festival was founded by Heracles, either the well-known hero or the Idaean Dactyl of that name. The control of the festival belonged in early times to Pisa, but Elis seems to have claimed association with it. Sixteen women, representing eight towns of Elis and eight of Pisatis, wove the festal robe for the Olympian Hera. Olympia thus became the centre of an amphictyony (q.v.), or federal league under religious sanction, for the west coast of the Peloponnesus, as Delphi was for its neighbours in northern Greece. It suited the interests of Sparta to join this amphictyony; | and, before the regular catalogue of Olympic victors begins in 776 B.C., Sparta had formed an alliance with Elis. Aristotle saw in the temple of Hera at Olympia a bronze disk, recording the traditional laws of the festival, on which the name of Lycurgus stood next to that of Iphitus, king of Elis. Whatever may have been the age of the disk itself, the relation which it indicates is well attested. Elis and Sparta, making common cause, had no difficulty in excluding the Pisatans from their proper share in the management of the Olympian sanctuary. Pisa had, indeed, a brief moment of better fortune, when Pheidon of Argos celebrated the 28th Olympiad under the presidency of the Pisatans. This festival, from which the Eleans and Spartans were excluded, was afterwards struck out of the official register,

functions by assuming the title of Hellanodicae.

Long before the overthrow of Pisa the list of contests had been so enlarged as to invest the celebration with a Panhellenic character. Exercises of a Spartan type-testing endurance and strength with an especial view to war-had almost exclusively formed the earlier programme. But as early as the 25th Olympiad-i.e. several years before the interference of Pheidon on behalf of Pisa-the four-horse chariot-race was added. This was an invitation to wealthy competitors from every part of the Hellenic world, and was also the recognition of a popular or spectacular element, as distinct from the skill which had a merely athletic or military interest. Horse-races were added later. For such contests the hippodrome was set apart. Meanwhile the list of contests on the old racecourse, the stadium, had been enlarged. Besides the foot-race in which the course was traversed once only, there were now the diaulos or double course, and the "long" foot-race (dolichos). Wrestling and boxing were combined in the pancration. Leaping, quoitthrowing, javelin-throwing, running and wrestling were combined in the pentathlon. The festival was to acquire a new importance under the protection of the Spartans, who, having failed in their plans of actual conquest in the Peloponnese, sought to gain at least the hegemony (acknowledged predominance) of the peninsula. As the Eleans, therefore, were the religious supervisors of Olympia, so the Spartans aimed at constituting themselves its political protectors. Their military strengthgreatly superior at the time to that of any other state-enabled them to do this. Spartan arms could enforce the sanction which the Olympian Zeus gave to the oaths of the amphictyones, whose federal bond was symbolized by common worship at his shrine. Spartan arms could punish any violation of that "sacred truce " which was indispensable if Hellenes from all cities were to have peaceable access to the Olympian festival. And in the eyes of all Dorians the assured dignity thus added to Olympia would be enhanced by the fact that the protectors were the Spartan Heraclidae.

Olympia entered on a new phase of brilliant and secure existence as a recognized Panhellenic institution. This phase may be considered as beginning after the establishment of Elean supremacy in 572 B.C. And so to the last Olympia always remained a central expression of the Greek ideas that the body of man has a glory as well as his intellect and spirit, that body and mind should alike be disciplined, and that it is by the harmonious discipline of both that men best honour Zeus. The significance of Olympia was larger and higher than the political fortunes of the Greeks who met there, and it survived the overthrow of Greek independence. In the Macedonian and Roman ages the temples and contests of Olympia still interpreted the ideal at which free Greece had aimed. Philip of Macedon and Nero are, as we shall see, among those whose names have a record in the Altis. Such names are typical of long series of visitors who paid homage to Olympia. According to Cedrenus, a Greek writer of the 11th century (Zivois 'IoTopiwv, i. 326), the Olympian festival ceased to be held after A.D. 393, the first year of the 293rd Olympiad. The list of Olympian victors, which begins in 776 B.C. with Coroebus of Elis, closes with the name of an Armenian, Varastad, who is said to have belonged to the race of the Arsacidae. In the 5th century the desolation of Olympia had set in. The chrysclephantine statue of the Olympian Zeus, by Pheidias, was carried to Constantinople, and perished in a great fire, A.D. 476.

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Excavations.-The German excavations were begun in 1875. After six campaigns, of which the first five lasted from September to June, they were completed on the 20th of March 1881. The result of these six years' labours was, first, to strip off a thick covering of earth from the Altis, the consecrated precinct of the Olympian Zeus. This covering had been formed, during some twelve centuries, partly by clay swept down from the Cronion, partly by deposit from the overflowings of the Cladeus. The coating of earth over the Altis had an average depth of no less than 16 ft.

The work could not, however, be restricted to the Altis. It was necessary to dig beyond it, especially on the west, the south and the east, where several ancient buildings existed, not included within the sacred precinct itself. The complexity of the task was further increased by the fact that in many places early Greek work had later Greek on top of it, or late Greek work had been overlaid with Roman. In a concise survey of the results obtained, it will be best to begin with the remains external to the precinct of Zeus.

I. REMAINS OUTSIDE THE ALTIS

A. West Side.-The wall bounding the Altis on the west belongs probably to the time of Nero. In the west wall were two gates, one at its northern and the other at its southern extremity. The latter must have served as the processional entrance. Each gate was poTulos, having before it on the west a colonnade consisting of a row of four columns. There is a third and smaller gate at about the middle point of the west wall, and nearly opposite the Pelopion in the Altis. West of the west Altis wall, on the strip of ground between the

1. Just outside the Altis at its north-west corner was a Gymnasium. A large open space, not regularly rectangular, was enclosed on two was bordered by a portico with a single row of columns in front; on the east by a double portico, more than a stadium in length (220 yds.), and serving as a racecourse for practice in bad weather. At the south-east corner of the gymnasium, in the angle between the south and the east portico, was a Corinthian doorway, which a double row of columns divided into three passages. Immediately to the east of this doorway was the gate giving access to the Altis at its north-west corner. The gymnasium was used as an exercise ground for competitors during the last month of their training. Palaestra, the place of exercise for wrestlers and boxers. It was 2. Immediately adjoining the gymnasium on the south was a in the form of a square, of which each side was about 70 yds. long, enclosing an inner building surrounded by a Doric colonnade. Facing this inner building on north, east and west were rooms of different sizes, to which doors or colonnades gave access. The chief entrances to the palaestra were at south-west and south-east, separated by a double colonnade which extended along the south side.

3. Near the palaestra on the south a Byzantine church forms itself occupies the site of an older brick building, which is perhaps the central point in a complex group of remains. (a) The church a remnant of the "workshop of Pheidias" seen by Pausanias. (b) North of the church is a square court with a well in the middle, of the Hellenic age. (c) West of this is a small circular structure, enclosed by square walls. An altar found (in silu) on the south side of the circular enclosure shows by an inscription that this was the Heroum, where worship of the heroes was practised down to a late period. (d) East of the court stood a large building, of Roman age at latest, arranged round an inner hall with colonnades. These buildings probably formed the Theocoleon, house of the priests. (e) There is also a long and narrow building on the south of the Byzantine church. This may have been occupied by the daidpiera, (Pausanias v. 14) whose those alleged "descendants of Pheidias hereditary privilege it was to keep the statue of Zeus clean. The so-called" workshop of Pheidias " (see a) evidently owed its preservation to the fact that it continued to be used for actual work,

4 South of the group described above occur the remains of a large building shown by its inscription to be the Leonidaeum, dedicated by an Elean named Leonidas in the 4th century B.C., and probably intended for the reception of distinguished visitors during the games, such as the heads of the special missions from the various Greek cities. It is an oblong, of which the north and south sides measure about 250 ft., the east and west about 230. Its orientation differs from that of all the other buildings above mentioned, being not from N. to S., but from W.S.W. to E.N.E. Externally it is an Ionic peripteros, enclosing suites of rooms, large and small, grouped round a small interior Doric peristyle. In Roman times it was altered in such a way as to distribute the rooms into (apparently) four quarters, each having an atrium with six or four columns. Traces existing within the exterior porticos on north, west and east indicate much carriage traffic.

B. South Side.-Although the limits of the Altis on the south (ie. on the side towards the Alpheus) can be traced with approximate accuracy, the precise line of the south wail becomes doubtful after we have advanced a little more than one-third of the distance from the west to the east end of the south side. The middle and eastern portions of the south side were places at which architectural changes, large or small, were numerous down to the latest times, and where the older buildings met with scant mercy.

1. The Council Hall (Bouleuterium, Paus. v. 23) was just outside the Altis, nearly at the middle of its south wall. It comprised two separate Doric buildings of different date but identical form, viz. oblong, having a single row of columns dividing the length into two naves and terminating to the west in a semicircular apse. The crientation of each was from west-south-west to east-north-east, one being south-south-east of the other. In the space between stood a small square building. In front, on the east, was a portico extending along the front of all three buildings; and east of this again a large trapeze-shaped vestibule or fore-hall, enclosed by a colonnade. This bouleuterium would have been available on all occasions when Olympia became the scene of conference or debate between the representatives of different states-whether the subject was properly political, as concerning the amphictyonic treaties, or related more directly to the administration of the sanctuary and festival. Two smaller Hellenic buildings stood immediately west of the bouleuterium. The more northerly of the two opened on the Altis. Their purpose is uncertain.

2. Close to the bouleuterium on the south, and running parallel with it from south-west by west to north-east by east, was the South Colonnade, a late but handsome structure, closed on the north side, open on the south and at the east and west ends. The external colonnade (on south, east and west) was Doric; the interior row of columns Corinthian. It was used as a promenade, and as a place from which to view the festal processions as they passed towards the Altis.

3. East of the bouleuterium was a triumphal gateway of Roman age, with triple entrance, the central being the widest, opening on the Altis from the south. North of this gateway, but at a somewhat greater depth, traces of a pavement were found in the Altis.

C. East Side. The line of the east wall, running due north and south, can be traced from the north-east corner of the Altis down about three-fifths of the east side, when it breaks off at the remains known as "Nero's house." These are the first which claim attention on the east side.

1. To the south-east of the Altis is a building of 4th-century date and of uncertain purpose. This was afterwards absorbed into a Roman house which projected beyond the Altis on the east, the south part of the east Altis wall being destroyed to admit of this. A piece of leaden water-pipe found in the house bears NER. AVG. Only a Roman master could have dealt thus with the Altis, and with a building which stood within its sacred precinct. It cannot be doubted that the Roman house-from which three doors gave access to the Altis-was that occupied by Nero when he visited Olympia. Later Roman hands again enlarged and altered the building, which may perhaps have been used for the reception of Roman governors.

2. Following northwards the line of the east wall, we reach at the north-east corner of the Altis the entrance to the Stadium, which extends east of the Altis in a direction from west-south-west to east-north-east. The apparently strange and inconvenient position of the Stadium relatively to the Altis was due simply to the necessity of obeying the conditions of the ground, here determined by the curve of the lower slopes which bound the valley on the north. The German explorers excavated the Stadium so far as was necessary for the ascertainment of all essential points. Low embankments had originally been built on west, east and south, the north boundary being formed by the natural slope of the hill. These were afterwards thickened and raised. The space thus defined was a large cblong, about 234 yds. in length by 35 in breadth. There were no artificial seats. It is computed that from 40,000 to 45,000 spectators could have found sitting-room, though it is hardly probable that such a number was ever reached. The exact length of the Stadium itself which was primarily the course for the foot-race-was about 210 yds. or 192-27 metres-an important result, as it determines

English foot (105). In the Heraeum at Olympia, it may be remarked, the unit adopted was not this Olympian foot, but an older one of 0-297 metre, and in the temple of Zeus an Attic foot of 108 English foot was used. The starting-point and the goal in the Stadium were marked by limestone thresholds. Provision for drainage was made by a channel running round the enclosure. The Stadium was used not only for foot-races, but for boxing, wrestling, leaping, quoit-throwing and javelin-throwing.

The entrance to the Stadium from the north-east corner of the Altis was a privileged one, reserved for the judges of the games, the competitors and the heralds. Its form was that of a vaulted tunnel, ico Olympian feet in length. It was probably constructed in Roman times. To the west was a vestibule, from which the Altis was entered by a handsome gateway.

3. The Hippodrome, in which the chariot-races and horse-races were held, can no longer be accurately traced. The overflowings of the Alpheus have washed away all certain indications of its limits. But it is clear that it extended south and south-east of the Stadium, and roughly parallel with it, though stretching far beyond it to the east. From the state of the ground the German explorers inferred that the length of the hippodrome was 770 metres or 4 Olympic stadia.

D. North Side.-If the northern limit of the Altis, like the west, south and east, had been traced by a boundary wall, this would have had the effect of excluding from the precinct a spot so sacred as the Cronion, Hill of Cronus," inseparably associated with the oldest worship of Zeus at Olympia. It seems therefore unlikely that any such northern boundary wall ever existed. But the line which such a boundary would have followed is partly represented by the remains of a wall running from east to west immediately north of the treasure-houses (see below), which it was designed to protect against the descent of earth from the Cronion just above. This was the wall along which, about A.D. 157, the main water-channel constructed by Herodes Atticus was carried.

Having now surveyed the chief remains external to the sacred precinct on west, south, east and north, we proceed to notice those which have been traced within it.

II. REMAINS WITHIN THE ALTIS

The form of the Altis, as indicated by the existing traces, is not regularly rectangular. The length of the west side, where the line of direction is from south-south-east to north-north-west, is about 215 yds. The south side, running nearly due east and west, is about equally long, if measured from the end of the west wall to the point which the east wall would touch when produced due south in a straight line from the place at which it was demolished to make way for "Nero's house." The east side, measured to a point just behind the treasure-houses, is the shortest, about 200 yds. The north side is the longest. A line drawn eastward behind the treasure-houses, from the Prytaneum at the north-west angle, would give about 275 yds.

The remains or sites within the Altis may conveniently be classed in three main groups, viz.-(A) the chief centres of religious worship; (B) votive buildings; (C) buildings, &c., connected with the administration of Olympia or the reception of visitors.

A. Chief Centres of Religious Worship-1. There are traces of an altar near the Heraeum which was probably older than the great altar of Zeus; this was probably the original centre of worship. The great altar of Zeus was of elliptic form, the length of the lozenge being directed from south-south-west to north-north-east, in such a manner that the axis would pass through the Cronion. The upper structure imposed on this basis was in two tiers, and also, probably, lozenge-shaped. This was the famous " ash-altar" at which the Iamidae, the hereditary gens of seers, practised those rights of divination by fire in virtue of which more especially Olympia is saluted by Pindar as "mistress of truth." The steps by which the priests mounted the altar seem to have been at north and south.

2. The Pelopium, to the west of the Altar of Zeus, was a small precinct in which sacrifices were offered to the hero Pelops. The traces agree with the account of Pausanias. Walls, inclined to each other at obtuse angles, enclosed a plot of ground having in the middle a low tumulus of elliptic form, about 35 metres from east to west by 20 from north to south. A Doric propylon with three doors gave access on the south-west side.

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The three temples of the Altis were those of Zeus, Hera and the Mother of the gods. All were Doric. All, too, were completely surrounded by a colonnade, i.e. were peripteral." 3. The Temple of Zeus, south of the Pelopium, stood on a high substructure with three steps. It was probably built about 470 B.C. The colonnades at the east and west side were of six columns each; those at the north and south sides (counting the corner columns again) of thirteen each. The cella had a prodomos on the east and an opisthodomos on the west. The cella itself was divided longitudinally (i.e. from east to west) into three partitions by a double row of columns. The central partition, which was the widest, consisted of three sections. The west section contained the throne and image of the Olympian Zeus. The middle section, next to the cast, which was shut off by low screens, contained a table and stelae. Here, probably, the wreaths were presented to the victors.