Till, hasting to his aid, and scarce at length With wounds and gore disfigur'd, to his friends. On the last day of the festival, the conquerors, being summoned by proclamation to the tribunal within the sacred grove, received the honour of public coronation, a ceremony preceded by pompous sacrifices. Encircled with the olivewreath,* gathered from the sacred tree behind the temple of Jupiter, the victors, dressed in rich habits, bearing palmbranches in their hands and almost intoxicated with joy, proceeded in grand procession to the theatre, marching to the sound of flutes, and surrounded by an immense multitude who made the air ring with their acclamations. The winners in the horse and chariot-races formed a part of the pomp their stately coursers bedecked with flowers, seeming as they paced proudly along, to be conscious participators of the triumph. When they reached the theatre, the choruses saluted them with the ancient hymn, composed by the poet Archilochus, to exalt the glory of the victors, the surrounding multitude joining their voices to those of the musicians. This being concluded, the trumpet sounded, the herald proclaimed the name and country of the victor, as well as the nature of his prize, the acclamations of the people within and without the building were redoubled, and flowers and garlands were showered from all sides upon the happy conqueror, who at this moment was thought to have attained the loftiest pinnacle of human glory and felicity. Diagoras of Rhodes, himself an Olympic victor, brought two of his sons to the games, who, on receiving the crown they had won, placed it on the head of their father, lifted him on their shoulders and bore him in triumph along the stadium. The spectators threw flowers upon him, exclaiming, "Die, Diagoras! for thou hast nothing more to wish," a complimentary exclamation which was unfortunately fulfilled; for the old man, overcome by his happiness, expired in sight of the assembly, and in the arms of his children, who bathed him with their tears. *This trifling reward was supposed to be in memory of the labours of Hercules, which were accomplished for the public good, and for which the hero claimed no other distinction than the consciousness of having been the friend of mankind. The last duty performed by the conquerors at Olympia was sacrificing to the twelve gods, which was sometimes done upon so magnificent a scale as to entertain the whole multitude who came to witness the solemnity. Their names were then enrolled in the archives of the Eleans, and they were sumptuously feasted in the banqueting-hall of the prytaneum. On the following days they themselves gave entertainments, the pleasure of which was heightened by music and dancing; or they were banqueted by their friends, who, as we learn from the following story in Plutarch, vied with one another for that honour, and thought no expense too great for the occasion. Phocus, having obtained a victory in the Panathenean games, and being invited by several of his friends to accept of an entertainment, at length pitched upon one to whom he thought that preference was due. But when Phocion, his father, came to the feast, and saw, among other extravagances, large vessels filled with wine and spices set before the guests when they came in to wash their feet, he said to his son, "Phocus! why do you not make your friend desist from dishonouring your victory." At these festivities, whether public or private, were frequently sung by a chorus, accompanied with instrumental music, such odes as were composed in honour of the conqueror; but it was not the good fortune of every victor to have a poet for his friend, or to be able to pay the price of an ode, which was sometimes considerable, as we learn from the scholiast upon Pindar. The friends of one Pytheas, a conqueror in the Nemean games, came to Pindar to bespeak an ode, for which he demanded so large a sum that they declined his offer, saying "they could erect a statue of brass for less money." Some time after, having changed their opinion, they returned and paid the price required by Pindar, who, in allusion to this transaction, begins his ode with setting forth" that he was no statuary, no maker of images that could not stir from their pedestals, and consequently were to be seen only by those who would give themselves the trouble to go to the place where they were erected; but he could make a poem which should fly over the whole earth, and publish in every place that Pytheas had gained the crown in the Nemean games.' * West's Pindar, vol. iii. p. 185 Already loaded with honours at the scene of action, the victors returned to their own country with all the pageantry of triumph, preceded and followed by a numerous train, and sometimes entered their native city through a breach made in the walls, to denote that the place which could produce such strong and valiant men had li I little need of stone bulwarks. "In certain places, the victors had a competent subsistence furnished to them from the public treasury; in others they were exempt from all taxes; at Lacedæmon, where every distinction was of a warlike nature, they had the honour to combat near the king; almost every where they had precedency at the local games; and the title of Olympic victor added to their names ensured them an attentive respect, which constituted the happiness of their future lives."t To perpetuate their glory after death, the conquerors themselves, their friends, or their country, generally set up their statues in the sacred grove of the Olympian Jupiter, which contained an almost incredible number of these figures. A long list of the most remarkable may be found in the sixth book of Pausanias. The statue of Ladas, an eminent racer, was so animated, not only in point of attitude, but in the lively expression of assured victory in the countenance, that "it is going this moment," says an epigram in the Anthology, "to leap from the pedestal and seize the crown." To form a correct notion of the appearance of Olympia and its neighbourhood at the period of the games, it must be recollected that the whole open country, and more especially the banks of the Alpheus, bore the semblance of a vast encampment, from the great number of tents set up to accommodate the visiters; and that as business and traffic were combined with pleasure in this national festival, the great fair, with its dealers, showmen, mountebanks, and exnibiters of all sorts, occupied every moment not engrossed by the games. River and sea were covered with innumerable vessels; the shore with carriages and horses; spectators were thronging from all quarters of the earth, and in every possible variety of costume, some conducting victims for the Olympian Jupiter, some deputed to publish edicts. * Anacharsis, cap: 38. others coming to display their vanity and ostentation, or to distinguish themselves by their superior talents and knowledge. Here sculptors, painters, or artists exhibited specimens of their skill there rhapsodists were to be seen reciting fragments of Homer and Hesiod; while the peristyles of the temples and all the most conspicuous places in the porticoes, walks, and groves were crowded with sophists, philosophers, poets, orators, and historians, arguing with one another, reciting their productions, and pronouncing eulogies on the Olympic games, on their respective countries, or on distinguished individuals whose favour they wished to conciliate. In the midst of the various pursuits of this amazing congress of people, all animated by feelings of interest or of pleasure, they would suddenly suspend their avocations and amusements to participate in some pompous ceremony of that religion which, uniting them all in a common bond of alliance, sanctified and exalted their diversions, by imparting to them a character of duty and devotion. It is not sufficient to picture to ourselves the scenery, the climate, and all the varied magnificence of the spectacle we have been attempting to describe; we must imagine the moral, religious, and patriotic feelings of the assemblage, and the enthusiasm that such a union would generate, before we can form any conception of the Olympic games. Among the benefactors of this festival, at an advanced stage of its existence, was Herod, afterward King of Judea. Seeing on his way to Rome the games neglected, or dwindling into insignificance, from the poverty of the Eleans, he displayed vast munificence as president, and provided an ample revenue for their future support and dignity. That they should derive such assistance from a Jew, to the nature and ordinances of whose religion they were so repugnant, seems a strange and anomalous circumstance. But though this and subsequent instances of equally powerful patronage might for a time protract their lingering existence, nothing could finally prevent the extinction of these celebrated games. The political decadence and impoverishment of Greece, the devastation of that country and of all Europe by the barbarians, but, above all, the extending influence of Christianity, whose votaries proclaimed open war not only against the deities but the institutions of the pagans, at length accomplished the downfall of the Olympic festival. So mutable are human affairs, so short is the comparative duration of the mightiest dynasties and empires, that the Olympic games, by the mere fact of their having continued in unbroken quinquennial celebration for a thousand years from the period of their revival, command a sort of reverence, and excite a feeling of involuntary sadness at the thought of their discontinuance and oblivion. Lofty and ennobling, and pleasant from the classical reminiscences they awaken, are all the associations connected with them. Kings and powerful states were often competitors at these illustrious sports, to the periodical recurrence of which the whole civilized world looked forward with an intensity of expectation that absorbed every other thought and pursuit. Public and private business was forgotten, the fiercest wars were suspended, a universal truce was proclaimed by sea and land, that all mankind might travel in safety to Olympia, and regard nothing but the paramount, the supreme object of attention-the festival. And all this has passed away like a dream which, however glorious and magnificent while it lasted, leaves not a shadow behind! That institution which had endured for so many ages, and formed the delight of such numerous generations of mankind, is now only an empty remembrance, a subject for the antiquary and the historian. Olympia is no more: its solid temples, the colossal statue of Jupiter, the sacred grove with its myriad of statues, altars, trophies, columns, monuments of gods, kings, and heroes, in brass, marble, and iron, have crumbled into dust, and become so effectually mingled with the earth, that even the site which they embellished can be no longer recognised. Nay, the very deities themselves in whose honour these games were instituted, and who had received the homage of the Pagan world since the infancy of time, have fallen into utter oblivion, or are only remembered that they may be converted into a by-word and a laughing stock. If there be something humiliating to human reason in the thought that it may be devoted, through such a long suc cession of centuries, to an imaginary heaven and an evanescent pageant of earth, it is at least consolatory to reflect that the same human reason, victorious over time, and death, G |