Polyphemus, Ροπαλον χλωρον ελαΐνεον.* This history is the best explanation I can find; the games being instituted by Hercules, and subsequently perpetuated in honour of him, what could be a prouder memorial than the tree which was his favourite and trusty club? A palm was given to every victor as soon as he had won, but the coronation was reserved to the fifth day. Then, before the congregated nations, they were brought forth and marshalled into a splendid retinue, with attendants, with strains of triumph and paæans of congratulation. After that ensued a solemn pause. Two illustrative passages are found in Chrysostom: "Do ye not see in the Olympic contests when the Agonothetes, wearing his crown upon his head, arrayed in his robe, holding the wand of office in his hand, enters through the gate, how great is the quiet and decency, while the herald demands with a loud voice, that all should be silent and be decorously behaved?" The other quotation is still more apposite: "In the Olympic games, the wrestler, boxer, and pancratiast enter at different times but in one and the same moment all, who have overcome, are by the herald declared to be victors." also, clear from the foregoing anecdote of Agis. This was, They But their honours were by no means exhausted. were led round the Arena, fathers blessing them, brothers carrying them, flowers strewn upon them. Each had felt that the honour of his family and the renown of his country were committed to his care. The eye of Hellas was upon every deed. A nobler triumph awaited him! The representatives of their own people were here, but not the multitudinous people! As no woman was suffered, for obvious reasons, to attend these games, the victor could not here receive a mother's tears or sister's greetings. But they awaited him. He returned home with a procession which his native city emptied itself to meet and swell. Odyss: ix. 320. Ælian relates, in his tenth book, that Pherenice was admitted, after much dispute, as the daughter of one victor, the sister of three, and the mother of a combatant at the time. The priestess of Ceres was a standing exception. From the Defence of Murena by Cicero we find that the Vestal Virgin was permitted to attend the shows of the gladiators. Thither came the virgin and the matron, the infant struggled against its nurse's hold, and the hoary-headed disdained his staff, it was a conqueror's return. The last meed was not refused the wall of the city was broken down to make an entrance for him, as though the noblest porch-way, which every obscurest inhabitant could tread, was far too unworthy to receive such a heroic citizen. This fact is confirmed by Plutarch. In the Roman Questions he shows that walls were held to be sacred, and gates to be common; and in his Symposiacon a different statement is afforded: that cities which might boast such natives could not need walls! The elation of that moment may be guessed from the shame and depression of those who returned home defeated. Meilesias is praised by Pindar* for having, after training twenty-nine successful pupils, brought out Alcimedon, and thus is his triumph over his young antagonists described: "He, by favour of his tutelary, and not abandoning a selfcollected strength, compelled four poor striplings to make a most unenviable retreat, to tell a most piteous tale, and to steal back by hidden by-paths to their abodes." And in the eighth Pythian the same melancholy theme is touched. Of those whom Aristomenes overcame it is said: "No joyful return is adjudged to them, nor as they enter the presence of the expecting mother will the loud mirth diffuse itself, but pale-faced grief will fill that dwelling." Monuments were speedily raised to them in Olympia, and sometimes in their own lands. The expense was most generally borne by the friends and countrymen of the successful candidate: in a few instances, by the direction of the Hellenodicæ, from the rich exchequer which they could command. The statues were of brass or marble. If the mouldings of the ancients were as superior as their chisels, what must have been the ranges and vistas of breathing marble and living brass! How would those forms, each individuated in character and action, XOVES 1007701, move the ambition of the aspirant, and excite within him every kindred emotion! Few see their own monuments,-they are built for posterity. In Altis, however, the subject of them, and the admiring spectator, met * Olym: viii. beneath the same pedestal, and the present and the future were blended into one! : But Song was to do a more memorable service than metal or stone. It is here that Pindar's eagle soars, and revels in its flight. The poet's power is carried to a tyranny. "For when a man," he sings, "who has performed noble deeds goes down to the dark abode of death uncelebrated by verse, he has struggled hard for a brief delight. But the vocal harp and the sweet pipe secure his fame." His lyrics abound in bold and abrupt figures, sometimes gentle as a rill and murmur of Ilissus, but more generally overwhelming as a Tegean cascade. In his fifth Nemean, he indignantly repels the notion that he should be the fabricator of human likenesses, fixed and immoveable on their base: he is the poet whose unrestricted verse flies faster and further than the bark. A few of his metaphors may be culled and should they seem vauntingly extravagant, it must be remembered that they have conserved many a name and incident which no material trophy could have perpetuated! "I send the out-poured nectar of my strain, inspired by the Muses, to the valiant conquerors, a pure essence distilled from my very soul."* "Adorned with the rich coverings of song."+ Weaving the variegated garland of harmony for brave men.”‡ "The wreath of my verse shall ever bloom."§ "We must open to the heroes the triumphant gates of poetic celebration."|| "I will set the loved city in a blaze by my tender lays. "For these waken the sounding career of song."++ "I wish that I could invent unknown terms for my theme; that borne aloft in the chariot of poesy, my courage and masterdom were equal to my soaring." "These encomiastic lines shall go forth, requiring and enciting the publication of future annals, and bind far distant ages to the sacred pledge of renowned virtues."§§ "Pierce, O Echo, to the sombre dome of Proserpine, that thou mayst bear the glorious news until thou findest his deceased father Cleodomus: then tell him that his son, in the valleys of the illustrious Pisa, has crowned his youthful locks with a coronal 66 ++ which, as if winged, surpasses common fame."* These all respect the games of Olympia; one or two more may be added of the other orders. "Farewell, O friend; I send you this honey mixed with purest milk (the bubbles of the infusion beading around the famed cup) on the Æolian airs of flutes."+"Fly from my Bow,-straight towards the mark, O Hymn! winged by a favourable gale"! "I woo the cheerful Muses to light up the beacon of my song." "The ambrosial fountain of my odes."§ "I shake over Alcmanes this chaplet, and suffuse him with the dew of song."-It is unnecessary to multiply any other quotations of the Theban bard: to the end he continues the enthusiast of his art: "For mighty deeds we know but one mirror,"**-he held it up,-it caught the streaming glories which played around him and which were so well adapted for its noble field of reflection, he threw them off in quick and surprising flashes of genius and power,-and the odes which he has left are the foci of the bright and burning rays! What a zest must the candidate have felt, when a Pindar stood observant by him, jealous of his deeds, attuning in stanzas of deathless strain the chronicles of deathless history. Whatever, we learn, was the ardour, and the impetuosity of the candidates, they were compelled to submit to restraint. An example of this occurs in Plutarch's Life of Themistocles. And I repeat it the more readily, because it is a story told of so many, and is so ignorantly applied. Eurubiades exclaimed to him, "In the Games, Themistocles, they scourge those who prematurely rise." "True," said Themistocles, "but they who are too late are never crowned." On this, the tyrant raised his staff to strike him: and then he replied in the familiar words: Narağı μer,—axoudov de.-Strike, but hear me ! The concourse at these games was immense. It was the convocation of all Achaians. Thucydides writes of it, in his fifth book, "as the whole assembly of united Greece." And Cicero, reprehending the silly boast of Eleus Hippias, adds, “C'uncta pæne audiente Greciâ."++ The importance of the Olym: xiv. + Nem: iii. Ib. vi. § Isth: iv. || Pyth: viii. ++ De Oratore. Solemnity may be inferred from the vastness of the Assembly. The Housvaros Banos made the greatest foreigner feel himself welcome and secure. The question naturally occurs, How could they be accommodated? If the Olympians were inclined to raise the price of lodgings and ordinaries, as York at a Musical Festival, and Newcastle at the British Association,-they had no chance. From Hiero pitching his tent there, instead of going to the principal Hotel, we may conjecture that such portable accommodations were not infrequent. The full moon, independently of the twilight of a summer night, was no mean auxiliary. Nor did this people keep house like ourselves. The climate was most serene. The noblest productions of art were exposed without fear of injury or even of weather-stains. The torchrace, sacred at the Athenian Ceramicus, might be here a common frolic: they would run from one to another until the first flambeau had kindled all, and there glared suddenly on temple and sculpture the blaze of an unnatural day. They wanted no repose, or could afford none. Chrysostom says, "The spectators in the Olympic contests sit from midnight to the following noon, that they may see to whom the crown is awarded.” * Nothing was more honourable than the prize of these victories. Justin gives the following account respecting Alexander: "Eadem die nuntium pater ejus duarum victoriarum accepit: alterius, belli Illyrici: alterius, certaminis, Olympiaci, in quod quadrigarum currus miserat."+ Chilon, the Lacedæmonian, and one of the seven wise men, author of the celebrated apothegm, Know thyself,-which he certainly then forgot,—died of exces sive joy over his son's success. Solon, being asked by Croesus, the king of Lydia, what man, of all he had ever seen, he thought most happy,—mentioned Tellus, an Athenian, who died honourably in the field of battle fighting for his country, leaving behind him virtuous children to celebrate his funeral. He was then asked, whom he placed next on the list of happiness? he answered, "two young Greeks who had been conquerors at the public games, and who peacefully expired after performing an Adversus Judæos, Vol. I. + Lib: xii. Herodotus. Clio. |