Читать книгу Greek Athletic Sports and Festivals - E. Norman Gardiner - Страница 7

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The athletic meeting was unknown to Homer: in historic times it is associated with religious festivals celebrated at definite periods at the holiest places in Greece. If the growth of the athletic festival was due to the athletic spirit of the race, its connexion with religion may be traced to those games with which the funeral of the Homeric chieftain was celebrated. Though the origin of the great festivals is overgrown with a mass of late and conflicting legends in which it is difficult to distinguish truth from fiction, there is no reason for discrediting the universal tradition of their funeral origin, confirmed as it is by survivals in the ritual of the festivals, by the testimony of the earliest athletic art, and by later custom.^[27] So we may conjecture that these games, originally celebrated at the actual funeral, tended like other funeral rites to become periodical, and as ancestor-worship developed into hero-worship became part of the cult of heroes, which seems to have preceded throughout Greece the worship of the Olympian deities. When the latter superseded the earlier heroes, they took over these games together with the sanctuaries and festivals of the older religion.

The custom of celebrating funerals with games and contests is not confined to Greece. Among the funeral scenes that decorate the walls of Etruscan tombs we see depicted chariot-races, horse-races, boxing, wrestling, and other athletic sports, together with contests of a more brutal nature.^[28] From the Etruscans the custom spread to the Romans, who borrowed from the same people their gladiatorial games, which were likewise possibly of funeral origin. Funeral games are found in Circassia, in the Caucasus, among the Khirgiz, and yet further afield in Siam and in North America.^[29] But the most instructive example for our purpose is furnished by the old Irish fairs, which lasted from pagan times down to the beginning of the last century.^[30] These fairs, founded in memory of some departed chieftain, took place at stated intervals commonly in the neighbourhood of the ancient burial-place. Thus the triennial fair of Carman, near Wexford, was instituted in fulfilment of the dying charge of Garman “as a fair of mourning to bear his name for ever.” These fairs, which lasted several days, and to which people of all classes flocked from every part of Ireland, and even from Scotland, furnished an opportunity for the transaction of a variety of business public and private. Laws were promulgated, councils and courts were held, marriages were arranged and celebrated.

There was, of course, buying and selling of every sort, but the principal business of these gatherings was the holding of sports and competitions. Of these there was an endless variety—horse-races, athletic exercises, games, pastimes, special sports for women, competitions in music, in the recitation of poems and tales. There were shows and performances by jugglers, clowns, acrobats, circus-riders, and for everything there were prizes, “for every art that was just to be sold, or rewarded or exhibited or listened to.” Like the sacred month of the Olympic festival, the time of the fairs was “one universal truce,” during which all quarrels and strife were repressed, no distraint for debt, no vengeance was allowed, and the debtor might enjoy himself with impunity. “The Gentile of the Gael,” says an old writer, “celebrated the fair of Carman without breach of law, without crime, without violence, without dishonour.” On the introduction of Christianity the Church took over the old pagan fairs; the pagan rites were abolished, each day began with a religious service, and the fair concluded with a grand religious ceremonial. In every detail the history of these fairs bears an extraordinary resemblance to that of the Greek athletic festivals.

Fig. 3. Amphiaraus Vase. Berlin, 1655.

Fig. 4. Dipylon Vase. Copenhagen.

In Greek lands there is everywhere evidence of the existence of funeral games at all periods, from the legendary games of Pelias to those celebrated at Thessalonica in the time of Valerian, or perhaps in his honour.^[31] The games of Pelias and those celebrated by Acastus in honour of his father were represented respectively on the two most famous monuments of early decorative art—the chest of Cypselus dedicated in the Heraeum at Olympia, and the throne of Apollo at Amyclae. Both works are lost, and known to us only from the descriptions of Pausanias, but the manner in which the games of Pelias were represented can be judged from the similar scene on a sixth-century vase, the Amphiaraus vase in Berlin (Fig. 3).^[32] A still earlier representation of funeral games occurs on a geometric cup from the Acropolis, possibly dating from the eighth century (Fig. 4).^[33] On one side are two naked men, with one hand holding each other by the arm, and with the other preparing to stab one another with swords, a mimic fight perhaps rather than a real one, but one which, like the Pyrrhic dance depicted on the other side, may recall more sanguinary funeral contests. On the reverse stand two boxers in the centre between a group of warriors, and a group of dancers; an armed dancer leaping off the ground to the accompaniment of a four-stringed lyre, and two others holding possibly castanets. A similar scene occurs on a silver vase from Etruria, said by Furtwängler to be of Cyprian origin; while the wide distribution of funeral games is further shown by the Clazomenae sarcophagus already described, and by a fragment of a sixth-century vase manufactured at Naucratis (Fig. 140).^[34] The games depicted on these monuments are very similar to those described in Homer. The prizes are generally tripods and bowls which stand between the combatants or at the finish of the course. The contests were not confined to athletics and chariot-races. Hesiod tells us that he was present at Chalcis at the games held in honour of Amphidamas by his sons, and himself won a tripod as a prize for a “hymn.”^[35] At Delphi, too, the only contests previous to the sixth century were musical.

Of periodical games in memory of the dead the earliest example, apart from the great festivals, is furnished by the games of Azan in Arcadia, where, according to Pausanias, the chariot-race was the oldest event.^[36] At Rhodes the festival of the Heliea seems to have originated in the funeral games of Tlepolemus.^[37] In more historical times we frequently find the memory of generals and statesmen kept alive by games founded in their honour by their countrymen, or those whom they had benefited. Miltiades was honoured by games in the Chersonese, Leonidas and Pausanias at Sparta, Brasidas at Amphipolis, Timoleon at Syracuse, Mausolus at Halicarnassus. Kings and tyrants followed the example: Alexander instituted games in honour of his friend Hephaestion. Those, too, who had fallen in war were often commemorated by their states with athletic festivals. The Pythia were reorganized by the Amphictions as a funeral contest in honour of those who fell in the first Sacred war, in memory of which the victors received crowns of bay cut in the Vale of Tempe, and the Eleutheria at Plataea were established by the victorious Greeks to commemorate those who had died in battle against the Persians. At Athens, too, a festival was held in the Academy under the direction of the polemarch in memory of those citizens who had died for their country.^[38]

The origin of funeral games is too difficult a question to be discussed here. Many explanations have been offered. Roman critics held the Etruscan combats, from which their own gladiatorial games were borrowed, to have been originally a substitute for human sacrifice; and this explanation has been suggested above in connexion with the armed fight in the games of Patroclus. This view receives some support from the occurrence of the armed fight, whether real or mimic, and of the armed Pyrrhic dance, which was certainly a mimicry of battle, on some of the monuments representing funeral games, perhaps, too, from the prominence in these games of boxing, which may be regarded as a further modification of the more brutal combats. Plutarch suggests apologetically that in early days such fights took place even at Olympia,^[39] and the lads of the Peloponnese, we are told, every year lashed themselves upon the grave of Pelops till the blood ran down. But the significance of the latter rite is doubtful. Another view connects these contests with those fights for succession with which Dr. Frazer’s Golden Bough has made us familiar. In support of this we may cite the famous chariot-race between Pelops and Oenomaus for the hand of Hippodameia, or such later myths as the wrestling match by which Zeus won from Cronus the sovereignty of heaven. Connected with the idea of succession is the credit and popularity accruing to the heirs from the magnificence of the games with which they celebrated their dead predecessor. The costly prizes offered must assuredly have caused no less pleasure to the living than to the dead. Comparatively late is the idea that the dead man somehow assisted as spectator and enjoyed the games held in his honour.^[40] In all these views there is probably some truth, the amount of which varied in different places; but whatever truth there is in any or all of them as applied to the Greeks, they afford no adequate explanation of the variety and importance of Greek funeral games unless full account be taken also of the intense love of competition and the strong athletic spirit of the race. But whatever the origin of funeral games, there can be no doubt that they adequately account for the close connexion between athletics and religion; nor is this view discredited by doubts as to the particular funeral legends which later invention attached to particular festivals.

The athletic festival required for its growth fairly settled conditions of life, and during the troubled period which intervened between the time of Nestor and the first Olympiad no progress was possible. Long before the Homeric poems were composed, love of adventure, quickened perhaps by pressure from the North, had driven the Achaeans and other kindred tribes forth from the mainland of Greece to find fresh homes in the islands and on the eastern shores of the Aegean. Other tribes, Aeolians, Ionians, Dorians, followed, and for centuries the stream of colonization flowed eastwards, carrying Greek civilization to every part of the Aegean. This civilization gathered fresh life from contact with the East. There, while Greece itself was paralyzed by wars and migrations, great cities grew and flourished, cities great not only in material prosperity but in art and literature and science. Of the history of these cities unfortunately we know nothing; we can only judge of their greatness by the results which we find in the seventh and sixth centuries when the rise of the Lydian and Persian empires first brought them into conflict with these powers. But of one thing we may be sure—the Greek settlers brought with them their love of sport. This must be a truism to all who hold that the 23rd Iliad was composed in the Eastern Aegean; it is confirmed by the many victories gained in later days at Olympia by athletes from the cities and islands of the East, and by the numerous athletic festivals existing in those parts in historical times.

Under the settled and luxurious conditions of Eastern life it is probable that the athletic festival developed at an early date,^[41] though owing to the same conditions athletics never attained in the East to the position which they occupied in the Peloponnese, and the athletic business was often secondary to the other business of the festivals. This at least is suggested by the history of the Delian festival. The antiquity of this festival is vouched for by the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. At a time when Olympia was still little more than a local gathering, the long-robed Ionians were already flocking to Apollo’s isle with their children and their wives. Even from the mainland of Greece choirs came with hymns to Apollo. We still possess a fragment of Eumelus, a Bacchiad of Corinth, said by Pausanias to have been written for the Messenian choir sent to Delos in the eighth century.^[42] “There when the games are ordered they rejoice to honour Apollo with boxing and dance and song.” The picture in the Hymn to Apollo is full of joy and grace: the fair ships drawn up by the water’s edge, the costly merchandise spread out upon the shore, the throng of long-robed men and fair-girdled women, and in the background the slopes of Mount Cynthus, halfway up which stands out the rocky archway of Apollo’s ancient shrine. A fair scene truly, and typical no doubt of many another festival where men of kindred race gathered together for sacrifice and song, for sport and traffic. But in this joyous festival of the jovial Delians we feel that athletics hold but a secondary place. For the more serious business of athletics we must go to the sterner, more strenuous festivals of the Peloponnese—above all to Olympia.

“Best of all is water and gold as a flaming fire in the night shineth eminent amid lordly wealth: but if of prizes in the games thou art fain, O my soul, to tell, then as for no bright star more quickening than the sun must thou search in the void firmament by day, so neither shall we find any games greater than the Olympic whereof to utter our voice.”^[43] The sanctity of Olympia and its festival go back to days far earlier than the coming of the Dorians, perhaps of any Greek race; but the growth of the festival dates from the time when, after the Dorian invasion, the movements of the peoples ceased and the land became settled, and its greatness is largely due to the athletic ideal and the genius for organization which characterized that race. “It is not the least of the many debts which we owe to Heracles,” says Lysias in his Panegyric, “that by instituting the Olympic games he restored peace and goodwill to a land torn asunder by war and faction and wasted by pestilence.” Pausanias uses similar language of the restoration of the games by Iphitus and Lycurgus, whose action another tradition ascribes to the advice of the Delphic oracle. But though we can hardly credit the founders of the games, whoever they were, with this far-sighted Panhellenic policy at so early a date, the tradition is founded upon facts: the first Olympiad does mark the settlement of Greece, and the festival did promote the unity of Greece. Its growth, though not its origin, was due to the Dorians.

Fig. 5. Plan of Olympia.

Olympia lies about ten miles from the sea on the northern bank of the Alpheus, at the point where its valley spreads out into a wide and fertile plain. In an angle formed by this river with its tributary the Cladeus, which rushes down from the mountains of Elis between steep banks formerly shaded with plane-trees, at the foot of the pine-clad hill of Cronus, stood the grove of wild olive-trees, brought there according to tradition by Heracles from the land of the Hyperboreans, the sacred grove from which the Altis took its name. The slopes of the neighbouring hills were covered with a variety of trees, and in the rich undergrowth of flowering shrubs the wild boar, deer, and other game found cover. It was to Scillus, only a few miles distant, that the veteran Xenophon retired to spend his old age in literature and sport. In old days the vegetation was far more luxuriant than now; besides the olive groves, the white poplars, from which alone the wood for the sacrifice to Zeus and Pelops might be cut, and even the palm-tree flourished there. The rich well-watered plain was covered with vines and crops, while its meadows afforded abundant pasturage for horses and for cattle.^[44]

To the modern traveller Olympia seems too much out of the way to be the scene of a great national gathering; even to the Greek of the fifth century it must have seemed to stand outside the busy centres of Greek life, and perhaps it was this very remoteness, combined with its ancient sanctity, that saved Olympia, like Delphi, from being the battle-ground between the rival states of Greece. But it had not been so always. The flat, rich, alluvial plains of the western Peloponnese had not formerly lagged behind the rest of Greece. The long, almost unbroken curves of sandy shore offered little harbourage for the triremes of a later day. But the earlier mariner or trader from the East who coasted around Greece had no love for deep land-locked harbours; all he wanted was a sandy shore where he could beach his ships sheltered by some convenient headland as at Triphylian Pylos, or at the open mouth of some river like the Alpheus. Hence there is no reason to doubt the traditions that connect Cretans and Phoenicians with Olympia.^[45] The coastline has advanced considerably since those days, and the small boats of these ancient mariners could advance up the river with perfect safety through the flat open plain as far as Olympia. This accessibility of Olympia by sea had yet more important consequences at a later age when the festival attracted men from the great colonies of Italy and Sicily. Olympia may even have been associated with the founding of these colonies; for the coast road round Elis and the shores of the gulf of Corinth connected it with Sicyon, Corinth, and Megara. May we not suppose that, as the colonists sailed down the gulf of Corinth, many of them would turn aside before they bade farewell to their native shores to visit the venerable grove of Olympia and consult its ancient oracle?

Again, Olympia stood full in the way of the Achaean tribes as they pressed southwards from their first settlement at Dodona. In speaking of the Achaeans we are using the word provisionally for convenience’ sake to denote the pre-Dorian Greeks of the Peloponnese as opposed to the original inhabitants and the later Dorians. In the Odyssey they have spread over the islands, over Pleuron by the sea and rocky Calydon, over Elis and Messenia. So close was the connexion between the islands and Elis, then the land of the Epeans, that the princes of Ithaca used its broad plains for breeding cattle and horses. The narrow straits offered no obstacle to this adventurous people, and for centuries before the passage of Oxylus, the one-eyed Aetolian from Naupactus, the Achaeans and others had been crossing over in larger or smaller companies till they had spread over the whole Peloponnese. Hence for the Achaeans in the Peloponnese Olympia stood in the same position as Dodona in northern Greece. The Dorians, indeed, seem to have failed in their attempt to follow in the same course; but legend connected with the return of the Heracleidae the invasion of their Aetolian allies under Oxylus, who dispossessed the Epean lords of Elis. The quarrel between these newcomers and the earlier settlers for the possession of Olympia lasted for centuries, but through all the changes of population, though many fresh cults were added by the invaders, the superstition with which all newcomers in those days regarded the gods and sanctuaries of the earlier inhabitants preserved the old cults inviolate, so that in the buildings and altars of Olympia, and the ritual of its festival, all the various strata of its history are plainly visible.

Lastly, though remote from the struggles of later history, no place in the Peloponnese was more accessible to other parts. Besides the coast-route that connected it with Messenia and the gulf of Corinth, the valleys of the Alpheus and its tributaries afforded a natural means of communication with all parts of the interior, and it was to the athletic character of the inhabitants of the Peloponnese that the athletic fame of the festival in the first place was due. Without this native talent it could never have attracted competitions from northern Greece or from the colonies of the West, nor could it ever have acquired its peculiar sanctity but for the position it had held in the earlier migrations.

It is unnecessary here to discuss the various myths which Greek imagination wove about the beginnings of Olympia, and the perplexing problems which they raise. Two propositions may be regarded as fairly established. In the first place, Olympia was a holy place before the Achaeans came to the Peloponnese. In the second place, the beginning of the games was earlier than the Dorian invasion, but later probably than the coming of the Achaeans.

The antiquity of Olympia is proved by the presence there of those elements of primitive religion which preceded the worship of the Olympian deities. The altar of Cronus on the hill top which bore his name recalled a sovereignty earlier than that of Zeus. An ancient oracle of earth preceded the oracle of Zeus. Of the worship of the powers of the underworld there is abundant evidence at Olympia, as in the rest of the Peloponnese; the priestess of Demeter Chamyne, for example, was exempted from the rule that excluded women from Olympia, and had her place of honour in the stadium opposite the seats of the Hellanodicae. In Hera, whose worship at Olympia was earlier than that of Zeus, we may probably recognize a Hellenized form of the great Mother Goddess of the Aegean world. Lastly, that Pelops claimed precedence of Zeus is clear from the fact that the athletes sacrificed to Pelops first and then to Zeus. At his tomb within the Altis, originally a barrow, only afterwards enclosed in a shrine, he was worshipped with all the ceremonial due to the dead, and every year the youths of the Peloponnese lashed themselves upon his grave till the blood ran down.^[46] Yet it does not follow that the cult of Pelops was pre-Achaean. We cannot clearly draw the line between what belonged to the Achaeans and what to the original inhabitants. There was no violent breach, but rather a gradual fusion of the races, in the course of which the Achaeans made their own much of the earlier civilization. Certainly the cult of heroes continued all through Greek history; in later days even noted athletes were canonized.

The ancient writings of the Eleans, according to Pausanias, ascribed the institution of the games to the Idaean Heracles, one of the Cretan Curetes to whom the infant Zeus was entrusted. But to Pindar and Bacchylides the games are associated with the tomb of Pelops. Pelops, as the story goes, came to Olympia as a suitor for the hand of Hippodameia, whose father Oenomaus challenged all her suitors to a chariot-race, and slew with his spear all whom he defeated. Thirteen suitors had been slain when Pelops came and, by the aid of Myrtilus, the charioteer of Oenomaus, who removed the lynch-pins from his master’s chariot wheels, slew him and won his bride and kingdom. This story, afterwards represented on the chest of Cypselus and on the pediments of the temple of Zeus, was commemorated by the earliest monuments of the Altis. Besides the tomb of Pelops himself, there was an ancient wooden pillar said to be the only remnant of the house of Oenomaus, which was struck by lightning,^[47] and also the Hippodamium, apparently a funeral mound, surrounded afterwards by a wall, where the women of Elis every year offered sacrifice.

It was at the ancient tomb of Pelops, Pindar tells us, that Heracles the son of Zeus, returning from his victory over Augeas, founded the Olympian games. There “he measured a sacred grove for the Father, and having fenced round the Altis marked the bounds thereof. There he set apart the choicest of the spoil for an offering from the war and sacrificed and ordained the fifth year feast.” “In the foot-race down the straight course was Likymnius’ son Oeonus first, from Nidea had he led his host; in the wrestling was Tegea glorified by Echemus; Doryclus won the prize of boxing, a dweller in the city of Tiryns, and with the four-horse chariot Samos of Mantinea, Halirrhothius’ son; with the javelin Phrastor hit the mark; in distance Eniceus beyond all others hurled the stone with a circling sweep, and all the warrior company thundered a great applause.”^[48]

The poet has glorified into a Peloponnesian festival what can have been no more than a local gathering in which the neighbouring chieftains took part, and the introduction of Heracles may have been an invention of the Eleans; for, according to Pausanias, it was Iphitus who first induced the Eleans, or, as he should have said, the Pisatans, to sacrifice to Heracles whom they had before regarded as their enemy. Yet there is probably some truth in the connexion of the games with Pelops’ grave, a tradition which we find also in Pindar’s great rival Bacchylides. But who was Pelops? Was he god, man, or hero? Like the oracle of Delphi when asked a similar question about Lycurgus, we may well doubt. Yet in spite of certain modern authorities, who see local gods in most of the heroes of legend, it is perhaps safer to accept the universal belief of the Greeks that he was a man, some chieftain who after his death was worshipped as a hero. Moreover, the tradition of his Phrygian origin is a strong argument against the view that he was a native pre-Achaean god of the Peloponnese, though it is by no means incompatible with his connexion with the Achaeans in view of the original kinship of the latter with the Phrygians. At all events Pelops is pre-Dorian, and the victors in these games, according to Pindar, are pre-Dorians.

The existence of the games in pre-Dorian times agrees entirely with the athletic character of the Achaeans in the Peloponnese as described in Homer; and if we find in the poet no mention of Olympia, his silence is easily explained by the simple, local character of the festival at this time. It will be remembered that in the funeral games of the north-western Peloponnese chariot-racing played a prominent part. The antiquity of this sport at Olympia is confirmed by the discovery of a number of very early votive offerings, many of them models of horses or chariots, found in a layer that extends below the foundations of the Heraeum. This temple was founded, it is said, by the people of Scillus some eight years after the coming of Oxylus; and even if we cannot go so far as Dr. Dörpfeld, who assigns it to the tenth or eleventh centuries, there is no doubt of its great antiquity, and that the Scilluntines were of an Arcadian, not a Dorian stock.

Before the building of the Heraeum we must picture Olympia as a sacred grove surrounded by a hedge interspersed with open spaces where stood the barrow of Pelops and sundry earth altars, such as the great altar of Zeus, or the six double altars at which the competitors offered sacrifice. Thither the country-folk resorted to inquire of the future from the ancient earth oracle, or perhaps, as at Dodona, from the rustling of the leaves. These oracles were interpreted by certain hereditary families, the Iamidae and Clytidae, who maintained their privileges even when Dorian influence had prevailed. Thither at set times the neighbouring tribes flocked to take part in the games held at the tomb of Pelops. The sanctuary and festival of Olympia were in the territory of the Pisatae, a tribal group of village communities possibly nine in number situated on either side of the Alpheus valley, and loosely bound together by the common worship of the hero Pelops.^[49] They took their name from the village of Pisa, perhaps on account of its nearness to Olympia.

The Pisatae were one of many such tribal groups, or amphictyonies in the Peloponnese, in parts of which this form of life continued into the fifth century or later. Such were the groups of nine cities mentioned in the catalogue of the ships in the Iliad, the nine Arcadian cities grouped round the tomb of Aepytus, the nine Pylian cities of Nestor’s kingdom, the nine Argive cities under Diomed, the nine Lacedaemonian cities under Sparta. Such, too, were the Caucones, a wandering tribe whose hero Caucon was in later times supposed to be buried near Lepreum; such were the Epeans of Elis; while the Eleans who supplanted them retained this form of government till the founding of the city-state of Elis in the fifth century. Like all such clans these leagues were intensely aristocratic: the chieftains were regarded with superstitious reverence, and the tribal centre was often the tomb of some departed hero-chief. Of cities, properly speaking, there were none in the western Peloponnese. A few strong fortresses served as residences for powerful chieftains and as refuge for their followers in danger; but most of the people lived in unwalled villages like the Scotch Highlanders. Their wealth consisted largely in horses and cattle, which they bartered with the islanders or with Cretan or Phoenician traders who landed at Pylos or sailed up the Alpheus to Olympia. In search of pasturage they ranged in winter over the lowland plains, retiring in summer to the sheltered upland valleys. The constant pressure of newcomers kept them constantly on the move, southwards and eastwards. This shifting of the tribal centres may be traced in the places that bore the name of Pylos. Settling originally in Elean Pylos, the gateway of the netherworld, these Pylians, united by some netherworld cult, were forced to move first to Triphylian Pylos, probably the Pylos of Nestor, and at a later stage to Messenian Pylos. Of their raids and cattle-lifting, their feuds and their reprisals, we have a vivid picture in the Odyssey. Such, we may suppose, was the life of the Pisatae and their neighbours, the pre-Dorian inhabitants of Elis, Triphylia, Arcadia and Messenia. The Pisatae perhaps enjoyed a position more established than the rest, thanks to the superstitious reverence which alone saved the rich valley of Olympia from attack, but under these unsettled conditions the real development of the festival was impossible, though the prestige which it had already acquired is shown in the building of the Heraeum by the Scilluntines.

The coming of the Dorians brought order into the Peloponnese, but only after a long and bitter struggle. The settling of Oxylus and his Aetolians in Elis checked the stream of migration from the north-west, and the power of the Dorians prevented further aggression from other quarters. Meanwhile such of the earlier inhabitants as clung to their independence were driven into the mountains of Arcadia and Achaea, or into Messenia. In the south-west the civilization, of which we have a glorified picture in Nestor’s kingdom, lasted perhaps till the final conquest of the country by the Spartans; in the mountains the inhabitants developed into a race of hardy mountaineers and shepherds, fond of sport and war, clinging tenaciously to their ancient customs and manner of government, but playing no part in the history of Greece save as mercenaries in the pay of more progressive states.

In the long struggle that preceded the final settlement even Olympia was involved. The Eleans—as we may call the newcomers from Aetolia—strove hard to wrest from the Pisatans the control of the sanctuary; but the latter doggedly maintained their rights, which had been recently vindicated by the building of the Heraeum, and religious feeling was on their side. Still, the prestige of the festival suffered to such an extent that the games, it is said, were neglected and forgotten. At length, weary of incessant strife and a pestilence that followed it, the contending factions, on the advice, according to one story, of the Delphic oracle, resolved to re-establish the Olympic games as a means of restoring goodwill and unity to the land. This work was ascribed to Iphitus, king of Elis, a descendant of Oxylus, to Cleosthenes, king of Pisa, and to Lycurgus of Sparta. The ordinance regulating the festival was engraved on a diskos preserved in the temple of Hera down to the time of Pausanias, on which the names of Iphitus and Lycurgus were still legible in the days of Aristotle.^[50] The antiquity of the diskos is unquestionable, but it may well be doubted if it was contemporary with the event described. More probably it dated from the seventh century, when Sparta, as we shall see, took an active part in the games. The introduction of Sparta and Lycurgus at this early date is certainly suspicious. Be this as it may, the organization of the festival by Iphitus and Cleosthenes may be regarded as the first definite historical fact in its history.

From this date the festival was held every fourth year until its abolition by the emperor Theodosius at the close of the fourth century A.D. It took place at the time of the second or third full moon after the summer solstice in the Elean months Apollonios and Parthenios, which correspond approximately to August and September. For the sacred month (ἱερομηνία) in which the festival took place, a holy truce (ἐκεχειρία) was proclaimed beforehand by the truce-bearers of Zeus (σπονδοφόροι). During this truce there was to be peace throughout the land, no one was permitted to bear arms within the sacred territory, and all competitors, embassies, and spectators travelling to Olympia were regarded as under the protection of Zeus and sacrosanct. The effect of this truce, at first purely local, spread with the growth of the festival to all the states taking part in it till the whole Greek world felt its influence. Any violation of the truce, any wrong inflicted on the pilgrims of Zeus, was punished by a heavy fine to Olympian Zeus. The Spartans at the time of the Peloponnesian war, having entered the sacred territory during the truce under arms, were condemned to pay a fine of two minae for every hoplite; on their refusal to pay they were excommunicated. Even Alexander condescended to apologize and make restitution to the Athenian Phrynon, who had been seized and robbed by some of his mercenaries on his way to Olympia.^[51]

By the truce of Iphitus the control of the festival seems to have been divided between the Eleans and Pisatans, vested probably at an early date in a joint council representing the various village communities. The council certainly existed in later days as a final court of appeal, and the fact that the earliest building under the new régime was the council-house, part of which dates from the middle of the sixth century, points to the antiquity of such a body. The dual control was recognized in the appointment of two executive officials, the Hellanodicae. The royal robes of purple worn by these officials indicate that they were originally the kings of the respective tribes. One of them, according to Elean tradition the only one, was always a descendant of Oxylus; but the official position of the Pisatae survived in later times in the priestly families of the Iamidae and Clytidae. As was to be expected, the dual control did not work smoothly. The Pisatae, mindful of their ancient rights, and jealous of the interference of the Eleans, made repeated but futile efforts to regain the sole control. But the superior might of the Eleans, supported at first at all events by the Spartans, prevailed more and more, till shortly after the Persian wars the Eleans laid waste the revolting cities of Triphylia, destroyed Pisa itself, and remained henceforth sole masters of Olympia, save for a spasmodic effort of the Pisatans and Arcadians in Ol. 104 (364 B.C.).

The view of Olympian history taken above differs considerably from the orthodox view taken from Pausanias and Strabo, and based on “the ancient writings of the Eleans.” This priestly fiction may be summarized as follows. The games originally established by Oxylus were refounded by Iphitus and Lycurgus, and were under the management of the Eleans. In Ol. 8 the Pisatans called in Pheidon, king of Argos, and with his help dispossessed the Eleans, but lost their control in the next Olympiad. In Ol. 28 Elis, being at war with Dyme, allowed the Pisatans to celebrate the games. In Ol. 34 Pantaleon, king of Pisa, celebrated the games at the head of an army. According to one account the Pisatans had control of the festival for twenty-two successive Olympiads, from the 30th to the 51st. Finally, somewhere between Ols. 48 and 52, the Eleans defeated the rebellious Pisatans, destroyed Pisa, laid waste Triphylia, and henceforth held undisputed control of Olympia with the exception of Ol. 104, which was celebrated by the Arcadians and Pisatans. In consequence this Olympiad, together with the 8th and 34th, were expunged from the register and reckoned as Anolympiads. Till Ol. 50 there was only one Hellanodicas, a descendant of Oxylus; at this date a second was appointed, and both were chosen by lot from the whole number of the Eleans.

This story is obviously a pious fraud invented by the priests of Elis to justify their usurpation by asserting a prior claim, a claim contradicted by all the evidence, and expressly denied by Xenophon.^[52] For the same reason the part played by Cleosthenes in the truce of Iphitus is omitted by Pausanias, though fortunately preserved in another account. It is only possible to point out briefly some of the inconsistencies and absurdities in the priestly story. Elis is represented throughout as in control of Olympia, which is situated outside its boundaries in Pisatis, an independent state with a king of its own, and this independent state is represented as continually trying to usurp what is its own. The story of the Anolympiads is discredited by the fact that in the Olympic register, a document of at least equal value, these Olympiads were reckoned and the names of the victors were given. The part played by Pheidon is involved in all the obscurity that surrounds that most tantalizing character, but that the great tyrant, whenever he lived, did try to increase his prestige by seizing control of the Olympia, is rendered probable by the connexion of similar tyrants with Olympia and the other festivals. The story of the addition of the second Hellanodicas in Ol. 50, at the very time when Pisa is said to have been destroyed, is a manifest absurdity. The two Hellanodicai represent a dual monarchy, and a dual monarchy represents a union of races. Assuming, what is now generally admitted, the pre-Dorian origin of the festival, the original Hellanodicas must have been a Pisatan, the second must have been added when Elis secured a share in the government. Moreover, the selection of the two officials by lot, a thoroughly democratic institution, is unthinkable in Elis, at that time an oligarchy of oligarchies, though it may well have been introduced when the democrats of Elis obtained the mastery. Lastly, the date of the final destruction of Pisa, about which Pausanias is obviously confused, is contradicted by the direct statement of Herodotus, who speaks of the war in which it took place as “in my days” (ἐπ’ ἐμέο).^[53] The earlier date has been supported by reference to a sixth-century inscription at Olympia recording a treaty for mutual defence between Elis and Heraea, by the terms of which either party failing to help the other is liable in case of need to a fine of a talent of silver to Olympian Zeus.^[54] Too much, perhaps, has been made of this inscription, which is probably one of many such local treaties, the record of which has perished. Moreover, it seems highly probable that Heraea, so far from being opposed to Pisa, was a member of the early Pisatan league. The original claims of Pisa are admitted by all modern historians; all further difficulties vanish on the supposition of a subsequent dual control, in which Elis gradually became the predominant partner until, in the fifth century, she ousted Pisa completely.

The regulations for competitors may be traced back to the earliest times. No one in later days was allowed to compete who was not of pure Greek parentage on both sides, or who had neglected to pay any penalty incurred to Olympian Zeus, or who had incurred ceremonial pollution by manslaughter, committed, we may suppose, in the sacred territory. These restrictions had their origin in a religious festival that formed a bond of union between neighbouring communities, which was gradually extended through the sacred truce-bearers till it embraced the whole Greek race. That this local or tribal exclusiveness grew into a Panhellenic exclusiveness, was due partly to the influence of the Dorians, partly to the close connexion of the colonies with Olympia. In the fifth century Alexander, the son of Amyntas, was not allowed to compete at Olympia until he had first satisfied the Hellanodicae that he was of Greek descent.

Similarly, the exclusion of women from Olympia was doubtless due to some religious taboo rather than to any sense of modesty or decorum. Such a feeling cannot have existed in these times. Certainly the Ionian women attended the festival of Delos, and Spartan girls took part in all athletic exercises with the boys. Pausanias in one passage tells us that the restriction did not extend to unmarried girls, but the truth of his statement is at least doubtful. We never hear of any unmarried women being present at the festival, and Olympia can have afforded little or no accommodation for them. The only certain exception is in the case of the priestess of Demeter, Chamyne, an exception that is quite consistent with the idea of an ancient taboo. Otherwise no woman was allowed to cross the Alpheus during a stated number of days. The penalty for so doing was death, the transgressor being thrown from the Typaean rock. Only one instance is recorded of this rule being broken. Pherenice, a member of the famous family of the Diagoridae, in her anxiety to see her son Peisirodus compete in the boys’ boxing, accompanied him to Olympia disguised as a trainer. In her delight at his victory she leapt over the barrier and so disclosed her sex. The Hellanodicae, however, pardoned her in consideration for her father and brothers and son, all of them Olympic victors, but they passed a decree that henceforth all trainers should appear naked.^[55]

Yet, though personally excluded from the games, women were allowed to enter their horses for the chariot-race, and even to set up statues for their victories. They had also their own festival at Olympia, the Heraea.^[56] Every four years a peplos was woven for Hera by sixteen women of Elis, and presented to the goddess. At the festival there were races for maidens of various ages. Their course was 500 feet, or one-sixth less than the men’s stadium. The maidens ran with their hair down their backs, a short tunic reaching just below the knee, and their right shoulder bare to the breast. The victors received crowns of olive and a share of the heifer sacrificed to Hera. They had, too, the right of setting up their statues in the Heraeum. There is in the Vatican a copy of a fifth-century statue of one of these girl victors, represented just as Pausanias describes them (Fig. 6). She seems to be just on the point of starting. Unfortunately the arms of the statue are restored, and we cannot feel certain of the motive. The Heraea were said to have been instituted by Hippodameia in gratitude for her marriage with Pelops. Of their real origin and history we are unfortunately ignorant. According to Curtius the Heraea were the prototype of the Olympia, and races for maidens were earlier than those for men, but this is most improbable. The weaving of the peplos reminds us, of course, of the similar ceremony at the Panathenaea, while the races for maidens suggest Dorian influence. Certainly we can hardly make the Dorians responsible for the exclusion of women from Olympia, which may be safely referred to the earlier non-Greek race.