Читать книгу Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art - Walter Woodburn Hyde - Страница 10

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By the beginning of the sixth century B.C. the athletic spirit displayed in the Homeric poems had given rise to the four national festivals—at Olympia, Delphi, Nemea, and on the Isthmus. On these four, many lesser games were modeled.77 The origin of all these, as we have already remarked, is lost in a mass of legend. The myths of the origin of Olympia are particularly conflicting. We are practically certain, however, that Olympia as a sanctuary preceded the advent of the Achæans into the Peloponnesus, and that the foundation of the games preceded the coming of the Dorians, but was probably later than that of the Achæans. The importance of the games dates from the time after the Dorian invasion of the Peloponnesus, when the warring peoples finally became pacified.78 For centuries Olympia was overshadowed by Delphi and the Ionian festival on Delos. The importance of the latter festival in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. is shown by the Homeric Hymn to the Delian Apollo. Only by the beginning of the seventh century had Olympia begun to gain its prestige. The pre-Dorian Pisatai, in whose territory the sanctuary was situated, probably controlled it early. The Dorian allies, the Eleans, whom legend had King Oxylos lead into the Peloponnesus from Aitolia,79 tried to wrest this control from the Pisatai, who, however, aided by religious reverence for the sanctuary, were able to maintain their rights. On account of the conflict the games languished, until finally a truce was made by the two factions and the games were re-established under their common management. This work was ascribed to Iphitos and Kleosthenes, kings respectively of Elis and Pisa, and to Lykourgos of Sparta.80 The dual control was not successful, as the jealous Pisatai constantly tried to regain their old honor; but the Eleans, supported by the Spartans, prevailed and finally, after the Persian wars, destroyed Pisa and the other revolting cities of Triphylia and henceforth remained in sole control. The restoration of the games under Iphitos and his colleagues took place in 776 B.C., from which date the festival was celebrated every fourth year, until it was finally abolished by the Roman emperor Theodosius at the end of the fourth century A.D. In 776 Koroibos of Elis won the foot-race and this was the first dated Olympiad in the Olympian register,81 and from it, as Pausanias says,82 the unbroken tradition of the Olympiads began. This history of Olympia is very different from the orthodox mythical story told by Pausanias and Strabo and based on the “ancient writings of the Eleans.”83 According to it the games were originally instituted by the Eleans under Oxylos and refounded by Iphitos, his descendant, together with Lykourgos, still under the management of the Eleans. In Ol. 8 the Pisatans invoked the aid of the Argive king Pheidon and dispossessed the Eleans, but they lost the control of Olympia in the next Olympiad. In Ol. 28 Elis, during a war with Dyme, allowed the Pisatans to celebrate the games. Six Olympiads later the king of Pisa came to Olympia with an army and took charge. The story leaves the Pisatans in control from about Olympiads 30 to 51, but some time between Ols. 48 and 52 the Eleans defeated Pisa and destroyed it, and henceforth controlled the games. Such a story was manifestly a contrivance by the later priests of Elis to justify their control of the games through a prior claim. It is contradicted by all the evidence.84 The antiquity of Olympia is known to us from the results of excavations and from its religious history. The latest excavations on the site have disclosed the remains of six prehistoric buildings with apsidal endings, below the geometric stratum, upon the site of what used to be considered the remnants of the great altar of Zeus.85 Such an inference is borne out by many primitive features in the religious history of the sanctuary. The altar of Kronos on the hill to the north of the Altis was earlier than that of Zeus; an earth altar antedated that of Zeus, while a survival of the earlier worship of the powers of the underworld is seen in the custom, lasting through later centuries, of allowing only one woman, the priestess of Demeter Chamyne, to witness the games. We also know that the worship of the Pelasgian Hera antedated that of the Hellenic Zeus; her temple, the Heraion, is the most ancient of which the foundations still stand, a temple built of stone, wood, and sun-dried bricks, whose origin is to be referred to the tenth, if not to the eleventh, century B.C.86 We have already remarked that the worship of the hero Pelops preceded that of the god Zeus.87 All such indications attest the high antiquity of Olympia. That it is not mentioned in Homer, while Delphi and Dodona are, only proves that in the poet’s time it was still merely a local shrine. Not until the beginning of the sixth century B.C. did it attain the distinction, which it retained ever afterwards, of being the foremost national festival of Hellas.88

The periodical celebration of the three other national festivals was not dated—except in legend—before the early years of the sixth century B.C., though local festivals must have existed also on these sites long before.89 The old music festival at Delphi, which finally was held every eight years,90 was changed in 586 B.C., in consequence of the Sacred War,91 into a Panhellenic festival celebrated thereafter every four years (pentaëteris). It was under the presidency of the Amphiktyonic League, which introduced athletic and equestrian events copied from those at Olympia92 and replaced the older money prizes with the simple bay wreath. About the same time the Nemean and Isthmian games were instituted. The local games at Nemea, said to have been founded by Adrastos in honor of a child, were reorganized some time before 573 B.C., the first Nemead.93 Thereafter they were celebrated every two years, in the second and fourth of the corresponding Olympiads.94 They were administered in honor of Zeus by the small town of Kleonai under Argive influence. The games were transferred to Argos some time between 460 B.C. and the close of the third century B.C. Centuries later, Hadrian revived the prestige of the games at Argos. The games held on the Isthmus also originated as an old local festival, which was revived in 586 or 582 B.C. We are not sure whether they were refounded in Poseidon’s honor by Periandros or after the death of Psammetichos in commemoration of the ending of the tyranny at Corinth. The geographical location of Corinth, the meeting-place of East and West, involved it in many wars, and therefore the Isthmian games never attained the prestige of the other national festivals; they were held every two years in the spring of the second and fourth years of the corresponding Olympiads and were administered by Corinth.95

Besides the four national games, many Greek cities had purely local ones, some of which originated in prehistoric days in honor of hero cults, while others were founded at historical dates. Athens was particularly favored in having many such local festivals. The most important of these were the Panathenaic games in honor of Athena, which developed from earlier annual Athenaia or Panathenaia. The festival was remodeled, or perhaps founded, just before Peisistratos seized the tyranny (561–560 B.C.), possibly by Solon, who died 560–559 B.C. The name certainly points to the unity of Athens promoted by Solon, if not to the earlier unification of the village communities of Attika ascribed to Theseus. In any case, under Peisistratos it became something more than a local festival, as the recitation of Homer became a feature of it. Following the games at Delphi and Olympia, the Great Panathenaia were held every four years (the third year of each Olympiad) in the month of Hekatombaion (July), while the more ancient annual festival continued yearly under the name of the Little Panathenaia. There were musical, literary, and athletic contests. The central feature of the festival was the procession which ascended from the lower city to the Parthenon on the Akropolis to offer the goddess a robe woven by noble Athenian maidens and matrons.96 This procession is known to us in detail from the great Parthenon frieze. The Theseia exemplify a festival whose origin can be definitely dated. Kimon, the son of the hero of Marathon, in 469 B.C., discovered the supposed bones of the national hero Theseus on the island of Skyros. The Delphic oracle counseled the Athenians to place them in an honorable resting-place. Perhaps there was a legend that the hero was buried on Skyros; in any case a grave was found there which contained the corpse of a warrior of great size, and this was brought back to Athens as the actual remains of Theseus. Thereafter an annual festival was celebrated by the Athenian epheboi, comprising military contests and athletic events—stade, dolichos, and diaulos running races, wrestling, boxing, pankration, hoplite running, etc. It began on the sixth of Pyanepsion (October), and was followed by the Epitaphia, a funeral festival in honor of national heroes and youths who had fallen fighting for Athens.97 Athletic games were held at the Herakleia in honor of Herakles at Marathon in the month of Metageitnion, and had attained great popularity by the time of Pindar.98 The Eleusinia, in honor of Demeter, took place annually in Athens in the month of Boëdromion, when horse-races and musical and other contests were held. This Attic festival claimed a greater antiquity even than Olympia. The great national festivals encouraged these smaller local ones, so that they attracted competitors from the whole Greek world.