The Historians' History of the World 03

From very early times, it had been customary among the Greeks to hold numerous meetings for purposes of festivity and social amusement. A foot-race, a wrestling match, or some other rude trial of bodily strength and activity, formed originally the principal entertainment, which seems to have been very similar in character to our country wakes. The almost ceaseless warfare among the little Grecian states gave especial value to military exercises, which were accordingly ordinary in those games. The connection of these games with the warlike character may have occasioned their introduction at funerals in honour of the dead; a custom which, we learn from Homer, was in his time ancient. But all the violence of the early ages was unable to repress that elegance of imagination which seems congenial to Greece. Very anciently a contention for a prize in poetry and music was a favourite entertainment of the Grecian people; and when connected, as it often was, with some ceremony of religion, drew together large assemblies of both sexes. A festival of this kind in the little island of Delos, at which Homer assisted, brought a numerous concourse from different parts by sea: and Hesiod informs us of a splendid meeting for the celebration of various games at Chalcis in Eubœa, where himself obtained the prize for poetry and song. The contest in music and poetry seems early to have been particularly connected with the worship of Apollo. When this was carried from the islands of the Ægean to Delphi, a prize for poetry was instituted; and thence appear to have arisen the Pythian games. But Homer shows that games, in which athletic exercises and music and dancing were alternately introduced, made a common amusement of the courts of princes; and before his time the manner of conducting them was so far reduced to a system that public judges of the games were of the established magistracy. Thus improved, the games greatly resembled the tilts and tournaments of the ages of chivalry. Only men of high rank presumed to engage in them; but a large concourse of all orders attended as spectators; and to keep regularity among these was perhaps the most necessary office of the judges. But the most solemn meetings, drawing together people of distinguished rank and character, often from distant parts, were at the funerals of eminent men. The paramount sovereigns of the Peloponnesus did not disdain to attend these, which were celebrated with every circumstance of magnificence and splendour that the age could afford. The funeral of Patroclus, described in the Iliad, may be considered as an example of what the poet could imagine in its kind most complete. The games, in which prizes were there contended for, were the chariot-race, the foot-race, boxing, wrestling, throwing the quoit and the javelin, shooting with the bow, and fencing with the spear. And in times when none could be rich or powerful but the strong and active, the expert at martial exercises, all those trials of skill appear to have been esteemed equally becoming men of the highest rank; though it may seem, from the prizes offered and the persons contending at the funeral of Patroclus, the poet himself saw, in the game of the cestus, some incongruity with exalted characters.

[ca. 884 B.C.]

Traditions are preserved of games celebrated in Elis, upon several great occasions, in very early times, with more than ordinary pomp, by assemblies of chiefs from different parts of Greece. Homer mentions such at Elis under King Augeas, contemporary with Hercules, and grandfather of one of the chiefs who commanded the Elean troops in the Trojan War; and again at Buprasium in Elis, for the funeral of Amarynceus, while Nestor was yet in the vigour of youth. But it does not at all appear from Homer that in his time, or ever before him, any periodical festival was established like that which afterward became so famous under the title of the Olympiad or the Olympian contest, or, as our writers, translating the Latin phrase, have commonly termed it, the Olympian Games. On the contrary, every mention of such games, in his extant works, shows them to have been only occasional solemnities; and Strabo has remarked that they were distinguished by a characteristical difference from the Olympian. In these the honour derived from receiving publicly a crown or chaplet, formed of a branch of oleaster, was the only reward of the victor; but in Homer’s games the prizes, not merely honorary, were intrinsically valuable, and the value was often very considerable.

After Homer’s age, through the long troubles ensuing from the Dorian conquest, and the great change made in the population of the country, the customs and institutions of the Peloponnesians were so altered that even memory of the ancient games was nearly lost.

THE OLYMPIAN GAMES