Olympian and Pythian Odes

true that abundant honor awaited the victor at home, special seats at festivals, free table in the prytaneion town hall, and other immunities and privileges, but the honor was the main thing, and though it was not dearly bought,—for the two great historians, Herodotos and Thukydides, unlike in so many things, never forget to mention the agonistic pertaining to athletic contests achievements of the characters that cross their pages,—though the honor was not dearly bought, it was bought not only with toil, but with money, whether in training for the contest, or in outlay for horse and chariot, or in the celebration of the victory.

Greek games and Oriental.

Early noted, early emphasized, was another difference between Greek games and Oriental. The human form, as something sacred in its perfection, was displayed in all its beauty and strength to the eye of day, as to the eye of the god. The Oriental games bore the mark of their bloody origin in self-mutilation. Under Dorian influence, even the Ionian dropped his trailing robes and brought a living sacrifice to his deity, the fresh bloom of young manhood, the rich efflorescence of the gifts of fortune.

Olympian games.

Of these festivals the greatest was the Olympian, "the sun in the void ether," that makes the lesser lights pale into nothingness, the fire that shines in the blackness of night, and makes night look blacker by its brilliancy. The establishment of it, or the re-establishment of it, marks the union of the Doric island of Pelops, and it speedily rose to national importance. The first recorded victory is that of Koroibos (winner of the stadium race), 776 B.C. The Olympian games were celebrated at the end of every four years, beginning, according to the older view, with the first full moon following the first new moon after the summer solstice, according to the recent investigations of Unger, with the second full moon after the same.

Pythian, Nemean, Isthmian.

The Pythian festival, celebrated in the third year of each Olympiad, was revived and put on a firmer footing in 586 B.C., and the establishment or revival of the Nemean is assigned to 573 B.C., of the Isthmian to 582 B.C., and it is no mere coincidence that the rise of this