came into being. Simonides, thirty-four years older than Pindar, was the first composer whose odes of victory became celebrated. The Olym The first difficulty for moderns, when they try to appreciate the work achieved by Pindar in this field; is that of conceiving the ancient festivals themselves which called forth these odes. What was the meaning of a victory in the games at Olympia, Delphi, Nemea, or the Isthmus? What kind of feelings did it evoke? Perhaps it would be hardly possible for us moderns to imagine these things adequately, even if we knew more than we do. The best resource is to make certain leading points clear to ourselves, and then combine them, as well as we can, in a mental picture. Taking the Olympian festival, then, as pian festival. the greatest, we may say, first of all, that the spectacle was one of extraordinary brilliancy. The "altis," or sacred precinct, of Olympia, richly adorned with the most splendid works of art, was a focus of Panhellenic religion. In the midst of it was the ancient altar of Zeus, representing the earliest Hellenic phase of the sanctuary, when the worship of Zeus was combined with the cult of the hero Pelops. This was the altar at which the Iamidae, the hereditary soothsayers, practised their rites of divination by fire, in virtue of which Olympia is saluted by Pindar as "mistress of truth." A little to the west of this was the Pelopion, a small precinct in which sacrifices had been offered to Pelops from the time when THE OLYMPIAN ALTIS 129 South of the Pelopion Achaeans founded Pisa. stood the temple of Zeus. The easternmost portion of this temple was open to the public; the middle portion was probably the place where the wreaths were presented to the victors; the westernmost contained the image of Olympian Zeus, forty feet high, wrought in ivory and gold by Pheidias, and inspired by these words of Homer: "The son of Cronus spake, and nodded his dark brow, and the ambrosial locks waved from the king's immortal head, and he shook great Olympus." Externally this temple was richly adorned with sculpture. The east front exhibited twentyone colossal figures by Paeonius, a group representing the moment before the chariot-race between Oenomaus and Pelops. The west front showed the fight of the Lapithae and the Centaurs. On the metopes were depicted the twelve labors of Heracles. Other temples within the altis were those of Hera and the Mother of the Gods. There was also a large number of votive edifices, including the twelve treasure-houses, having the character of small Doric temples, erected by twelve Greek states in honor of the Olympian Zeus. Olympia was not merely a sanctuary, but also the political centre of a league, a sacred city; and therefore the sacred precinct included a town hall and an agora, while outside of it were a council hall, a gymnasium, and other buildings. On the east of the altis was the stadion, an ob long enclosure used for the foot-races, as well as for the contests in boxing, wrestling, leaping, quoitthrowing, and javelin-throwing. It is computed that upwards of 40,000 spectators could have seen these contests from the neighboring slopes. The hippodrome, for chariot-races and horse-races, extended south and south-east of the stadion. The valley of the Alpheus is itself of great beauty. Looking eastward, one sees the snow-crowned ranges of Erymanthus and Cyllene in Arcadia. Imagine what it must have been when all those treasures of art, from which the Hermes of Praxiteles and the winged Victory of Paeonius are mere waifs and strays, were seen in the warm sunlight of September! One can understand the orator Lysias calling Olympia the "fairest place in Greece." At this festival, all parts of Hellas from the furthest settlement in the western Mediterranean to the colonies of Asia Minor, the Euxine, or Libya—were represented by their foremost men, - the foremost in athletic prowess, the foremost in poetry, music, eloquence, the foremost in wealth and power. To enter for the chariot-race was a costly ambition: a rich man who did so was considered as reflecting honor on his city; and a Sicilian prince such as Hieron or Theron welcomed the opportunity, not only for the sake of displaying his resources, but also as a means to popularity. Finally, the whole festival was profoundly pene. trated by religious feeling, which gave it solemnity THE OLYMPIAN FESTIVAL 131 without overclouding its free joyousness. The gods, Zeus above all, and the heroes, especially Heracles and Pelops, were present amidst their worshipers, glorious in the creations of art, and were felt as watching, inspiring, and rewarding the competitors. There is therefore nothing in modern life that can properly be compared with a victory at Olympia. The modern horse-race or boat-race may attract vast crowds, and may even assume the importance of a public holiday; but the Olympian gathering was not merely that: it was also a religious celebration. There is a still further difference. The glory of the modern racewinner or athlete is brief; it lives in the memory of a few, but not with the public. The Olympian victor, however, was a distinguished man from that moment to the end of his days. He had shed lustre on his native city, and was sure of such honors as it could bestow. His name was recorded at Olympia. Go where he might throughout Hellas, the title which he had won (ovulovíkηs) sufficed to procure him a more than respectful welcome. This permanent renown had its counterpart in the permanent value attached to odes of victory like Pindar's. Such an ode was indeed an occasional poem, in the sense that it was written to celebrate a particular event; but it was not ephemeral. An epinikion by Pindar was an abiding monument, an heirloom for the victor, his family, and his city. Thus the ode in which Pindar celebrated the victory of the Rhodian Diagoras is said to have been copied in letters of gold, and deposited in the temple of Athena at Lindus in Rhodes. The anxiety of the foremost men in Hellas to obtain such a memorial can easily be understood, even though they may not have believed the poet's true prophecy, that his tribute, besides travelling further, would live longer than the marble of the sculptor. Characteris dar's poetry. Splendor. An ode of Pindar is composed of various elements which are nowhere else so blended tics of Pin- in literature, and which in the actual life of Hellas were nowhere so vividly brought together as at Olympia. First of these elements is splendor, - a reflex in Pindar's opulent and brilliant language of the material splendor which Olympia could show in so many forms, the marble of temples and statues, the brilliant colors which everywhere met the eye when embassies from the courts of Greek princes in Africa or Sicily were present in the altis, and when every city in Hellas that appeared at all was anxious to add something of magnificence to the scene; the splendor of athletic beauty in men and youths, perfectly developed by long months of training; the splendor of rushing movement when chariots swept round the hippodrome, and when speed of foot or disciplined strength was tested in the stadion; the splendor of choral music, and of stately ritual at the altars; the splendor of nature around and above, whether sunshine was lighting up the altis and shining on the |