Hiero sent horses to Olympia, to run for the prize, and caused a magnificent pavilion to be erected for them.[149] Upon this occasion Themistocles harangued the Greeks, to persuade them to pull down the tyrant's pavilion, who had refused his aid against the common enemy, and to hinder his horses from running with the rest. It does not appear that any regard was had to this remonstrance; for we find, by one of Pindar's odes, composed in honour of Hiero, that he won the prize in the equestrian races.
No one ever carried the ambition of making a great figure [pg lxviii] in the public games of Greece so far as Alcibiades,[150] in which he distinguished himself in the most splendid manner, by the great number of horses and chariots which he kept only for the races. There never was either private person or king that sent, as he did, seven chariots at once to the Olympic games, wherein he carried the first, second, and third prizes; an honour no one ever had before him. The famous poet Euripides celebrated these victories in an ode, of which Plutarch has preserved a fragment. The victor, after having made a sumptuous sacrifice to Jupiter, gave a magnificent feast to the innumerable multitude of spectators at the games. It is not easy to comprehend, how the wealth of a private person should suffice for so enormous an expense: but Antisthenes, the scholar of Socrates, who relates what he saw, informs us, that many cities of the allies, in emulation of each other, supplied Alcibiades with all things necessary for the support of such incredible magnificence; equipages, horses, tents, sacrifices, the most exquisite provisions, the most delicate wines; in a word, all that was necessary to the support of his table or train. The passage is remarkable; for the same author assures us, that this was not only done when Alcibiades went to the Olympic games, but in all his military expeditions and journeys by land or sea. “Wherever,” says he, “Alcibiades travelled, he made use of four of the allied cities as his servants. Ephesus furnished him with tents, as magnificent as those of the Persians; Chios took care to provide for his horses; Cyzicum supplied him with sacrifices, and provisions for his table; and Lesbos gave him wine, with whatever else was requisite for his house.”
I must not omit, in speaking of the Olympic games, that the ladies were admitted to dispute the prize in them as well as the men; and that many of them obtained it. Cynisca, sister of Agesilaus, king of Sparta, first opened this new path of glory to her sex, and was proclaimed conqueror in the race of chariots with four horses.[151] This victory, of which till then there had been no example, did not fail of being celebrated with all possible splendour.[152] A magnificent monument was erected at Sparta in honour of Cynisca;[153] and the Lacedæmonians, though otherwise very little sensible to the charms of poetry, appointed a poet to transmit this new triumph to posterity, and to immortalize its memory by an inscription in verse. She herself dedicated a chariot of brass, drawn by four horses, in [pg lxix] the temple of Delphi;[154] in which the charioteer was also represented; a certain proof that she did not drive it herself. In process of time, the picture of Cynisca, drawn by the famous Apelles, was annexed to it, and the whole adorned with many inscriptions in honour of that Spartan heroine.[155]
Of the honours and rewards granted to the victors.
These honours and rewards were of several kinds. The acclamations of the spectators in honour of the victors were only a prelude to the prizes designed them. These prizes were different wreaths of wild olive, pine, parsley, or laurel, according to the different places where the games were celebrated. Those crowns were always attended with branches of palm, that the victors carried in their right hands; which custom, according to Plutarch,[156] arose (perhaps) from a property of the palm-tree, which displays new vigour the more endeavours are used to crush or bend it, and is a symbol of the courage and resistance of the champion who had obtained the prize. As he might be victor more than once in the same games, and sometimes on the same day, he might also receive several crowns and palms.
When the victor had received the crown and palm, a herald, preceded by a trumpet, conducted him through the Stadium, and proclaimed aloud the name and country of the successful champion, who passed in that kind of review before the people, whilst they redoubled their acclamations and applauses at the sight of him.
When he returned to his own country, the people came out in a body to meet him, and conducted him into the city, adorned with all the marks of his victory, and riding upon a chariot drawn by four horses. He made his entry not through the gates, but through a breach purposely made in the walls. Lighted torches were carried before him, and a numerous train followed to do honour to the procession.
The athletic triumph almost always concluded with feasts made for the victors, their relations, and friends, either at the expense of the public, or by private individuals, who regaled not only their families and friends, but often a great part of the spectators. Alcibiades,[157] after having sacrificed to the Olympian Jupiter, which was always the first care of the victor, treated the whole assembly. Leophron did the same, as Athenæus [pg lxx] reports;[158] who adds, that Empedocles of Agrigentum, having conquered in the same games, and not having it in his power, being a Pythagorean, to regale the people with flesh or fish, caused an ox to be made of a paste, composed of myrrh, incense, and all sorts of spices, of which pieces were given to all who were present.
One of the most honourable privileges granted to the Athletic victors, was the right of precedency at the public games. At Sparta it was a custom for the king to take them with him in military expeditions, to fight near his person, and to be his guard; which, with reason, was judged very honourable. Another privilege, in which advantage was united with honour, was that of being maintained for the rest of their lives at the expense of their country. That this expense might not become too chargeable to the state, Solon[159] reduced the pension of a victor in the Olympic games to five hundred drachmas;[160] in the Isthmian to a hundred;[161] and in the rest in proportion. The victor and his country considered this pension, less as a relief of the champion's indigence, than as a mark of honour and distinction. They were also exempted from all civil offices and employments.
The celebration of the games being over, one of the first cares of the magistrates, who presided in them, was to inscribe, in the public register, the name and country of the Athletæ who had carried the prizes, and to annex the species of combat in which they had been victorious. The chariot-race had the preference to all other games. Hence the historians, who date occurrences by the Olympiads, as Thucydides, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Diodorus Siculus, and Pausanias, almost always express the Olympiad by the name and country of the victors in that race.