Greek Athletic Sports and Festivals

by E. Norman Gardiner

The poet has glorified into a Peloponnesian festival what can have been no more than a local gathering in which the neighbouring chieftains took part, and the introduction of Heracles may have been an invention of the Eleans; for, according to Pausanias, it was Iphitus who first induced the Eleans, or, as he should have said, the Pisatans, to sacrifice to Heracles whom they had before regarded as their enemy. Yet there is probably some truth in the connexion of the games with Pelops’ grave, a tradition which we find also in Pindar’s great rival Bacchylides. But who was Pelops? Was he god, man, or hero? Like the oracle of Delphi when asked a similar question about Lycurgus, we may well doubt. Yet in spite of certain modern authorities, who see local gods in most of the heroes of legend, it is perhaps safer to accept the universal belief of the Greeks that he was a man, some chieftain who after his death was worshipped as a hero. Moreover, the tradition of his Phrygian origin is a strong argument against the view that he was a native pre-Achaean god of the Peloponnese, though it is by no means incompatible with his connexion with the Achaeans in view of the original kinship of the latter with the Phrygians. At all events Pelops is pre-Dorian, and the victors in these games, according to Pindar, are pre-Dorians.

The existence of the games in pre-Dorian times agrees entirely with the athletic character of the Achaeans in the Peloponnese as described in Homer; and if we find in the poet no mention of Olympia, his silence is easily explained by the simple, local character of the festival at this time. It will be remembered that in the funeral games of the north-western Peloponnese chariot-racing played a prominent part. The antiquity of this sport at Olympia is confirmed by the discovery of a number of very early votive offerings, many of them models of horses or chariots, found in a layer that extends below the foundations of the Heraeum. This temple was founded, it is said, by the people of Scillus some eight years after the coming of Oxylus; and even if we cannot go so far as Dr. Dörpfeld, who assigns it to the tenth or eleventh centuries, there is no doubt of its great antiquity, and that the Scilluntines were of an Arcadian, not a Dorian stock.

Before the building of the Heraeum we must picture Olympia as a sacred grove surrounded by a hedge interspersed with open spaces where stood the barrow of Pelops and sundry earth altars, such as the great altar of Zeus, or the six double altars at which the competitors offered sacrifice. Thither the country-folk resorted to inquire of the future from the ancient earth oracle, or perhaps, as at Dodona, from the rustling of the leaves. These oracles were interpreted by certain hereditary families, the Iamidae and Clytidae, who maintained their privileges even when Dorian influence had prevailed. Thither at set times the neighbouring tribes flocked to take part in the games held at the tomb of Pelops. The sanctuary and festival of Olympia were in the territory of the Pisatae, a tribal group of village communities possibly nine in number situated on either side of the Alpheus valley, and loosely bound together by the common worship of the hero Pelops.[^[49]] They took their name from the village of Pisa, perhaps on account of its nearness to Olympia.

The Pisatae were one of many such tribal groups, or amphictyonies in the Peloponnese, in parts of which this form of life continued into the fifth century or later. Such were the groups of nine cities mentioned in the catalogue of the ships in the Iliad, the nine Arcadian cities grouped round the tomb of Aepytus, the nine Pylian cities of Nestor’s kingdom, the nine Argive cities under Diomed, the nine Lacedaemonian cities under Sparta. Such, too, were the Caucones, a wandering tribe whose hero Caucon was in later times supposed to be buried near Lepreum; such were the Epeans of Elis; while the Eleans who supplanted them retained this form of government till the founding of the city-state of Elis in the fifth century. Like all such clans these leagues were intensely aristocratic: the chieftains were regarded with superstitious reverence, and the tribal centre was often the tomb of some departed hero-chief. Of cities, properly speaking, there were none in the western Peloponnese. A few strong fortresses served as residences for powerful chieftains and as refuge for their followers in danger; but most of the people lived in unwalled villages like the Scotch Highlanders. Their wealth consisted largely in horses and cattle, which they bartered with the islanders or with Cretan or Phoenician traders who landed at Pylos or sailed up the Alpheus to Olympia. In search of pasturage they ranged in winter over the lowland plains, retiring in summer to the sheltered upland valleys. The constant pressure of newcomers kept them constantly on the move, southwards and eastwards. This shifting of the tribal centres may be traced in the places that bore the name of Pylos. Settling originally in Elean Pylos, the gateway of the netherworld, these Pylians, united by some netherworld cult, were forced to move first to Triphylian Pylos, probably the Pylos of Nestor, and at a later stage to Messenian Pylos. Of their raids and cattle-lifting, their feuds and their reprisals, we have a vivid picture in the Odyssey. Such, we may suppose, was the life of the Pisatae and their neighbours, the pre-Dorian inhabitants of Elis, Triphylia, Arcadia and Messenia. The Pisatae perhaps enjoyed a position more established than the rest, thanks to the superstitious reverence which alone saved the rich valley of Olympia from attack, but under these unsettled conditions the real development of the festival was impossible, though the prestige which it had already acquired is shown in the building of the Heraeum by the Scilluntines.

The coming of the Dorians brought order into the Peloponnese, but only after a long and bitter struggle. The settling of Oxylus and his Aetolians in Elis checked the stream of migration from the north-west, and the power of the Dorians prevented further aggression from other quarters. Meanwhile such of the earlier inhabitants as clung to their independence were driven into the mountains of Arcadia and Achaea, or into Messenia. In the south-west the civilization, of which we have a glorified picture in Nestor’s kingdom, lasted perhaps till the final conquest of the country by the Spartans; in the mountains the inhabitants developed into a race of hardy mountaineers and shepherds, fond of sport and war, clinging tenaciously to their ancient customs and manner of government, but playing no part in the history of Greece save as mercenaries in the pay of more progressive states.

In the long struggle that preceded the final settlement even Olympia was involved. The Eleans—as we may call the newcomers from Aetolia—strove hard to wrest from the Pisatans the control of the sanctuary; but the latter doggedly maintained their rights, which had been recently vindicated by the building of the Heraeum, and religious feeling was on their side. Still, the prestige of the festival suffered to such an extent that the games, it is said, were neglected and forgotten. At length, weary of incessant strife and a pestilence that followed it, the contending factions, on the advice, according to one story, of the Delphic oracle, resolved to re-establish the Olympic games as a means of restoring goodwill and unity to the land. This work was ascribed to Iphitus, king of Elis, a descendant of Oxylus, to Cleosthenes, king of Pisa, and to Lycurgus of Sparta. The ordinance regulating the festival was engraved on a diskos preserved in the temple of Hera down to the time of Pausanias, on which the names of Iphitus and Lycurgus were still legible in the days of Aristotle.[^[50]] The antiquity of the diskos is unquestionable, but it may well be doubted if it was contemporary with the event described. More probably it dated from the seventh century, when Sparta, as we shall see, took an active part in the games. The introduction of Sparta and Lycurgus at this early date is certainly suspicious. Be this as it may, the organization of the festival by Iphitus and Cleosthenes may be regarded as the first definite historical fact in its history.

From this date the festival was held every fourth year until its abolition by the emperor Theodosius at the close of the fourth century A.D. It took place at the time of the second or third full moon after the summer solstice in the Elean months Apollonios and Parthenios, which correspond approximately to August and September. For the sacred month (ἱερομηνία) in which the festival took place, a holy truce (ἐκεχειρία) was proclaimed beforehand by the truce-bearers of Zeus (σπονδοφόροι). During this truce there was to be peace throughout the land, no one was permitted to bear arms within the sacred territory, and all competitors, embassies, and spectators travelling to Olympia were regarded as under the protection of Zeus and sacrosanct. The effect of this truce, at first purely local, spread with the growth of the festival to all the states taking part in it till the whole Greek world felt its influence. Any violation of the truce, any wrong inflicted on the pilgrims of Zeus, was punished by a heavy fine to Olympian Zeus. The Spartans at the time of the Peloponnesian war, having entered the sacred territory during the truce under arms, were condemned to pay a fine of two minae for every hoplite; on their refusal to pay they were excommunicated. Even Alexander condescended to apologize and make restitution to the Athenian Phrynon, who had been seized and robbed by some of his mercenaries on his way to Olympia.[^[51]]

By the truce of Iphitus the control of the festival seems to have been divided between the Eleans and Pisatans, vested probably at an early date in a joint council representing the various village communities. The council certainly existed in later days as a final court of appeal, and the fact that the earliest building under the new régime was the council-house, part of which dates from the middle of the sixth century, points to the antiquity of such a body. The dual control was recognized in the appointment of two executive officials, the Hellanodicae. The royal robes of purple worn by these officials indicate that they were originally the kings of the respective tribes. One of them, according to Elean tradition the only one, was always a descendant of Oxylus; but the official position of the Pisatae survived in later times in the priestly families of the Iamidae and Clytidae. As was to be expected, the dual control did not work smoothly. The Pisatae, mindful of their ancient rights, and jealous of the interference of the Eleans, made repeated but futile efforts to regain the sole control. But the superior might of the Eleans, supported at first at all events by the Spartans, prevailed more and more, till shortly after the Persian wars the Eleans laid waste the revolting cities of Triphylia, destroyed Pisa itself, and remained henceforth sole masters of Olympia, save for a spasmodic effort of the Pisatans and Arcadians in Ol. 104 (364 B.C.).

The view of Olympian history taken above differs considerably from the orthodox view taken from Pausanias and Strabo, and based on “the ancient writings of the Eleans.” This priestly fiction may be summarized as follows. The games originally established by Oxylus were refounded by Iphitus and Lycurgus, and were under the management of the Eleans. In Ol. 8 the Pisatans called in Pheidon, king of Argos, and with his help dispossessed the Eleans, but lost their control in the next Olympiad. In Ol. 28 Elis, being at war with Dyme, allowed the Pisatans to celebrate the games. In Ol. 34 Pantaleon, king of Pisa, celebrated the games at the head of an army. According to one account the Pisatans had control of the festival for twenty-two successive Olympiads, from the 30th to the 51st. Finally, somewhere between Ols. 48 and 52, the Eleans defeated the rebellious Pisatans, destroyed Pisa, laid waste Triphylia, and henceforth held undisputed control of Olympia with the exception of Ol. 104, which was celebrated by the Arcadians and Pisatans. In consequence this Olympiad, together with the 8th and 34th, were expunged from the register and reckoned as Anolympiads. Till Ol. 50 there was only one Hellanodicas, a descendant of Oxylus; at this date a second was appointed, and both were chosen by lot from the whole number of the Eleans.

This story is obviously a pious fraud invented by the priests of Elis to justify their usurpation by asserting a prior claim, a claim contradicted by all the evidence, and expressly denied by Xenophon.[^[52]] For the same reason the part played by Cleosthenes in the truce of Iphitus is omitted by Pausanias, though fortunately preserved in another account. It is only possible to point out briefly some of the inconsistencies and absurdities in the priestly story. Elis is represented throughout as in control of Olympia, which is situated outside its boundaries in Pisatis, an independent state with a king of its own, and this independent state is represented as continually trying to usurp what is its own. The story of the Anolympiads is discredited by the fact that in the Olympic register, a document of at least equal value, these Olympiads were reckoned and the names of the victors were given. The part played by Pheidon is involved in all the obscurity that surrounds that most tantalizing character, but that the great tyrant, whenever he lived, did try to increase his prestige by seizing control of the Olympia, is rendered probable by the connexion of similar tyrants with Olympia and the other festivals. The story of the addition of the second Hellanodicas in Ol. 50, at the very time when Pisa is said to have been destroyed, is a manifest absurdity. The two Hellanodicai represent a dual monarchy, and a dual monarchy represents a union of races. Assuming, what is now generally admitted, the pre-Dorian origin of the festival, the original Hellanodicas must have been a Pisatan, the second must have been added when Elis secured a share in the government. Moreover, the selection of the two officials by lot, a thoroughly democratic institution, is unthinkable in Elis, at that time an oligarchy of oligarchies, though it may well have been introduced when the democrats of Elis obtained the mastery. Lastly, the date of the final destruction of Pisa, about which Pausanias is obviously confused, is contradicted by the direct statement of Herodotus, who speaks of the war in which it took place as “in my days” (ἐπ’ ἐμέο).[^[53]] The earlier date has been supported by reference to a sixth-century inscription at Olympia recording a treaty for mutual defence between Elis and Heraea, by the terms of which either party failing to help the other is liable in case of need to a fine of a talent of silver to Olympian Zeus.[^[54]] Too much, perhaps, has been made of this inscription, which is probably one of many such local treaties, the record of which has perished. Moreover, it seems highly probable that Heraea, so far from being opposed to Pisa, was a member of the early Pisatan league. The original claims of Pisa are admitted by all modern historians; all further difficulties vanish on the supposition of a subsequent dual control, in which Elis gradually became the predominant partner until, in the fifth century, she ousted Pisa completely.