Thus we see that in the even years there were two Panhellenic festivals, in the odd years one.
The competition of other Panhellenic festivals threatened the supremacy of Olympia, and forced the easy-going conservative authorities of that place into activity. Hitherto they had allowed the festival to develop from without; they had allowed Gela and Megara to build treasuries overlooking the Altis, and so to establish some sort of claim to a share in the management; content with their traditional customs they had made no attempt to provide adequate organization for an athletic meeting of such importance. Now they saw that if they were to maintain their position they must set their house in order. A significant story is told by Herodotus.[[76]] In the reign of Psammetichus II. (594-589 B.C.) some Elean ambassadors visited Egypt to see if the Egyptians could suggest any improvement in the rules for the Olympic games, which they boasted were the fairest and best that could be devised. The Egyptians, after considering a while, asked if they allowed their own citizens to compete. The Eleans replied that the games were open to all Greeks, whether they belonged to Elis or any other state. To this the Egyptians, with true commercial instinct, answered that the rules were far from just, for that it was impossible but that they would favour their own countrymen and deal unfairly with foreigners; if, therefore, they wished to manage the games with fairness they must confine the games to strangers and allow no native of Elis to compete. It is to the credit of the Greeks that no such self-denying ordinance was introduced or found to be necessary, and that the Greeks themselves never raised any such objection till a much later date. It is only when sport becomes too competitive and too lucrative and the professional and commercial spirit enters in that elaborate safeguards are required against unfairness.
This story is valuable evidence that the Eleans were at this time seeking to improve their arrangements. What the improvements were we do not know, but that some sort of reorganization took place is rendered probable by the tradition recorded above, that in Ol. 50 a second Hellanodicas was first appointed. Possibly the Olympic Council was remodelled. We find this Council in the fourth century acting as a court of appeal, and in Imperial times it is mentioned in inscriptions as authorizing the setting up of honorific statues.[[77]] The Hellanodicae were its executive officers, and from their history and numbers it seems probable that the Council represented the various tribes which formed a sort of amphictyony originally controlling the festival. Their existence in the sixth century is proved by the remains of their Council-house. This building lay below the south wall of the Altis. It consists of two long buildings, terminated at the west end by an apse, parallel to each other, and united by a square chamber between them. The northern wing of the building dates from the middle of the sixth century at the latest. The apsidal chamber at the end was divided by a partition, and served probably for the storage of archives and treasure, while the rest of the building formed the business quarters of the Council and the Hellanodicae. There the competitors had to appear and take an oath before the altar of Zeus Horkios that they had observed, and would observe the conditions of the festival. Another building connected with the permanent management of the festival was the Prytaneum, also built about the same time. In it was the altar of Hestia, on which the sacred fire was kept always burning. The ashes from this altar, collected and mixed with the water of the Alpheus, were used to build up the great altar of Zeus. Here, when the games were ended, distinguished guests and victors were feasted, and songs of victory were chanted in their honour.
The Council must have exercised a control over all new buildings erected at Olympia. In the second half of the sixth century fresh treasuries were built by the states of Selinus, Sybaris, Byzantium, and Cyrene, a list which sufficiently illustrates the widespread influence of the festival. The planning and alignment of these buildings clearly implies the supervision of some local authority.
Significant of the new energy of these authorities and of their desire to render Olympia itself worthy of the festival, was a practice, which began in this century, of allowing victors to commemorate their victories by votive statues. The earliest of these statues, according to Pausanias, were those of Praxidamas of Aegina, who won the boxing in Ol. 59, and of Rhexibius of Opus who won the pankration two Olympiads later. These statues were of wood, and we may, therefore, suspect that those seen by Pausanias were not really the first but only the oldest which had survived. Certainly there were statues of earlier victors. Some of these, like that of the Lacedaemonian Chionis, or that of the famous pankratiast Arrhichion, at his native home Phigalia, were set up by their countrymen many years after their death. Others, like that of the Spartan boy Eutelidas, who won the boys’ wrestling and the boys’ pentathlon, may have been contemporary. The first sculptors of athletic statues, whose names we know, are Chrysothemis and Eutelidas of Argos, who made the statues for the Heraean Damaretus, who won the race in armour in Ols. 65, 66, and for his son Theopompus, who won two victories in the pentathlon. On the inscriptions beneath these statues the artists claimed to have learnt their art from former artists. Argos and Sicyon, the homes of the earliest athletic sculpture, were, as we have seen, closely connected with the newly organized Panhellenic festivals, in addition to which there were a number of minor local festivals throughout that district. We may, therefore, safely connect the rise of the athletic school of art with the athletic movement that produced these festivals. These early statues were, of course, not portrait statues. We learn from Pliny that the right of setting up a portrait statue was confined to winners of a triple victory. The accuracy of this statement is open to doubt; certainly it cannot have been true before the fourth century, previous to which portrait statues were practically unknown. The early artists must have contented themselves with type statues, representing the various events in which victory had been gained.
Towards the close of the century certain additions were made to the programme. In Ol. 65 (520 B.C.) the race in heavy armour was introduced at Olympia, and in 498 B.C. at Delphi. This innovation was clearly due to the growing importance of the heavy-armed infantry in Greek warfare. Greek sports were, as we have seen, in their origin practical and military, but with changed conditions of warfare they had lost their military character and become purely athletic. The chieftain no longer went to war in his chariot; his men no longer threw stones or light javelins. Individual warfare was giving place to the manœuvring of masses of heavy-armed troops. The introduction of the race in armour was an attempt to restore to athletics their practical character. The race was a diaulos, i.e. up the stadium and back to the starting-point, a distance of about four hundred yards. The men wore helmets, greaves, and round shields. At a later time the greaves were discarded, perhaps as a concession to athletes who regarded such a race as a spurious sort of athletics. Certainly the race never attained to the same prestige as the other events.
In Ol. 70 (500 B.C.) a mule chariot-race (ἀπήνη) was introduced, and in the next Olympiad a riding race for mares (κάλπη), in which the riders dismounted in the last lap and ran with their steeds. In both these events, which were discontinued after a short trial in Ol. 84, we may see the influence of the Elean nobility, whose wealth and power were derived largely from their horses and cattle. The introduction of mule chariot-races may have been partly due to the influence of the Lords of Sicily; the victory of Anaxilas is commemorated on the coins of Rhegium and Messana (Fig. [168]). The κάλπη is of especial interest. Helbig has shown that the Hippeis of Athens and other Greek states in the sixth century were not cavalry soldiers in the strict sense of the word, but mounted infantry, the true successors of the Homeric chieftains.[[78]] Just as the latter went to war in their chariots, but dismounted in order to fight, leaving the chariot in charge of the charioteer, and remounting for flight or for pursuit, so the Hippeis of the sixth century merely used their horses for advance or for retreat, dismounting when they came into close contact with the foe, and leaving their horses with their squires, who accompanied them, either mounted behind them en croupe, or on horses of their own. The Homeric custom survived only in sports, in the ἀποβατής, whom we see represented on the frieze of the Parthenon in the act of dismounting; the later custom was represented for a brief time only by the κάλπη. As we have seen in discussing the race in armour, the system of individual warfare was passing away. Sparta had shown the superiority of masses of armed infantry. Previous to the Persian wars, Thessalian cavalry had already been employed by Peisistratus, and these served in the fifth century as the model on which corps of cavalry proper were organized in Athens and other states. But in 500 B.C. there were no cavalry in the Peloponnese, and the conservative nobles may well have regarded with jealousy a change which threatened to put them on a level with the ordinary foot-soldier. The introduction of the κάλπη then was an attempt to stimulate and encourage the older style of fighting. But the attempt was doomed to failure; the progress of military tactics was not to be checked by the Eleans, and while the hoplite race survived as long as the festival itself, the κάλπη was ignominiously abandoned in 444 B.C.
Besides the four great festivals of the Crown there were countless local festivals where competitions of various sorts were held.[[79]] The prizes offered were often tripods, and bowls of silver or of bronze; sometimes articles of local manufacture, such as a cloak at Pellene, a shield at Argos, vases of olive-oil at Athens; sometimes a portion of the victim sacrificed, or the victim to be sacrificed. The British Museum possesses a bronze caldron[[80]] of about the sixth century, which was found at Cyme in Italy, and was given as a prize at some local games founded by, or held in honour of, a certain Onomastus. It bears the inscription, “I was a prize at the games of Onomastus.” Many of these festivals were connected with the cults of local heroes, and had existed for generations. Sometimes the competitions themselves bore a distinctly ritual character; thus the torch-race, which we meet with in many parts of Greece, was connected with the primitive custom of periodically distributing new and holy fire from the sacred hearth where it had been kindled. Sometimes the competitions were musical, as at the Spartan Carnea; more frequently they were purely athletic. The athletic competitions acquired fresh life from the stimulus given to athletics by the growth of the Panhellenic festivals. At first purely local, even these minor gatherings in Pindar’s time drew competitors from various parts of Greece. Many fresh festivals were added, and old ones reorganized during the sixth century, especially in the eastern parts of Greece, but of most of these we know little besides the names. The greatest of all was the Panathenaic Festival.
Athenian nobles had won distinction at Olympia in the seventh century. Four Athenian victories are chronicled in the stade-race. Cylon, as already mentioned, won a victory in the diaulos in Ol. 35 (640 B.C.), a victory which perhaps cost him dear. Having consulted the Delphic oracle as to the success of his plot to make himself master of Athens, he was advised to carry out his plan at the greatest festival of Zeus. The former Olympic victor naturally concluded that the oracle meant the Olympia, and not the Athenian Diasia, and this mistake is said to have led to his failure and his death. Another prominent Athenian victor was Phrynon, who in the Olympiad after Cylon’s victory won the pankration, an event in which the Athenians seem to have excelled. He was general in the Athenian expedition to Sigeum, where he fell in single combat against Pittacus of Mitylene, who, according to later tradition, arraying himself as a fisherman, entangled Phrynon in his net and then ran him through with his trident in true gladiatorial style. Early in the sixth century we find Hippocrates, the father of Peisistratus, present as one of the Athenian envoys to Olympia. It was on this occasion, says Herodotus,[[81]] that he had a dream respecting the birth of Peisistratus, which dream was explained to him by the Spartan Ephor Chilon. Chilon, who was reckoned among the seven wise men of Greece, is said to have died some years later at Olympia from joy at the victory of his son Damagetus in boxing.[[82]] During the sixth century we have no record of Athenian successes in athletic contests, but many of the rival nobles won victories in the chariot-race. Peisistratus himself was proclaimed victor under strange circumstances. Cimon, the half-brother of Miltiades, the tyrant of the Chersonnese, himself a victor, had been banished from Athens by Peisistratus. This Cimon had a remarkable record. He won the chariot-race with the same team of mares at three successive Olympiads. At the second he agreed with Peisistratus that if he proclaimed the tyrant winner, he should be recalled from exile.[[83]] In spite of this he was put to death by the thankless sons of Peisistratus shortly after his last victory. Curtius ascribes to Peisistratus an inscription on the altar of the twelve gods at Athens recording the distance from Athens to Olympia.[[84]]
The value of athletics and their political importance had been realised by Solon. Besides making rules for the conduct of gymnasia he offered a public reward of 500 drachmae to each Olympian victor, 100 to each Isthmian victor, and so on to the victors in other games. This measure is sometimes misrepresented as an attempt on the part of Solon to check the extravagant rewards lavished on athletes. Such a view is utterly false. There is no evidence that athletes did receive extravagant rewards in Solon’s time: and 500 drachmae, though perhaps a trivial sum to the professional athletes of a later and degenerate age, was then a considerable amount.[[85]] Rather we may see in this measure an attempt to encourage athletics among the people, and perhaps to counteract the growing love of chariot-racing among the aristocracy.