To these meetings we may partly attribute the growing tendency to the formation of leagues. There, too, the terms of treaties could be proclaimed and made known to the whole Greek world. The terms of the thirty years’ truce between Athens and Sparta were recorded on a stele at Olympia;[[185]] so too was the 100 years’ treaty made in 420 B.C. between Athens, Argos, Mantinea, and Elis, and it was ordered that the treaty should be periodically renewed at the Olympia and the Panathenaea.[[186]] It was to Olympia that the envoys of Mytilene came at the commencement of the Peloponnesian war[[187]] to protest against the tyranny of Athens and plead for their autonomy before the assembled Greeks. Finally, when Athens and Sparta, false to the cause of Hellenism, were treacherously intriguing with Persia, it was at Olympia that on three occasions a noble appeal for unity was made. In 408 B.C. Gorgias of Leontini, addressing the assembled crowds from the steps of the temple of Zeus, appealed to them to forget their rivalries and unite together in the crusade of Hellenism against Persia.[[188]] His voice was unheeded at the time, but a later generation appropriately commemorated his appeal by erecting his statue in the Altis.[[189]] Twenty-four years later Sparta, in alliance with Artaxerxes and the Sicilian tyrant Dionysius, was once more trampling on the liberties of Greece. Dionysius had sent to Olympia a magnificent embassy headed by his brother Thearion; his tents of gold and purple were pitched within the sacred precincts, splendid chariots were entered in his name for the four-horse chariots, while hired rhapsodists recited continually the praises of their master. By a curious chance the winner of the foot-race was Dicon, proclaimed of Syracuse, but in reality a citizen of Caulonia, a city that Dionysius had recently destroyed, transferring its citizens to Syracuse.[[190]] Such were the circumstances in which the Athenian Lysias, in graceful but vigorous language, warned the Greeks that Artaxerxes and Dionysius were the real enemies of Hellas, and, bidding them lay aside their differences, called on them to unite and show their patriotism by an attack on the tyrant’s tents.[[191]] The appeal was only partially successful, and one cannot but rejoice that the peace of the festival was not broken by such an outrage upon hospitality. Lastly, at the next Olympiad of 380 B.C. Isocrates distributed at the festival copies of his famous Panegyric, a work to which he is said to have devoted ten years’ work, in which he once more advocated a Panhellenic crusade against Persia, under the united command of Athens and Sparta.[[192]]
It was one of the fictions of a later time that no memorial might be set up in the Altis to commemorate the triumph of one Greek state over another. But though Olympia did undoubtedly work for unity, the monuments prove that the ideal was often disregarded, and the Altis bore witness to the divisions as well as to the unity of Greece. Apart from votive offerings of helmets, spears, and shields[[193]] Pausanias saw at Olympia a statue of Zeus twelve feet high, set up by the Spartans to commemorate the repression of the Messenian revolt.[[194]] It is doubtful whether this refers to the revolt of 464 B.C. or to an earlier war in the sixth century, but certainly this statue, and probably other statues, mentioned by Pausanias were offerings for wars in which Greeks fought against Greeks.[[195]] In 424 the Messenians had their revenge, and they commemorated the part which they had played at Pylos by erecting a statue of victory with an inscription stating that it was dedicated by the Messenians and Naupactians from the spoil of their enemy. The statue was the work of the sculptor Paeonius, who is said to have made the sculptures of the eastern pediment of the temple of Zeus.[[196]] Raised on a lofty triangular pedestal, it must have been the most conspicuous monument in the Altis. The Messenians, says Pausanias, omitted to insert the name of their enemies from fear of the Spartans, but no such fear deterred the Eleans, who celebrated a victory won at Olympia itself in the war at the beginning of the fourth century by setting up a trophy in the Altis with an inscription on the shield that it was dedicated out of the spoils of the Lacedaemonians, and their final triumph over the Arcadians after the 104th Olympiad was commemorated by a colossal monument that rivalled the Victory of the Messenians.[[197]]
Interest at Olympia was no longer confined to religious ceremonies and sports. It is true that there were no musical or dramatic competitions such as were held at other festivals. The contests for heralds and trumpeters introduced in 396 B.C. had certainly no such character.[[198]] But the gathering together of crowds from all parts of the Greek world afforded a unique opportunity for profit and advertisement which appealed to many classes, not only to the huckster and pedlar, who provided for the material wants of the people,[[199]] to the acrobat and mountebank, who catered for their amusement, but to the man of science, of literature, and of art. The artist, the writer, or the inventor had little means of making himself known outside his own city except by travelling from place to place. All such flocked to Olympia, where all would find an appreciative and critical audience. Lucian[[200]] tells us that Herodotus was the first to realise the unique possibilities of Olympia for purposes of advertisement, and read his history to the people in the Opisthodome of the temple of Zeus; and another account adds that the youthful Thucydides, who happened to be present, was moved to tears by his recitation. He is also said to have recited his work at Athens, Thebes, and Corinth. Whatever the truth of these stories, it is certain that the practice of public recitation was widely spread in the fifth century, and nowhere could such an audience be found as at Olympia. Moreover, the demand for hymns of victory and athletic statues must have brought thither poets and artists before the day of Herodotus. The practice commended itself especially to the sophists and rhetoricians who travelled about amassing large sums of money by their learning, real or pretended. Some of these have been already mentioned.
Olympia was a meeting-place for all. There one might have seen Socrates listening with polite amusement to the encyclopaedic Hippias of Elis as he proclaimed to an admiring audience his varied knowledge and accomplishments, and told them that everything he had about his person was the work of his own hands, from the shoes on his feet to the girdle of his tunic, fine as the most costly fabric of Persia. There, too, one might have seen many another whose person is familiar to us in Plato’s dialogues, the great Gorgias himself, with his pupil, Polus, “impetuous as a runaway colt”; or Prodicus of Ceos declaiming in that fine bass voice of his on subtleties of language or of grammar. Or one might have listened to the mathematician, Oenopides, explaining to a select few the mysteries of the great year, a diagram of which, engraved on a bronze tablet, he had set up in the Altis. There one might have gazed on Zeuxis as he strutted about in his peacock clothes, displaying to the world his vanity and wealth. Every one who had anything to sell, to exhibit, or make known came to Olympia, which thus became a centre from which Hellenic culture was diffused throughout the world.
This expansion of interests is evident in the list of honorary statues which cease in this period to be confined to victors in the games. Thus the Samians commemorated the freedom which they thought they had gained by the victory of Aegospotami by setting up in the Altis a statue of Lysander.[[201]] The statue of Gorgias has been already mentioned. In Macedonian times the custom spread, while the number of athletic statues steadily declined. Besides kings and princes, the historian Anaximenes of Lampsacus and the philosopher Aristotle received this honour.[[202]]
Neutrality was the natural and obvious policy of the Eleans. Removed by their geographical situation from the main stress and turmoil of Greek politics, they appreciated to the full the advantages of the position which they had usurped as sole guardians of the Olympian precinct, and lost no opportunity of enforcing and extending the privilege attaching to that position. Thus they claimed for the whole of Elis the sanctity belonging to the sacred plain; their lives were consecrated and their territory immune from war.[[203]] Elis city was the official headquarters of Olympia, with which it was connected by a sacred road, and there all competitors were forced to assemble to undergo a month’s training before the games. Yet the scanty records of history show that the immunity enjoyed by the Eleans was due more to the accident of their position than to a general recognition of their sanctity. Religious scruples, though often convenient as an excuse, were seldom allowed to stand in the way of more practical considerations. Hence the Eleans, however anxious to preserve their neutrality, could not avoid being involved in the complications caused by the Peloponnesian war. Sparta must have regarded with jealousy and suspicion the influence possessed by Athens and the growth of democracy in the new state. In Triphylia and Arcadia the cause of the Pisatans was still popular, and the control of Elis was regarded as an act of usurpation. It was in connection with Lepreum, one of the cities of the old Pisatan league, that difficulties arose.
Sparta had interfered in a quarrel between Elis and Lepreum, which from the commencement of the Peloponnesian war had refused to pay its tribute of a talent to Olympian Zeus, and a Spartan force of 1000 men was despatched in the summer of 424 B.C. to the help of the Lepreates. The Eleans complained that this act was a violation of the Olympic truce which had just been proclaimed, and imposed a fine of 2000 minae—2 minae per head—payable half to Olympian Zeus, half to themselves. The Spartans refused to pay, and after fruitless negotiations the Eleans, unable to obtain satisfaction, excommunicated Sparta, and forbade her to take any part in the forthcoming festival. So, says Thucydides,[[204]] while all other states were represented the Spartans and Lepreates had no representatives, and offered their sacrifices at home. Alarmed at their own bold action, the Eleans had so little confidence in the protection of sanctity that they put their whole force under arms and summoned assistance from Argos, Mantinea, and Athens. The alarm of the assembly was increased by another insult inflicted on Sparta in the course of the games. Lichas, the son of Arcesilaus, a member of the Spartan royal family, unable to compete in his own name, had entered his team for the chariot-race under the name of the Boeotian commonwealth. When his chariot won, he advanced boldly into the course to bind the fillet of victory on the charioteer’s head, but was publicly driven off by the officials and beaten with their rods. Yet in spite of this fresh insult Sparta, deeming the occasion inexpedient to excite the religious susceptibilities of Greece, did nothing, but bided her time, and Elis, three years afterwards, joined the Argive alliance.
Sparta never forgot and never forgave. In 399 Agis led an army against Elis, nominally to force Elis to acknowledge the independence of the Arcadian and Triphylian towns, in reality to wreak vengeance for her conduct during the Peloponnesian war. Agis had also a recent and more personal grievance. Having gone to Olympia to consult the oracle, he had been refused an answer by the Eleans, who invoked an ancient canon forbidding oracles to be given to Greeks engaged in war against Greeks. This time their sanctity could not save them. Frightened away the first year by a providential earthquake,[[205]] Agis returned in the following summer, and, reinforced by the Triphylian towns, advanced to Olympia, where he offered the sacrifice which had been forbidden before. He then marched through the rich plains of Elis, the plunder of which attracted to his standard numerous Arcadian and Achaean volunteers. In spite of assistance from Xenias and the oligarchical party he failed to take the city, but finally, by occupying a fortified post on the border and ravaging the country, he reduced the Eleans to complete submission. They were forced to raze their fortifications, surrender their harbour, and acknowledge the independence of all the towns of Arcadia and Triphylia. Only the presidency of the Olympic festival was left to them, for, though the Pisatans claimed it as having belonged to them originally, the Spartans refused to acknowledge their claim, considering, says Xenophon, that they were country bumpkins, and incapable of exercising the presidency, a remarkable testimony to the efficiency of the Elean administration.[[206]]
The effects of this humiliation were seen in the scandals which disgraced the following Olympiads. The prestige of the festival itself must have suffered. In the next Olympiad, 396 B.C., the competition was so reduced that no less than six events were won by Eleans.[[207]]
The Spartans had refused to deprive the Eleans of the presidency from no respect for their sanctity, but from disinclination to increase the importance of the country districts of Arcadia and Triphylia. How little real respect they had for religious tradition may be judged from the conduct of Agesilaus at the Isthmia in 390 B.C., when, at the head of an army, he interrupted the games, and, in conjunction with the Corinthian exiles, himself presided at them.[[208]] The rise of Thebes once more raised the hopes of the disappointed Triphylians.[[209]] In 371 B.C. Arcadia was consolidated into the Pan-Arcadian league, with its headquarters at the newly founded Megalopolis. The Messenians, who had been so prominent at Olympia in its early days, recovered their liberty. The Messenian exiles from every part flocked to the rising city of Messene, founded by Epaminondas, at the foot of Mount Ithome, and they celebrated their return by winning a victory at Olympia in the boys’ foot-race—the first victory, says Pausanias, that they had won since their exile.[[210]] Everything seemed favourable to the Triphylians. Unfortunately a breach occurred between Thebes and Arcadia, and when Thebes, following the example of Sparta and Athens, sent Pelopidas to Persia to secure the sanction of the great king for her authority, the terms of the imperial rescript reaffirmed the rights of Elis in Triphylia. The Arcadian ambassador, the pankratiast Antiochus, returned home in dudgeon, without even deigning to receive the royal gifts.