The temporary character of these arrangements is indicated sufficiently by their cost. The stater was equal to two Aeginetic drachmae of 96 grains, and equivalent approximately to two shillings of our money, though its purchasing power was considerably greater. In the time of Pericles an Attic drachma of 67 grains was a day’s wage for an artisan; in the third century its purchasing power was probably less. Allowing half a drachma as the wage for a labourer, we find that the clearing of the course and embankments took 60 men a day’s work.
The recent restoration of the Panathenaic stadium[[446]] for the revived Olympic games has enabled us to realize something of the splendour which it owed to its reconstruction by Herodes Atticus in the second century of our era. Previous to the fourth century B.C., the Panathenaic games seem to have been held at some spot in the deme of Echelidae which lay between the Peiraeus and Athens. No traces of this stadium have yet been found, and it is probable that the arrangements were as simple as those existing in early time at Olympia. We gather from Xenophon that there was no artificial barrier to keep spectators off the course; in his treatise on the duty of a cavalry officer he recommends that horsemen should be placed in front of the crowds at reviews and races to keep them in order, but at sufficient intervals not to interfere with the spectators’ view.[[447]] The first permanent stadium was constructed by Lycurgus in the second half of the fourth century, in a deep ravine on the left bank of the Ilissus. The land was the property of a patriotic citizen Demias, who as a mark of respect to Lycurgus presented it to the state. Other citizens followed his example: one Eudemus, who lent a thousand yoke of oxen for the work, was rewarded by a public vote of thanks. The work consisted in closing up the southern end of the ravine by an embankment and levelling the ground for the course, which was further separated from the spectators by a low wall, behind which ran a conduit for carrying off the rain-water. The finish and start were probably marked out as at Olympia by lines of stone slabs, but there were no seats for spectators except for officials and distinguished visitors. We hear of repairs made in the stadium at various times, but it probably maintained substantially its original form till the time of Herodes Atticus. Most of the remains discovered belong to his reconstruction.
The arena which was enclosed by a marble parapet measured something over 205 metres long by 33 metres broad. It ended in a semicircular sphendone which was separated from the actual running track by the stone starting line of which remains have been found. As, however, no trace has been discovered of the corresponding line at the other end, it is impossible to determine definitely the length of the course. It must have been approximately 177 metres. At either end of the starting line stood a stone pillar, and between these pillars stood four curious double-headed herms. Two of these have been found almost intact, and portions of the other two have also been found.[[448]] They consist of square pillars about 6 feet high, on which stand back to back two heads, one bearded, the other beardless, sometimes said to represent a youthful Apollo and a bearded Dionysus. The heads, which are of rude and unfinished workmanship, are probably second-century copies of early originals. The pillars are divided to the height of 3 feet by a narrow slit through which, it has been suggested, may have passed the rope used in starting the races. The position of these herms along the starting line reminds one, however, of the somewhat similar rows of pillars at Epidaurus and Priene. The pillars at Epidaurus, it will be remembered, had likewise grooves on either side, though these did not as at Athens extend right through the pillars. In view of this resemblance it seems probable that both grooves and slits served for fixing either a sort of starting gate or a barrier used to enclose the course when dangerous exhibitions, such as fights of wild beasts, took place. Such shows it is known were exhibited in the stadium. The Emperor Hadrian on one occasion presented 1000 wild animals for this purpose. It was probably to secure the safety of the spectators on such occasions that the seats surrounding the whole arena were raised on a marble basement nearly 6 feet high. Above this rose 46 rows of marble seats, capable of seating at least 50,000 spectators. At the point where the curve of the sphendone began on the northern side a vaulted passage led underneath the seats and through the hill into the valley beyond. This passage may have served originally like the secret entrance at Olympia for the entrance of officials and competitors. In its later and more elaborate form it was probably intended by Herodes for the introduction of wild beasts, like the similar vaults in Roman amphitheatres. The principal entrance was at the other end of the stadium, near the Ilissus, where, it seems, elaborate Propylaea were erected, while the whole effect was greatly enhanced by a marble Doric colonnade which crowned the hills above the upper seats of the sphendone.
The stadium at Priene[[449]] presents similar difficulties to those at Epidaurus and Athens. It appears to have been constructed at the same time as the lower gymnasium in the second century B.C., but to have been considerably modified in later times. It is built inside the south wall of the town, and is supported along the south side by a massive retaining wall. The ends are square, and the seats are placed along the north side only. There are twelve rows of marble seats, the lowest of which rest on a marble basement 3-1/2 feet high. The marble seats are only found in the centre, extending for a distance of about a third of the course. Beyond them at either end the spectators must have sat on wooden seats or on the embankment. In the absence of any sphendone, the ceremonial part of the games, the proclamation of the victors, and presenting of prizes must have taken place in the centre of the course. Above the seats is a terrace, behind which is a Doric colonnade extending the whole length of the stadium. The starting lines at the west end have been discovered; but excavations at the east end have been fruitless. The western starting line shows traces of an earlier and of a later arrangement. The earlier arrangement is represented by eight square slabs in which are cut sockets for posts of wood or metal, such as are found at Olympia and elsewhere, but there is no sign of the slabs marked with parallel grooves between the pillars. Just behind this line of slabs is a row of ten pillar bases standing on a stone sill, in which is cut a runnel extending the whole length of the sill with two short offshoots in the centre. This runnel, which clearly served to carry off some of the water which naturally drained down into the stadium, must have been covered by stone slabs between the pillars. Only small fragments of the pillars have been found; but these seem to indicate that there were longitudinal grooves down the sides which may have served for some form of barrier or starting gate. The total length of the stadium is 191 metres; perhaps the actual course was as at Delphi about 177 metres.
It is unnecessary to describe in detail the remains of the numerous other stadia which have been found in Greek lands; but a few peculiarities which they present may be noted as illustrating the development of the stadium and the way in which the Greeks adapted themselves to the character of the ground. At Messene advantage was taken as elsewhere of a shallow valley.[[450]] The stadium consists of two parts—an old embanked part, forming the actual racecourse, and an unusually elaborate sphendone. In the former the sides of the valley were carefully banked up into terraces, but no stone seats were provided and no attempt was made to render the two sides parallel. The sphendone was considerably narrower than the actual course and of unusual depth, the sides of the semicircle being continued for some distance in straight parallel lines. It is seated with stone, and the height above is enclosed in an elaborate square court surrounded on three sides by colonnades, which are continued along both sides of the course. A similar narrowing of the entrance of the sphendone occurs at Ephesus,[[451]] where the curve of the sphendone is produced on either side so as to project into the course. This elaboration of the sphendone is clearly connected with its use for musical and dramatic performances, and marks the declining importance of athletic competitions. At Aezani one end of the stadium was rounded; the other was straight, and formed the stage of an elaborate stone theatre. Finally, the last stage in the evolution of the stadium is reached at Aphrodisias in Caria.[[452]] Here the course is symmetrical with a sphendone at either end, and the whole is surrounded by a colonnade and wall, through which fifteen openings along one side afford entrance to the spectators’ seats, and various underground passages give access through the side of the hill to the arena. It is only in its proportions, its narrowness as compared with its length, that such a stadium differs from the Roman amphitheatre. Indeed, we learn that the large stadium at Laodicea was actually converted into an amphitheatre.[[453]]
In all the stadia described the essential part is the rectangular course, bounded at either end by a straight line. Not one of the stadia which have been excavated has revealed any trace of the three pillars or metae forming a line down the middle of the course which were the characteristic features of the Greek hippodrome and Roman circus, and which still figure in the descriptions and plans which our handbooks and dictionaries give of the Greek stadium. The only authority for this arrangement is the note of a scholiast on the well-known description of the Pythian games in the Electra of Sophocles.[[454]] He states that there were in the course three stones or square pillars, bearing on one side the respective inscriptions ἀρίστευε, σπεῦδε, κάμψον—“Be stout,” “Make speed,” “Turn.” Now it is by no means certain that the worthy scholiast is referring to the foot-race at all; the note on the pillars would be far more appropriate in connexion with the horse-race, in which, as every reader will recollect, the pillar is the cause of the supposed catastrophe to Orestes; moreover, practically the same note is repeated in connexion with the chariot-race by another scholiast, who implies that there were several of these square pillars along the course. But even if the passage is intended to refer to the stadium, it does not follow that the posts are in the centre of the course, and the description would apply equally well to the square pillars which are placed along both sides of the course at Epidaurus, if we suppose them to be inscribed. When in 1870 the first of the double herms at Athens was found, it was at once concluded to be one of these three pillars, but the subsequent discovery of portions of the other three herms almost in situ along the starting line proves this view to be untenable. At the same time, though we must abandon the idea of any line of metae for the Greek stadium, we shall find that in the long race the runners did probably race round two pillars placed in the centre of the starting lines at either end, but these pillars must have been of metal or wood.
The examples described above enable us to trace with some certainty the history of the Greek stadium. In its simplest form it is a long parallelogram, marked by two lines at either end. The spectators stand along the course on raised banks, natural or artificial. Stone seats occur first perhaps in the fifth century at Epidaurus. In the second half of the third century more elaborate stone seats appear near the centre of the course, which seems to have been usually the place of honour. The curved sphendone with its rows of seats does not appear till the Hellenistic period. Finally, when both ends are curved the stadium approaches the type of the Roman circus, and the resemblance is increased by the addition of colonnades either round the sphendone or round the whole course. The development of the actual racecourse is more rapid: the needs of competitors came before the needs of spectators. The starting lines and finish seem to have been first marked by pillars temporary or permanent on either side. These pillars exist at Epidaurus, and survive at a much later period in the Panathenaic stadium. Pillars are commonly represented in athletic scenes on fifth-century vases.[[455]] Often they are merely the shorthand symbol used by the vase-painter to denote the buildings of the gymnasium or palaestra. In foot-races and horse-races it is reasonable to suppose that they represent the pillars at the start or finish of the race. They occur chiefly on the red-figured vases, and the usual type is that of a fluted pillar often standing on a square basis. The starting lines with double grooves appear certainly in Macedonian times, though their introduction may well date back to the laying out of the stadia at Olympia and Delphi in the fifth century. The importance attached to the starting lines is proved by their frequent mention in inscriptions. Finally, in Roman times these starting lines were superseded by a row of pillars, between which was fixed some sort of barrier. The details and use of all these arrangements will be more conveniently discussed in connexion with the actual foot-race.
The stadium was used for other events besides the foot-race; but where these took place and what arrangements were made for them we cannot say. The Delphic inscription quoted above proves that special arrangements were made for the jump, for throwing the diskos or javelin, and for boxing. It is reasonable to suppose that the starting lines were utilized for the diskos and the javelin, which must certainly have been thrown along the length of the course. It is probable that at a later period wrestling and boxing matches took place in the sphendone. But in many earlier stadia there was hardly sufficient room at the end for these events, which would have been too far removed from the bulk of the spectators. At Olympia we have seen reason for thinking that they took place not in the stadium but in the Altis. Otherwise it seems likely that they were held in the centre of the stadium, where seats of honour seem often to have been erected. But all this is mere conjecture.
CHAPTER XIII
THE FOOT-RACE
The length of the various foot-races was determined for the Greeks by the length of the stadium. The stade-race, as its name implies, was a single length, approximately 200 yards. The diaulos was twice the length of the stadium, or 400 yards. The length of the dolichos or long race is variously stated as 7, 12, 20, or 24 stades, from seven furlongs to nearly three miles.[[456]] The divergence of these statements is probably due to the fact that the distances varied at different festivals, and at different periods, as they do at the present day. For Olympia the evidence is slightly in favour of a 24 stades race. These three races seem to have been universal. At the Isthmia, Nemea, and Panathenaea there was also a double diaulos of four stades called the horse diaulos (ἵππιος or ἐφίππιος) from the fact that the length of the course in the hippodrome was two stades, or double that of the stadium.[[457]] There were different races for different ages, and it is possible that the boys’ races were shorter than those for men. Plato, in sketching his ideal scheme of physical education, lays down that boys are to run half the length of the men’s course, and the “beardless” two-thirds of the course.[[458]] We do not know whether his scheme had any foundation in fact, but it is certain that in the girls’ races at Olympia the course was one-sixth shorter than the usual course.[[459]] Besides these purely athletic events, there were races in armour, introduced for military purposes towards the close of the sixth century, and various ceremonial races such as the torch-race, survivals of ancient religious rites.