“Thee now song-queen Urania’s hymn
Ennobles—O thou wind-fleet one,
Of Aristomenes the son—
Thy praise as victor homeward bringing
And here before thy lintel singing
How thou, thy course through stade-race winging,
Brought Ceos fame no time shall dim.”
From little Ceos, the second in order of those bright stepping-stones that dot the Ægean from Attica to Rhodes, we may quickly cross to the mainland and find our way to Marathon. From there to Athens we trace that greatest of all ancient race-courses over which the Greek runner ran in full armour to give with his dying breath the warning and the news of victory, and to win a memorial beside which the olive-wreath might well turn pale.[[42]]
When the modern Athenians revived the Olympic Games the chariot-races were beyond their resources. Contests of personal, physical strength and skill constitute the fitting nucleus of the games held in the old Stadium, now newly covered with marble from the “mountain that looks on Marathon.” And it was a happy and natural thought to add as the closing event the great Marathon race. While perpetuating the glory of the Athenians it reënforces the loyalty of all the Greeks to their national capital. In this race centres the chief ambition of the Greeks. The other events are of secondary importance. If fanciful critics demand any further excuse for the change of venue from Olympia to Athens, it may be enough to remind them that Heracles (according to one tradition) brought in the first place from the banks of the Ilissus the original graft of the sacred olive-tree from which, at Olympia, the victor’s crown was cut with the golden sickle. With graceful sentiment, however, the olive sprigs are now in turn brought to Athens from Olympia.
Despite all the modern barnacles that encrust the ancient torso, the student of old Greek life can find much to stimulate him in the revival of contests inherited, or directly developed, from ancient times—such as the foot-race, short and long distance; javelin-throwing; leaping; and, chief of all, the discus-throw in the ancient style. The interest of the Greeks to-day in this latter event is second only to that in the Marathon race.