[369] “Antiqui grammatici eas tantum dialectos spectabant, quibus scriptores usi essent: ceteras, quæ non vigebant nisi in ore populi, non notabant.” (Ahrens, De Dialecto Æolicâ, p. 2.) The same has been the case, to a great degree, even in the linguistic researches of modern times, though printing now affords such increased facility for the registration of popular dialects.
[370] Herod. i. 142.
[371] Respecting the three varieties of the Æolic dialect, differing considerably from each other, see the valuable work of Ahrens, De Dial. Æol. sect. 2, 32, 50.
[372] The work of Albert Giese, Ueber den Æolischen Dialekt (unhappily not finished, on account of the early death of the author,) presents an ingenious specimen of such analysis.
[373] See the interesting remarks of Dio Chrysostom on the attachment of the inhabitants of Olbia (or Borysthenes) to the Homeric poems: most of them, he says, could repeat the Iliad by heart, though their dialect was partially barbarized, and the city in a sad state of ruin (Dio Chrysost. Orat. xxxvi. p. 78, Reisk).
[374] Plato, Legg. ii. 1, p. 653; Kratylus, p. 406; and Dionys. Hal. Ars Rhetoric. c. 1-2, p. 226,—Θεὸς μὲν γέ που πάντως πάσης ἡστινοσοῦν πανηγύρεως ἡγεμὼν καὶ ἐπώνυμος· οἷον ὀλυμπίων μὲν, Ὀλύμπιος Ζεὺς· τοῦ δ᾽ ἐν Πυθοῖ, Ἀπολλών.
Apollo, the Muses, and Dionysus are ξυνεορτασταὶ καὶ ξυγχορευταί (Homer, Hymn to Apoll. 146). The same view of the sacred games is given by Livy, in reference to the Romans and the Volsci (ii. 36-37): “Se, ut consceleratos contaminatosque, ab ludis, festis diebus, cœtu quodammodo hominum Deorumque, abactos esse ... ideo nos ab sede piorum, cœtu, concilioque abigi.” It is curious to contrast this with the dislike and repugnance of Tertullian: “Idololatria omnium ludorum mater est,—quod enim spectaculum sine idolo, quis ludus sine sacrificio?” (De Spectaculis, p. 369.)
[375] Iliad, xxiii. 630-679. The games celebrated by Akastus, in honor of Pelias, were famed in the old epic (Pausan. v. 17, 4; Apollodôr. i. 9, 28).
[376] Strabo, ix. p. 421; Pausan. x. 7, 3. The first Pythian games celebrated by the Amphiktyons, after the Sacred War, carried with them a substantial reward to the victor (an ἀγὼν χρηματίτης); but in the next, or second Pythian games, nothing was given but an honorary reward, or wreath of laurel leaves (ἀγὼν στεφανίτης): the first coincide with Olympiad 48, 3; the second with Olympiad 49, 3.
Compare Schol. ad Pindar. Pyth. Argument.: Pausan. x. 37, 4-5; Krause, Die Pythien, Nemeen, und Isthmien, sect. 3, 4, 5.