In regard to the Pythian festival, we find a short notice of the particular incidents and individuals by whom its reconstitution and enlargement were brought about,—a notice the more interesting, inasmuch as these very incidents are themselves a manifestation of something like Pan-Hellenic patriotism, standing almost alone in an age which presents little else in operation except distinct city-interests. At the time when the Homeric Hymn to the Delphinian Apollo was composed (probably in the seventh century B. C.), the Pythian festival had as yet acquired little eminence. The rich and holy temple of Apollo was then purely oracular, established for the purpose of communicating to pious inquirers “the counsels of the immortals.” Multitudes of visitors came to consult it, as well as to sacrifice victims and to deposit costly offerings; but while the god delighted in the sound of the harp as an accompaniment to the singing of pæans, he was by no means anxious to encourage horse-races and chariot-races in the neighborhood,—nay, this psalmist considers that the noise of horses would be “a nuisance,” the drinking of mules a desecration to the sacred fountains, and the ostentation of fine-built chariots objectionable,[113] as tending to divert the attention of spectators away from the great temple and its wealth.
From such inconveniences the god was protected by placing his sanctuary “in the rocky Pytho,”—a rugged and uneven recess, of no great dimensions, embosomed in the southern declivity of Parnassus, and about two thousand feet above the level of the sea, while the topmost Parnassian summits reach a height of near eight thousand feet. The situation was extremely imposing, but unsuited by nature for the congregation of any considerable number of spectators,—altogether impracticable for chariot-races,—and only rendered practicable by later art and outlay for the theatre as well as for the stadium; the original stadium, when first established, was placed in the plain beneath. It furnished little means of subsistence, but the sacrifices and presents of visitors enabled the ministers of the temple to live in abundance,[114] and gathered together by degrees a village around it. Near the sanctuary of Pytho, and about the same altitude, was situated the ancient Phocian town of Krissa, on a projecting spur of Parnassus,—overhung above by the line of rocky precipice called the Phædriades, and itself overhanging below the deep ravine through which flows the river Pleistus. On the other side of this river rises the steep mountain Kirphis, which projects southward into the Corinthian gulf,—the river reaching that gulf through the broad Krissæan or Kirrhæan plain, which stretches westward nearly to the Lokrian town of Amphissa; a plain for the most part fertile and productive, though least so in its eastern part immediately under the Kirphis, where the seaport Kirrha was placed.[115] The temple, the oracle, and the wealth of Pytho, belong to the very earliest periods of Grecian antiquity; but the octennial solemnity in honor of the god included at first no other competition except that of bards, who sang each a pæan with the harp. It has been already mentioned, in my preceding volume, that the Amphiktyonic assembly held one of its half-yearly meetings near the temple of Pytho, the other at Thermopylæ.
In those early times when the Homeric Hymn to Apollo was composed, the town of Krissa appears to have been great and powerful, possessing all the broad plain between Parnassus, Kirphis, and the gulf, to which latter it gave its name,—and possessing also, what was a property not less valuable, the adjoining sanctuary of Pytho itself, which the Hymn identifies with Krissa, not indicating Delphi as a separate place. The Krissæans, doubtless, derived great profits from the number of visitors who came to visit Delphi, both by land and by sea, and Kirrha was originally only the name for their seaport. Gradually, however, the port appears to have grown in importance at the expense of the town, just as Apollonia and Ptolemais came to equal Kyrênê and Barka, and as Plymouth Dock has swelled into Devonport; while at the same time, the sanctuary of Pytho with its administrators expanded into the town of Delphi, and came to claim an independent existence of its own. The original relations between Krissa, Kirrha, and Delphi, were in this manner at length subverted, the first declining and the two latter rising. The Krissæans found themselves dispossessed of the management of the temple, which passed to the Delphians, as well as of the profits arising from the visitors, whose disbursements went to enrich the inhabitants of Kirrha. Krissa was a primitive city of the Phocian name, and could boast of a place as such in the Homeric Catalogue, so that her loss of importance was not likely to be quietly endured. Moreover, in addition to the above facts, already sufficient in themselves as seeds of quarrel, we are told that the Kirrhæans abused their position as masters of the avenue to the temple by sea, and levied exorbitant tolls on the visitors who landed there,—a number constantly increasing from the multiplication of the transmarine colonies, and from the prosperity of those in Italy and Sicily. Besides such offence against the general Grecian public, they had also incurred the enmity of their Phocian neighbors by outrages upon women, Phocian as well as Argeian, who were returning from the temple.[116]
Thus stood the case, apparently, about 595 B. C., when the Amphiktyonic meeting interfered—either prompted by the Phocians, or perhaps on their own spontaneous impulse, out of regard to the temple—to punish the Kirrhæans. After a war of ten years, the first Sacred War in Greece, this object was completely accomplished, by a joint force of Thessalians under Eurylochus, Sikyonians under Kleisthenês, and Athenians under Alkmæon; the Athenian Solon being the person who originated and enforced, in the Amphiktyonic council, the proposition of interference. Kirrha appears to have made a strenuous resistance until its supplies from the sea were intercepted by the naval force of the Sikyonian Kleisthenês; and even after the town was taken, its inhabitants defended themselves for some time on the heights of Kirphis.[117] At length, however, they were thoroughly subdued. Their town was destroyed, or left to subsist merely as a landing-place; and the whole adjoining plain was consecrated to the Delphian god, whose domains thus touched the sea. Under this sentence, pronounced by the religious feeling of Greece, and sanctified by a solemn oath publicly sworn and inscribed at Delphi, the land was condemned to remain untilled and unplanted, without any species of human care, and serving only for the pasturage of cattle. The latter circumstance was convenient to the temple, inasmuch as it furnished abundance of victims for the pilgrims who landed and came to sacrifice,—for without preliminary sacrifice no man could consult the oracle;[118] while the entire prohibition of tillage was the only means of obviating the growth of another troublesome neighbor on the sea-board. The fate of Kirrha in this war is ascertained: that of Krissa is not so clear, nor do we know whether it was destroyed, or left subsisting in a position of inferiority with regard to Delphi. From this time forward, however, the Delphian community appears as substantive and autonomous, exercising in their own right the management of the temple; though we shall find, on more than one occasion, that the Phocians contest this right, and lay claim to the management of it for themselves,[119]—a remnant of that early period when the oracle stood in the domain of the Phocian Krissa. There seems, moreover, to have been a standing antipathy between the Delphians and the Phocians.
The Sacred War just mentioned, emanating from a solemn Amphiktyonic decree, carried on jointly by troops of different states whom we do not know to have ever before coöperated, and directed exclusively towards an object of common interest, is in itself a fact of high importance as manifesting a decided growth of Pan-Hellenic feeling. Sparta is not named as interfering,—a circumstance which seems remarkable when we consider both her power, even as it then stood, and her intimate connection with the Delphian oracle,—while the Athenians appear as the prime movers, through the greatest and best of their citizens: the credit of a large-minded patriotism rests prominently upon them.
But if this Sacred War itself is a proof that the Pan-Hellenic spirit was growing stronger, the positive result in which it ended reinforced that spirit still farther. The spoils of Kirrha were employed by the victorious allies in founding the Pythian games. The octennial festival hitherto celebrated at Delphi in honor of the god, including no other competition except in the harp and the pæan, was expanded into comprehensive games on the model of the Olympic, with matches not only of music, but also of gymnastics and chariots,—celebrated, not at Delphi itself, but on the maritime plain near the ruined Kirrha,—and under the direct superintendence of the Amphiktyons themselves. I have already mentioned that Solon provided large rewards for such Athenians as gained victories in the Olympic and Isthmian games, thereby indicating his sense of the great value of the national games as a means of promoting Hellenic intercommunion. It was the same feeling which instigated the foundation of the new games on the Kirrhæan plain, in commemoration of the vindicated honor of Apollo, and in the territory newly made over to him. They were celebrated in the latter half of summer, or first half of every third Olympic year,—the Amphiktyons being the ostensible agonothets, or administrators, and appointing persons to discharge the duty in their names.[120] At the first Pythian ceremony (in 586 B. C.), valuable rewards were given to the different victors; at the second (582 B. C.), nothing was conferred but wreaths of laurel,—the rapidly attained celebrity of the games being such as to render any farther reward superfluous. The Sikyonian despot Kleisthenês himself, one of the leaders in the conquest of Kirrha, gained the prize at the chariot-race of the second Pythia. We find other great personages in Greece frequently mentioned as competitors, and the games long maintained a dignity second only to the Olympic, over which, indeed, they had some advantages; first, that they were not abused for the purpose of promoting petty jealousies and antipathies of any administering state, as the Olympic games were perverted by the Eleians, on more than one occasion; next, that they comprised music and poetry as well as bodily display. From the circumstances attending their foundation, the Pythian games deserved, even more than the Olympic, the title bestowed on them by Demosthenês,—“The common Agôn of the Greeks.”[121]
The Olympic and Pythian games continued always to be the most venerated solemnities in Greece: yet the Nemea and Isthmia acquired a celebrity not much inferior; the Olympic prize counting for the highest of all.[122] Both the Nemea and the Isthmia were distinguished from the other two festivals by occurring, not once in four years, but once in two years; the former in the second and fourth years of each Olympiad, the latter in the first and third years. To both is assigned, according to Greek custom, an origin connected with the interesting persons and circumstances of Grecian antiquity: but our historical knowledge of both begins with the sixth century B. C. The first historical Nemead is presented as belonging to Olympiad 52 or 53 (572-568 B. C.), a few years subsequent to the Sacred War above mentioned and to the origin of the Pythia. The festival was celebrated in honor of the Nemean Zeus, in the valley of Nemea, between Phlius and Kleônæ,—and originally by the Kleônæans themselves, until, at some period after 460 B. C., the Argeians deprived them of that honor and assumed the honors of administration to themselves.[123] The Nemean games had their Hellanodikæ[124] to superintend, to keep order, and to distribute the prizes, as well as the Olympic. Respecting the Isthmian festival, our first historical information is a little earlier, for it has already been stated that Solon conferred a premium upon every Athenian citizen who gained a prize at that festival as well as at the Olympian,—in or after 594 B. C. It was celebrated by the Corinthians at their isthmus, in honor of Poseidôn; and if we may draw any inference from the legends respecting its foundation, which is ascribed sometimes to Theseus, the Athenians appear to have identified it with the antiquities of their own state.[125]
We thus perceive that the interval between 600-560 B. C. exhibits the first historical manifestation of the Pythia, Isthmia, and Nemea,—the first expansion of all the three from local into Pan-Hellenic festivals. To the Olympic games, for some time the only great centre of union among all the widely dispersed Greeks, are now added three other sacred agônes of the like public, open, national character; constituting visible marks, as well as tutelary bonds, of collective Hellenism, and insuring to every Greek who went to compete in the matches, a safe and inviolate transit even through hostile Hellenic states.[126] These four, all in or near Peloponnesus, and one of which occurred in each year, formed the period, or cycle, of sacred games, and those who had gained prizes at all the four received the enviable designation of periodonikes:[127] the honors paid to Olympic victors on their return to their native city were prodigious, even in the sixth century B. C., and became even more extravagant afterwards. We may remark that in the Olympic games alone, the oldest as well as the most illustrious of the four, the musical and intellectual element was wanting: all the three more recent agônes included crowns for exercises of music and poetry, along with gymnastics, chariots, and horses.
Nor was it only in the distinguishing national stamp set upon these four great festivals that the gradual increase of Hellenic family-feeling exhibited itself, during the course of this earliest period of our history. Pursuant to the same tendencies, religious festivals in all the considerable towns gradually became more and more open and accessible, and attracted guests as well as competitors from beyond the border; the dignity of the state, as well as the honor rendered to the presiding god, being measured by numbers, admiration, and envy, in the frequenting visitors.[128] There is no positive evidence, indeed, of such expansion in the Attic festivals earlier than the reign of Peisistratus, who first added the quadrennial or greater Panathenæa to the ancient annual or lesser Panathenæa; nor can we trace the steps of progress in regard to Thebes, Orchomenus, Thespiæ, Megara, Sikyôn, Pellênê, Ægina, Argos, etc., but we find full reason for believing that such was the general reality. Of the Olympic or Isthmian victors whom Pindar and Simonidês celebrated, many derived a portion of their renown from previous victories acquired at several of these local contests,[129]—victories sometimes so numerous, as to prove how wide-spread the habit of mutual frequentation had become;[130] though we find, even in the third century B. C., treaties of alliance between different cities, in which it is thought necessary to confer this mutual right by express stipulation. Temptation was offered, to the distinguished gymnastic or musical competitors, by prizes of great value; and Timæus even asserted, as a proof of the overweening pride of Kroton and Sybaris, that these cities tried to supplant the preëminence of the Olympic games, by instituting games of their own with the richest prizes, to be celebrated at the same time,[131]—a statement in itself not worthy of credit, but nevertheless illustrating the animated rivalry known to prevail among the Grecian cities in procuring for themselves splendid and crowded games. At the time when the Homeric Hymn to Dêmêtêr was composed, the worship of that goddess seems to have been purely local at Eleusis; but before the Persian war, the festival celebrated by the Athenians every year, in honor of the Eleusinian Dêmêtêr, admitted Greeks of all cities to be initiated, and was attended by vast crowds of them.[132]
It was thus that the simplicity and strict local application of the primitive religious festival, among the greater states in Greece, gradually expanded, on certain great occasions periodically recurring, into an elaborate and regulated series of exhibitions,—not merely admitting, but soliciting the fraternal presence of all Hellenic spectators. In this respect Sparta seems to have formed an exception to the remaining states: her festivals were for herself alone, and her general rudeness towards other Greeks was not materially softened even at the Karneia,[133] or Hyakinthia, or Gymnopædiæ. On the other hand, the Attic Dionysia were gradually exalted, from their original rude spontaneous outburst of village feeling in thankfulness to the god, followed by song, dance, and revelry of various kinds,—into costly and diversified performances, first, by a trained chorus, next, by actors superadded to it;[134] and the dramatic compositions thus produced, as they embodied the perfection of Grecian art, so they were eminently calculated to invite a Pan-Hellenic audience and to encourage the sentiment of Hellenic unity. The dramatic literature of Athens, however, belongs properly to a later period; previous to the year 560 B. C., we see only those commencements of innovation which drew upon Thespis[135] the rebuke of Solon, who himself contributed to impart to the Panathenaic festival a more solemn and attractive character, by checking the license of the rhapsodes, and insuring to those present a full, orderly recital of the Iliad.