[120] Mr. Clinton thinks that the Pythian games were celebrated in the autumn: M. Boeckh refers the celebration to the spring: Krause agrees with Boeckh. (Clinton, Fast. Hell. vol. ii, p. 200, Appendix; Boeckh, ad Corp. Inscr. No. 1688, p. 813; Krause, Die Pythien, Nemeen und Isthmien, vol. ii, pp. 29-35.)
Mr. Clinton’s opinion appears to me nearly the truth; the real time, as I conceive it, being about the beginning of August, or end of July. Boeckh admits that, with the exception of Thucydidês (v, 1-19), the other authorities go to sustain it; but he relies on Thucydidês to outweigh them. Now the passage of Thucydidês, properly understood, seems to me as much against Boeckh’s view as the rest.
I may remark, as a certain additional reason in the case, that the Isthmia appear to have been celebrated in the third year of each Olympiad, and in the spring (Krause, p. 187). It seems improbable that these two great festivals should have come one immediately after the other, which, nevertheless, must be supposed, if we adopt the opinion of Boeckh and Krause.
The Pythian games would be sometimes a little earlier, sometimes a little later, in consequence of the time of full moon: notice being always sent round by the administrators beforehand of the commencement of the sacred month. See the references in K. F. Hermann, Lehrbuch der gottesdienstl. Alterth. der Griechen, ch. 49, not. 12.—This note has been somewhat modified since my first edition,—see the note vol. vi, ch. liv.
[121] Demosthen. Philipp. iii, p. 119.
[122] Pindar, Nem. x, 28-33.
[123] Strabo, viii, p. 377; Plutarch, Arat. c. 28; Mannert. Geogr. Gr. Röm. pt. viii, p. 650. Compare the second chapter in Krause, Die Pythien, Nemeen und Isthmien, vol. ii. p. 108, seq.
That the Kleônæans continued without interruption to administer the Nemean festival down to Olympiad 80 (460 B. C.), or thereabouts, is the rational inference from Pindar, Nem. x, 42: compare Nem. iv, 17. Eusebius, indeed, states that the Argeians seized the administration for themselves in Olympiad 53, and in order to reconcile this statement with the above passage in Pindar, critics have concluded that the Argeians lost it again, and that the Kleônæans resumed it a little before Olympiad 80. I take a different view, and am disposed to reject the statement of Eusebius altogether; the more so as Pindar’s tenth Nemean ode is addressed to an Argeian citizen named Theiæus. If there had been at that time a standing dispute between Argos and Kleônæ on the subject of the administration of the Nemea, the poet would hardly have introduced the mention of the Nemean prizes gained by the ancestors of Theiæus, under the untoward designation of “prizes received from Kleônæan men.”
[124] See Boeckh, Corp. Inscript. No. 1126.
[125] K. F. Hermann, in his Lehrbuch der Griechischen Staatsalterthümer (ch. 32, not. 7. and ch. 65, not. 3), and again in his more recent work (Lehrbuch der gottesdienstlichen Alterthümer der Griechen, part iii, ch. 49, also not. 6), both highly valuable publications, maintains,—1. That the exaltation of the Isthmian and Nemean games into Pan-Hellenic importance arose directly after and out of the fall of the despots of Corinth and Sikyon. 2. That it was brought about by the paramount influence of the Dorians, especially by Sparta. 3. That the Spartans put down the despots of both these two cities.