The last of these three propositions appears to me untrue in respect to Sikyon,—improbable in respect to Corinth: my reasons for thinking so have been given in a former chapter. And if this be so, the reason for presuming Spartan intervention as to the Isthmian and Nemean games falls to the ground; for there is no other proof of it, nor does Sparta appear to have interested herself in any of the four national festivals except the Olympic, with which she was from an early period peculiarly connected.
Nor can I think that the first of Hermann’s three propositions is at all tenable. No connection whatever can be shown between Sikyon and the Nemean games; and it is the more improbable in this case that the Sikyonians should have been active, inasmuch as they had under Kleisthenês a little before contributed to nationalize the Pythian games: a second interference for a similar purpose ought not to be presumed without some evidence. To prove his point about the Isthmia, Hermann cites only a passage of Solinus (vii, 14), “Hoc spectaculum, per Cypselum tyrannum intermissum, Corinthii Olymp. 49 solemnitati pristinæ reddiderunt.” To render this passage at all credible, we must read Cypselidas instead of Cypselum, which deducts from the value of a witness whose testimony can never under any circumstances be rated high. But granting the alteration, there are two reasons against the assertion of Solinus. One, a positive reason, that Solon offered a large reward to Athenian victors at the Isthmian games: his legislation falls in 594 B. C., ten years before the time when the Isthmia are said by Solinus to have been renewed after a long intermission. The other reason (negative, though to my mind also powerful) is the silence of Herodotus in that long invective which he puts into the mouth of Sosiklês against the Kypselids (v, 92). If Kypselus had really been guilty of so great an insult to the feelings of the people as to suppress their most solemn festival, the fact would hardly have been omitted in the indictment which Sosiklês is made to urge against him. Aristotle, indeed, representing Kypselus as a mild and popular despot, introduces a contrary view of his character, which, if we admitted it, would of itself suffice to negative the supposition that he had suppressed the Isthmia.
[126] Plutarch, Arat. c. 28. καὶ συνεχύθη τότε πρῶτον (by order of Aratus) ἡ δεδομένη τοῖς ἀγωνισταῖς ἀσυλία καὶ ἀσφάλεια, a deadly stain on the character of Aratus.
[127] Festus, v, Perihodos, p. 217, ed. Müller. See the animated protest of the philosopher Xenophanês against the great rewards given to Olympic victors (540-520 B. C.), Xenophan. Fragment. 2, p 357, ed. Bergk.
[128] Thucyd. vi, 16. Alkibiadês says, καὶ ὅσα αὖ ἐν τῇ πόλει χορηγίαις ἢ ἄλλῳ τῳ λαμπρύνομαι, τοῖς μὲν ἀστοῖς φθονεῖται φύσει, πρὸς δὲ τοὺς ξένους καὶ αὐτὴ ἰσχὺς φαίνεται.
The greater Panathenæa are ascribed to Peisistratus by the Scholiast on Aristeidês, vol. iii, p. 323, ed. Dindorf: judging by what immediately precedes, the statement seems to come from Aristotle.
[129] Simonidês, Fragm. 154-158, ed. Bergk; Pindar, Nem. x, 45; Olymp. xiii, 107.
The distinguished athlete Theagenês is affirmed to have gained twelve hundred prizes in these various agônes: according to some, fourteen hundred prizes (Pausan. vi, 11, 2; Plutarch, Præcept. Reip. Ger. c. 15, p. 811).
An athlete named Apollonius arrived too late for the Olympic games, having stayed away too long, from his anxiety to get money at various agônes in Ionia (Pausan. v, 21, 5).
[130] See, particularly, the treaty between the inhabitants of Latus and those of Olûs in Krête, in Boeckh’s Corp. Inscr. No. 2554, wherein this reciprocity is expressly stipulated. Boeckh places this Inscription in the third century B. C.