[80] Thucyd. v, 48.
[81] Thucyd. v, 48-50.
[82] Καταθέντων δὲ καὶ Ὀλυμπίασι στήλην χαλκῆν κοινῇ Ὀλυμπίοις τοῖς νυνί (Thucyd. v, 47), words of the treaty.
[83] Dorieus of Rhodes was victor in the Pankration, both in Olymp. 88 and 89, (428-424 B.C.). Rhodes was included among the tributary allies of Athens. But the athletes who came to contend were privileged and (as it were) sacred persons, who were never molested or hindered from coming to the festival, if they chose to come, under any state of war. Their inviolability was never disturbed even down to the harsh proceeding of Aratus (Plutarch, Aratus, c. 28).
But this does not prove that Rhodian visitors generally, or a Rhodian theôry, could have come to Olympia between 431-421 in safety.
From the presence of individuals, even as spectators, little can be inferred: because, even at this very Olympic festival of 420 B.C., Lichas the Spartan was present as a spectator, though all Lacedæmonians were formally excluded by proclamation of the Eleians (Thucyd. v, 50).
[84] Of the taste and elegance with which these exhibitions were usually got up in Athens, surpassing generally every other city in Greece, see a remarkable testimony in Xenophon, Memorabil. iii, 3, 12.
[85] Thucyd. vi, 16. Οἱ γὰρ Ἕλληνες καὶ ὑπὲρ δύναμιν μείζω ἡμῶν τὴν πόλιν ἐνόμισαν τῷ ἐμῷ διαπρεπεῖ τῆς Ὀλυμπίαζε θεωρίας, πρότερον ἐλπίζοντες αὐτὴν καταπεπολεμῆσθαι· διότι ἅρματα μὲν ἑπτὰ καθῆκα, ὅσα οὐδείς πω ἰδιώτης πρότερον, ἐνίκησά τε, καὶ δεύτερος καὶ τέταρτος ἐγενόμην, καὶ τἄλλα ἀξίως τῆς νίκης παρεσκευασάμην.
The full force of this grandiose display cannot be felt unless we bring to our minds the special position both of Athens and the Athenian allies towards Olympia,—and of Alkibiadês himself towards Athens, Argos, and the rest of Greece,—in the first half of the year 420 B.C.
Alkibiadês obtained from Euripidês the honor of an epinikian ode, or song of triumph, to celebrate this event; of which a few lines are preserved by Plutarch (Alkib. c. 11). It is curious that the poet alleges Alkibiadês to have been first, second, and third, in the course; while Alkibiadês himself, more modest and doubtless more exact, pretends only to first, second, and fourth. Euripidês informs us that Alkibiadês was crowned twice and proclaimed twice—δὶς στεφθέντ’ ἐλαίᾳ κάρυκι βοᾷν παραδοῦναι. Reiske, Coray, and Schäfer, have thought it right to alter this word δὶς to τρὶς, without any authority, which completely alters the asserted fact. Sintenis in his edition of Plutarch has properly restored the word δὶς.