Every free man might be present at the contests and other festivities, provided his means permitted him to defray the expenses of the journey and of a stay in the festive city. Naturally the greater number of the spectators came from the neighbouring states of the Peloponnesus; but, still, many came very long distances. So great was the interest roused by these contests that people from all classes came to view them; and even men of the highest intellectual eminence took pleasure in them. Statesmen and generals, such as Themistocles, Cimon, Philopoemen; philosophers, such as Thales, Chiron, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato; orators, such as Gorgias, Lysias, Demosthenes; poets, such as Pindar, Simonides, were among the spectators; and though some of the poets, especially Euripides, and philosophers were inclined to criticise rather severely the value of the performances at Olympia, yet these were but isolated opinions, and in no way tended to diminish the popularity of the games or the glory of the victors in the eyes of the general public. This interest was revealed by the endurance with which the spectators continued to watch the games, in spite of the fact that they took place in the very hottest season, and lasted for the greater part of the day; from early morning, when they went to the Stadion in order to secure a good place, till late in the afternoon, when the decision was given, they watched and endured the heat, dust, crowding, and thirst, either standing or squatting, according as space permitted, with that patience and endurance of which only the people of the south are capable. No doubt there were noisy expressions of sympathy during the contests, encouraging or mocking cries, applause and sounds of sorrow, since all feelings are expressed in a violent manner by southern nations. Women were not allowed to be present at the games. The statement that the maidens of Elis were an exception to this rule is scarcely credible. Those women or girls who had come to the festival to accompany competing husbands, sons, or brothers, had to remain on the other side of the Alpheus. In consequence of the great number of spectators, inns and lodging-houses were built to accommodate those who had not, like the sacred envoys, brought their own tents with them. Moreover, as already indicated, a kind of fair was connected with the Olympian festivities; traders, with all manner of wares, some of them objects directly connected with the festival, such as fillets, flowers, food, etc., and other useful articles, set up their booths and tents; and, thus, along with the festival, there was a busy commercial activity, such as was common in every place where great crowds of people met together at fixed times.
The games performed at Delphi in honour of Pythian Apollo bore the name of the Great Pythia, to distinguish them from the Lesser Pythia, held every year at Delphi, and also from the festival of the same name celebrated in other places. This festival, which at first was held every eight years, had been changed to a quadrennial one after the beginning of the 6th century B.C.; it lasted several days, and gradually many additions were made to the original contests. At first the musical competition, which comprised cithara and flute playing, was the only one; in later times, too, it was the principal part of the festival, but after the example of the Olympian games, gymnastic and equestrian contests were also added. A general truce was connected with the Pythian games as well as with the Olympian, and this lasted long enough to enable spectators from the distant colonies on the shores of the Mediterranean to journey in safety to Delphi and back. The chief events of the festival and the order of proceedings were something of this sort.
A great sacrifice to the three gods, Apollo, Artemis, and Leto, called Trittyes probably formed the introduction. Then followed an important part of the festival, calculated to arouse lively interest in the public, the Pythian Nomos, the subject of which was the celebrated fight with the dragon Pytho by Apollo. Many suggestions have been made about the nature of this performance. One is that the fight was presented in dumb show; another that it was a song, accompanied by instruments; and, again, another very popular theory is that this Pythian Nomos was a concerto of flute solos, by means of which various stages of the fight with the dragon were represented in tone painting. Probably the most important situations—the fight, thanksgiving, and hymn of victory—could be thus represented, and, indeed, they must have attained considerable proficiency in tone painting, since even the gnashing of the dragon’s teeth was musically represented. With a view to strengthening these effects, the flute, which always remained the chief instrument, was afterwards reinforced at certain places by trumpets and shepherds’ pipes. This Pythian Nomos constituted part of the musical contest, which was of greater importance in the Pythian games than the gymnastic competition, since Apollo was essentially the representative of the musical arts. Besides the solo flute playing, the musical competition included songs with cithara accompaniment, and at first also with the flute, but this last was discontinued, being regarded as too sad and gloomy; and, instead, cithara playing without song was introduced in the musical contest. It was only in much later times, when troops of artists were called in to make the festival more splendid, with the consent of the officials of the land, that dramas were also presented at the Pythian games.
We know but little of the gymnastic contests which gradually found a place in the Pythian games. In essentials they were the same as those at Olympia, but the double course and the long course for boys were also added, while at Olympia these two contests were only open to men. The order of events, too, was different; the competitors were classed according to age, and each class, after completing its own contests, was able to rest while the others went through the same exercise, so that these intervals for rest enabled the boys to perform greater feats of running than they could at Olympia, where they had to enter for all their contests before the men’s turn came at all. To the usual gymnastic sports were afterwards added the race in full panoply and the pancration for boys. Equestrian competitions were early introduced; racing with full-grown horses, with four-horse chariots, and afterwards with two-horse chariots; when colts were introduced at Olympia the example was also followed at Delphi: probably the events followed in such a way that the musical contest was connected with the acts of worship, and was followed by the gymnastic, and this by the equestrian contests. The gymnastic sports were held, at the time of Pindar, in the neighbourhood of the ruined city Cirrha, south of the mouth of the Pleistos; afterwards the Delphic Stadion was to the north-west of the city, while the driving and riding races took place in the old Stadion near the ruined city of Cirrha. In later times there was also a theatre for the performance of the musical contests.
Here, as at Olympia, punctual attendance was required of the competitors; those who entered unlawfully were expelled by the servants of the Amphictyons, who were entrusted with disciplinary power. It was they who had the superintendence of the games, as well as the right of judging. Originally both these privileges had belonged to the inhabitants of Delphi; but after the reorganisation of the games in the year 586, the duties of superintendents and judges passed to the Amphictyons, or to officials appointed by them. It seems that we must distinguish between the Amphictyonic superintendents (ἐπιμεληταί), in whose hands were the arrangement of the programme, and all matters of expense, the appointment or ratification of the festive officials, etc. (ἀγωνοθεσία), and the real umpires (βραβῆς), who had themselves to make the most important arrangements for the contests, such as assigning the places for the chariots in the races and giving decisions about the victory; but we cannot attain any certainty in this matter. Sometimes, towards the end of the age of Greek freedom, the right of superintendence was conferred on princes—as, for instance on Philip of Macedon—and in the time of the Empire it was not unusual for a rich man to bear the expenses of the ceremony wholly or in great part; though even here the old custom was, at any rate externally, observed. The prizes of victory were originally valuable gifts, tripods, etc.; at the rearrangement of the games the custom originated of giving, instead, a wreath, as was done at Olympia, made of laurel sacred to Apollo. They also followed the example of Olympia in introducing lectures and recitations by historians and poets; thus Gorgias the Sophist, delivered an oration on one of these occasions. A very important part of the festival was the great procession (πομπή), in which strangers who came to the games, embassies with their dedicatory offerings, the officials and priests, took part; and besides the offerings, which were often very splendid, valuable treasures, usually kept in the treasuries, were exhibited; costly weapons and armour, splendid garments and jewels, vases, etc., were exposed to view, so that this procession, which probably marched from the suburb Pylaea, upwards to the temple of Apollo, must have presented a very varied and richly-coloured picture. As well as the triple sacrifice already mentioned, there were other solemn sacrifices, among them a hecatomb to Apollo; this was, of course, connected with the great banquet, at which there was no lack of musical entertainment.
The Isthmian games, the third of the great Hellenic national festivals, were celebrated on the isthmus of Corinth, in the sacred pine grove of Poseidon, where a hippodrome and a stadion for equestrian and gymnastic contests had been erected. The festival, which from the year 582 onwards, became national and Hellenic, took place every two years, in the first and third years of an Olympiad; it consisted of musical, gymnastic, and equestrian contests. We do not hear of any differences between these games and those at Olympia, and we may assume that there were the usual competitions for men and boys; in addition to them there was an intermediate class of the beardless ones—that is, youths (ἔφηβοι). Of course, there was a universal truce during the Isthmian games, and numerous and splendid embassies attended it, since the site between two seas facilitated attendance. The arrangement of the programme fell to the Corinthians, who also appointed the umpires, probably from among the rich and respected citizens. The prize of victory was a wreath of ivy, for which they afterwards substituted one of pine, and this seems to have been still the custom at the time of Ibycus, who, as Schiller tells us, met his death on the way to this “contest of chariots and song.” In the later period, especially in the Hellenistic and Roman times, there were also rhetorical and poetical recitations at the Isthmian games, but they did not form a part of the musical contest.
The Nemean games were held at Argolis, in a valley between Cleonae and Phlius, in a grove belonging to the sanctuary of Zeus-Nemeios, and they did not attain national importance till the year 573. These, like the Isthmian games, were held every two years, in the second and fourth years of an Olympiad. The contests here also comprised musical, gymnastic, and equestrian competitions; we are incidentally informed that cithara and flute players appeared in the musical contest. We have no information about the length of its duration, but it must certainly have lasted for several days. The Cleonaeans were for a long time superintendents and umpires, but when the Argives gained possession of the Nemean sanctuary they also claimed this privilege. The prize of victory here, as at the Isthmian games, was a wreath of ivy; there were the same arrangements for a universal truce, and visits of sacred envoys, as at other great festivals.
From this consideration of the Hellenic national celebrations we must now turn specially to Athens, with whose festive calendar we are much better acquainted; but we must content ourselves with a selection from among the most important. The first place is due to the greatest festival of the Athenians, the Panathenaea celebrated in the first month of the Athenian calendar, Hekatombaeon (probably our July). We must distinguish between the lesser and the greater Panathenaea; the former was celebrated every year; the latter, introduced by Peisistratus, every four years; the real difference was that, at the greater Panathenaea the contests were more splendid and probably lasted a longer time. The festival was held in honour of the patron goddess in the ancient temple of Athene Polias; it consisted of sacrifices and competitions, equestrian, gymnastic, and also musical. The oldest musical contest was a competition between rhapsodists, perhaps introduced by Peisistratus. The performances of the rhapsodists were probably chiefly concerned with the Homeric poems, which had been collected and edited at the command of Peisistratus, but we do not know in what way they contended for the prize; the place of recitation was the Odeon. Afterwards the Homeric rhapsodies fell into the background, when Pericles extended the musical contests by introducing cithara and flute playing and song. We learn from the inscriptions that songs with cithara accompaniment, as well as with flute accompaniment, were usual, and they also speak of cyclic choruses, that is, dithyrambs, sung by choruses while circling round the altar on which the sacrifice was burning. The prize for the musical contest was a gold wreath and some money. The gymnastic contests were arranged according to age (boys, youths, men); the youngest entered first, and each class ended its competitions before the next one began. Similarly the competitions advanced from easy to difficult; they were of the usual kinds already described, but it was only the men from whom all were required. Boys and youths in the earliest period entered for racing, wrestling, and boxing, pancration, and pentathlon. Afterwards the pentathlon was abandoned, and the double and long course introduced instead, though probably the requirements for these were reduced, since the usual attainments of these contests would have been too great for boys. We do not know exactly where the gymnastic competitions took place, since the Panathenaeic Stadion was not built till the latter half of the fourth century. Before that there seems to have been a place to the west of the Peiraeus, where both equestrian and gymnastic contests were carried on; here, too, the victors were proclaimed, and the prizes conferred on them. These consisted in a quantity of oil from the celebrated olive-trees of Athene in the Academy, and this was drawn into earthen amphoras, on one side of which was represented the image of the patron goddess, and on the other generally a scene from the gymnastic competition. Many imitations of these amphoras exist, and no small number of them have come down to us, and are known as Panathenaeic prize amphoras.
There were several events peculiar to the equestrian contests at Athens. Thus, in Attica and Boeotia chariot-jumping was a popular sport. Besides the charioteer on the two-wheeled car there was a second person (ἀποβάτης), who, while the chariot was moving at full speed, jumped down from the car and up again, assisted by the charioteer; this performance is traced back by legend to the time of Erichthonius. There were also martial contests, in which warriors in full panoply stood in their chariots; and also races of javelin-throwers, who aimed at a fixed goal from their running horses; but these sports connected with the Panathenaea are known to us only by casual allusions, and not by accurate description. Here, as elsewhere, we learn from the inscriptions that the usual kinds of racing took place, namely, with four horses, and afterwards, too, with colts, as well as riding races. Here, as in the gymnastic contests, the prize consisted in jars of oil; in both cases the first prize was generally five times the value of the second.
To the festivities of the Panathenaea belonged also a performance of the Pyrrhic war dance (πυῤῥίχη) which originated at Sparta, and was probably introduced at Athens at the time of Solon and Peisistratus. In later times they distinguished three kinds, according to age. The various classes, clad in magnificent armour, combined together in bands and performed a dance to the music of the flute, which partook of the double nature of choregraphic and military movements. A still extant relief from the Acropolis, set up by a choragus who had won the prize (rich citizens undertook the equipment of the Pyrrhic choruses as a public service or liturgy), presents a number of youthful dancers performing a measured dance in light helmets, and holding their shield in their left hand, but without any clothing; they are in two divisions; the choragus stands superintending them in a long chiton (as festive garment) and himation. We do not know how the victory of a Pyrrhic chorus was decided. The prize of victory was an ox.