Even in the account of these games it seems very probable that there has been a process of accumulation in which later bards have added events according to their fancy. Some of the later encounters are described with much less vigour and skill than the earlier. It is, however, important to notice that from the very first Greek athletics were part of religion. They were undertaken in a serious, devotional spirit, to honour some god or defunct hero. It was the same with poetry. Epic was, of course, devoted to the gods and heroes. The early lyric was also in the main devotional, whatever its subject might be. We have seen Hesiod carrying his poetic talents to a contest in song arranged to honour the funeral of
Amphidamas. Tragedy, it is now said, developed out of funeral choruses. It appears also that the great games of Delphi—the Pythian Games—developed from a musical contest. The histories of Herodotus are said to have been declaimed at the Olympic Games, and orators would in later times make them the occasion for Panhellenic orations. There was no divorce between intellect and muscle among the Greeks. Each was a necessary part of areté, the quality of the perfect man. Sport-loving people as we are, there is nothing in all literature so hard for us to comprehend as the work of Pindar, the Bœotian poet of the early fifth century. His professional business was only the writing of the Epinikia, songs and music in celebration of athletic contests at the great games, Pythian, Nemean, Isthmian, and Olympic. But the spirit in which he approaches his task is that of a man writing about the most solemn and important achievements in the world. He assumes that success in a boys’ wrestling match or a mule-race is an episode in the history of the successful athlete’s country, and does not find it inappropriate to speak of the gods and heroes in the same breath. “Far and wide shineth the glory of the Olympian Games, the glory that is won in the races of Pelops, where swiftness of foot contends, and feats of strength, hardy in labour. All his life long the victor shall bask in the glory of song for his prize. Daily continued blessedness is the supreme good for every man.” We cannot understand the devotional spirit of Pindar unless we realise that the Greeks dedicated their bodily strength and grace to the honour and service of heaven. The Hebrew praised Jehovah in dance and song; the Greek honoured Zeus and Apollo with wrestling and races and the beauty of trained bodies.
The Olympian Games[21] had originally belonged to the service of local heroes, Œnomaus and Pelops, but as they gained in popularity Father Zeus took them under his ægis. Apollo was said to have outrun Hermes in a race there and to
Plate Plate 18.—Head of Apollo, from the Western Pediment, Olympia.
English Photo Co.
have beaten Ares in boxing. The traditional date for the founding of the festival was 776 B.C., and that became the era from which all Greek dates were subsequently settled. But the actual date has no special significance: in origin the games were much older, and their great importance begins a good deal later—begins, in fact, with the real hegemony of Sparta. Though the games were not in Spartan territory it was undoubtedly from Spartan support that their importance arises.
At first the only contest was a foot-race, but various events were added until at last five days were necessary for the whole meeting. The most important contests were the following: (1) Short foot-race; (2) double course; (3) long foot-race; (4) wrestling; (5) pentathlon, consisting of five feats, long jump, foot-race, quoit-throwing, javelin-throwing, wrestling; (6) boxing; (7) four-horse chariot-race; (8) pancration, a mixture of boxing and wrestling—in fact, a combat between two naked unarmed men, with scarcely any rules; (9) horse-race; (10) hoplite-race for soldiers in full armour. Besides these there were six special events for boys and various other contests, such as mule-races and trotting races, which did not become permanent fixtures. There was a regular competition for heralds and trumpeters.