Greece and the Ægean Islands

by Philip Sanford Marden

It had not been an unduly fatiguing day, after all. The frequent walking that we had done served to break up the tedium of long riding, which otherwise would have been productive of numb limbs and stiff joints. It is well to bear this in mind, for I have seen unaccustomed riders assisted from their saddles after too long jaunts utterly unable to stand, and of course much less to walk, until a long period of rest had restored the circulation in the idle members. Fortunately, too, we had been blessed with an incomparable day. Spyros confessed that he had secretly dreaded a rain, which would have made the path dangerous in spots where it was narrow and composed of clay. As it was, we arrived in Olympia in surprisingly good condition, and on schedule time, though by no means unready to welcome real beds again and the chance for unlimited warm water.

Olympia, like Delphi, is a place of memories chiefly. The visible remains are numerous, but so flat that some little technical knowledge is needed to restore them in mind. There is no village at the modern Olympia at all,—nothing but five or six little inns and a railway station,—so that Delphi really has the advantage of Olympia in this regard. As a site connected with ancient Greek history and Greek religion, the two places are as similar in nature as they are in general ruin. The field in which the ancient structures stand lies just across the tiny tributary river Cladeus, spanned by a footbridge.

Even from the opposite bank, the ruins present a most interesting picture, with its attractiveness greatly enhanced by the neighboring pines, which scatter themselves through the precinct itself and cover densely the little conical hill of Kronos close by, while the grasses of the plain grow luxuriantly among the fallen stones of the former temples and apartments of the athletes. The ruins are so numerous and so prostrate that the non-technical visitor is seriously embarrassed to describe them, as is the case with every site of the kind. All the ruins, practically, have been identified and explained, and naturally they all have to do with the housing or with the contests of the visiting athletes of ancient times, or with the worship of tutelary divinities. Almost the first extensive ruin that we found on passing the encircling precinct wall was the Prytaneum—a sort of ancient training table at which victorious contestants were maintained gratis—while beyond lay other equally extensive remnants of exercising places, such as the Palæstra for the wrestlers. But all these were dominated, evidently, by the two great temples, an ancient one of comparatively small size sacred to Hera, and a mammoth edifice dedicated to Zeus, which still gives evidence of its enormous extent, while the fallen column-drums reveal some idea of the other proportions. It was in its day the chief glory of the inclosure, and the statue of the god was even reckoned among the seven wonders of the world. Unfortunately this statue, like that of Athena at Athens, has been irretrievably lost. But there is enough of the great shrine standing in the midst of the ruins to inspire one with an idea of its greatness; and, in the museum above, the heroic figures from its two pediments have been restored and set up in such wise as to reproduce the external adornment of the temple with remarkable success. Gathered around this central building, the remainder of the ancient structures having to do with the peculiar uses of the spot present a bewildering array of broken stones and marbles. An obtrusive remnant of a Byzantine church is the one discordant feature. Aside from this the precinct recalls only the distant time when the regular games called all Greece to Olympia, while the “peace of God” prevailed throughout the kingdom. Just at the foot of Kronos a long terrace and flight of steps mark the position of a row of old treasuries, as at Delphi, while along the eastern side of the precinct are to be seen the remains of a portico once famous for its echoes, where sat the judges who distributed the prizes. There is also a most graceful arch remaining to mark the entrance to the ancient stadium, of which nothing else now remains. Of the later structures on the site, the “house of Nero” is the most interesting and extensive. The Olympic games were still celebrated, even after the Roman domination, and Nero himself entered the lists in his own reign. He caused a palace to be erected for him on that occasion—and of course he won a victory, for any other outcome would have been most impolite, not to say dangerous. Nero was more fortunately lodged than were the other ancient contestants, it appears, for there were no hostelries in old Olympia in which the visiting multitudes could be housed, and the athletes and spectators who came from all over the land were accustomed to bring their own tents and pitch them roundabout, many of them on the farther side of the Alpheios.

ENTRANCE TO THE STADIUM. OLYMPIA

The many treasuries, to which reference has been made as running along the terrace wall at the very foot of the hill of Kronos, are spoken of by Pausanias. Enough of them is occasionally to be found to enable one to judge how they appeared—somewhat, no doubt, like the so-called “treasury of the Athenians” that one may see in a restored form at Delphi. In these tiny buildings were kept the smaller votive gifts of the various states and the apparatus for the games. Not far from this row of foundations and close by the terrace wall that leads along the hill down to the arch that marks the stadium entrance, are several bases on which stood bronze statues of Zeus, set up by the use of moneys derived from fines for fracturing the rules of the games. Various ancient athletes achieved a doubtful celebrity by having to erect these “Zanes,” as they were called, one of them being a memorial of the arrant coward Sarapion of Alexandria, who was so frightened at the prospect of entering the pankration for which he had set down his name that he fled the day before the contest.

Within the precinct one may still see fragments of the pedestal which supported Phidias’s wonderful gold-and-ivory image of Zeus. The god himself is said to have been so enchanted with the sculptor’s work that he hurled a thunderbolt down, which struck near the statue; and the spot was marked with a vase of marble. Just how approval was spelled out of so equivocal a manifestation might seem rather difficult to see; but such at any rate was the fact. Of the other remaining bases, the most interesting is doubtless the tall triangular pedestal of the Niké of Pæonius, still to be seen in situ, though its graceful statue is in the museum.

Just above the meadows on the farther bank, there runs a range of hills, through which we had but recently ridden. And it was there that the ancients found a convenient crag from which to hurl the unfortunate women who dared venture to look on at the games. The law provided that no woman’s eye should see those contests, and so far as is known only one woman caught breaking this law ever escaped the penalty of it. She was the mother of so many victorious athletes that an unwonted immunity was extended to her. Other women, whose disguise was penetrated, were made stern examples to frighten future venturesome maids and matrons out of seeking to view what was forbidden.

The games at Olympia were celebrated during a period of about a thousand years, throughout which time they furnished the one recognized system of dates. They recurred at four-year intervals. Long before the appointed month of the games, which were always held in midsummer, duly accredited ambassadors were sent forth to all the cities and states of Hellas to announce the coming of the event and to proclaim the “peace of God,” which the law decreed should prevail during the days of the contest, and in which it was sacrilege not to join, whatever the exigency. On the appointed date the cities of all Greece sent the flower of their youth to Olympia, runners, wrestlers, discus throwers, chariot drivers, boxers, and the like, as well as their choicest horses, to contend for the coveted trophy. During the first thirteen Olympiads there was but one athletic event,—a running race. In later times the number was added to until the race had grown to a “pentathlon,” or contest of five kinds, and still later to include twenty-four different exercises. None but Greeks of pure blood could contest, at least until the Roman times, and nobles and plebeians vied in striving for the victor’s wreath, although the richer were at a decided advantage in the matter of the horse races. The prize offered, however, was of no intrinsic value at all, being nothing but a crown of wild olive, and it astonished and dismayed the invading Persians not a little to find that they were being led against a nation that would strive so earnestly and steadfastly for a prize that seemed so little. As a matter of fact it was not as slight a reward as it appeared to be, for in the incidental honors that it carried the world has seldom seen its equal. The man who proved his right to be crowned with this simple wreath was not only regarded as honored in himself, but honor was imputed to his family and to his city as well; and the city generally went wild with enthusiasm over him, some even going so far as to raze their walls in token that with so gallant sons they needed no bulwarks. Special privileges were conferred upon him at home and even abroad. In many cities the victor of an Olympic contest was entitled to maintenance at the public charge in the utmost honor, and the greatest poets of the day delighted to celebrate the victors in their stateliest odes. Thus, although games in honor of the gods were held at various other points in Greece, as for example at Delphi and at the isthmus of Corinth, none surpassed the Olympic as a national institution, sharing the highest honors with the oracle at Delphi as an object of universal reverence.

Of course the origin of these great games is shrouded in mystery, which has, as usual, crystallized into legend. And as the pediment in one end of the temple of the Olympian Zeus, preserved in the museum near by, deals with this story, it may be in order to speak of it. Tradition relates that King Œnomaus had a splendid stud of race horses of which he was justly proud, and likewise was possessed of a surpassingly beautiful daughter whom men called Hippodameia, who was naturally sought in marriage by eligible young men from all around. The condition precedent set by Œnomaus to giving her hand was, however, a difficult one. The suitor must race his horses against those of Œnomaus, driving the team himself; and if he lost he was put to death. One version relates that Œnomaus, if he found himself being distanced, was wont to spear the luckless swains from behind. At any rate nobody had succeeded in winning Hippodameia when young Pelops came along and entered the contest. He had no doubt heard of the king’s unsportsmanlike javelin tactics, for he adopted some subterfuges of his own,—doing something or other to the chariot of his opponent, such as loosening a linchpin or bribing his charioteer to weaken it in some other part,—with the result that when the race came off Œnomaus was thrown out and killed, and Pelops won the race and Hippodameia—and of course lived happily ever after.