Although the Hellanodics could bestow no other reward than the Olive Chaplet, which was merely a symbol, yet the shouts of applause from the spectators, and the congratulations of relatives, friends, and assembled countrymen, formed a meed that gratified the ambition of the conquerors. Sacrifices were made in honor of the victors, and entertainments were given, in which they presided, or were otherwise eminently distinguished. In the Prytaneum, or town-hall of Olympia, a banqueting-room was set apart for the special purpose of entertaining them; and odes composed for the occasion were sung by a Chorus, accompanied with instrumental music[6].
There can be nothing more gratifying to laudable ambition, than the idea that great actions shall be handed down to posterity. To perpetuate, therefore, the glory of these victories, the names of the conquerors were recorded in a public register, which specified the exercise in which each had excelled: and the privilege of erecting their statues in the Sacred Grove of Jupiter, was the last and highest honor which the Hellanodics could grant to the Olympic victors.
But upon arriving in their native cities, the conquerors were far more distinguished than at Olympia; and more substantial rewards were conferred upon them. They enjoyed the honor of a triumphal entry; and temples and altars, dedicated to them, were erected at the public expense. They were thus immortalized by what was deemed the perfection of glory. “To conquer at Olympia,” says Cicero, “was greater and more glorious than to receive the honors of a Roman triumph.”
The importance which the Greeks attached to the Olympic games may be deduced from the care with which they instructed their youth in the gymnastic exercises. There was scarcely a town of any consideration in Greece, or in her colonies settled along the coasts of Asia and Africa—in the Ionian and Ægean islands—in Sicily and in Italy, in which there was not a Gymnasium, or school of exercise, maintained at the public expense.
The Gymnasia were spacious buildings, of a square or oblong form, surrounded on the outside with piazzas, and containing in the inside, a large area where the exercises were performed. Places for training in bad weather—porticoes, baths, chambers for oil and sand, with groves of trees, and seats, or benches, encompassed the stadium. The internal structure of these edifices was adapted to the convenience of those who frequented them, either for exercise or for pleasure; and they were the resort of rhetoricians, philosophers, and men of learning, who here read their lectures, held their disputations, and recited their several productions[7].
The moral and political influence of the Olympic games was acknowledged by the legislators of Greece; and accordingly, they were encouraged and protected by laws so strict, that for more than ten centuries they attracted the particular attention of the civilized world; and, amidst the revolutions of states and empires, they seemed to stand on a basis of perpetual duration. To gain the Olympic crown was the great object of solicitude, as it reflected the highest honor, not on the individual alone who obtained the prize, but also on the country which gave him birth. But to qualify the candidate for the combat, a long course of training was requisite; and in every city, the youth were instructed in the different branches of the gymnastic science, and regularly exercised by proper masters.
The republics of Greece were warlike in their constitution; and they were eager to form the bodies, as well as the minds of their youth. The importance of the athletic exercises was apparent to those who understood the nature of the human frame, which, from experience, they knew could be strengthened by the practice of the gymnasium, at the same time that the mind was invigorated by consequent health and soundness in the body. We may therefore consider the sacred games of Greece rather as a military institution, than a religious festival; and that the worship of the gods, although combined with the sports of the Stadium and Hippodrome, was only a secondary object, calculated to impress on the minds of the people a higher idea of their value and importance. In the ancient world, as well as in modern times, religion has been made a tool to promote state artifices; and the legislators of Greece knew too well the influence of superstition, to reject its powerful aid in the construction of their political establishments.
As a civil and military institution, the sacred games were attended by the happiest consequences. They presented a prize to the emulous youth, accompanied by such honors as powerfully stimulated their endeavours to acquire that proficiency in the gymnastic sports, which could only be obtained by frequent practice in the schools of their respective cities. The Athenians devoted nearly a third part of the year to such amusements; and from the number of Olympic victors whose national designations are recorded by ancient writers, we may suppose, that the other states of Greece were no less zealous in the exercises of the gymnasium[8].
To prepare men for the business of war, was the grand object of these institutions.—The Greeks were divided into small independent states, which were constantly embroiled with one another; and their strength was founded on the number and discipline of the troops they could respectively bring into the field. To increase the number of fighting men, and to train them in the most effectual manner, was, therefore, the principal object of the different governments. By learning and practising the gymnastic exercises, their youth were inured to toil, and rendered healthy, hardy, vigorous, and active. They were prepared for all the duties of war. Neither the inclemency of the weather, nor the scorching beams of the sun could affect them, as their bodies by continual exercise had become more robust, and less liable to be injured, than the natural frame of ordinary men.
The Grecian manner of fighting required both strength and agility, as the long spear of the “firm phalanx” could not be easily wielded, and the occasionally rapid marches of the Greek armies over a rugged country, sufficiently evince the utility of active habits. To the PRACTICE of the gymnasia, the Greeks owe all the glory they acquired in war; and it was the opinion of Plato, “that every well constituted republic ought, by offering prizes to the conquerors, to encourage all such exercises as tend to increase the strength and agility of the body[9].”