[74] Herodot. iv, 170-171. παραλία σφόδρα εὐδαίμων. Strabo, ii, p. 131. πολυμήλου καὶ πολυκαρποτάτας χθονὸς, Pindar. Pyth. ix, 7.

[75] Herodot. iv, 186, 187, 189, 190. Νομάδες κρεοφάγοι καὶ γαλακτοπόται. Pindar, Pyth. ix, 127, ἱππευταὶ Νομάδες. Pompon. Mela, i, 8.

[76] See the fourth, fifth, and ninth Pythian Odes of Pindar. In the description given by Sophoklês (Electra, 695) of the Pythian contests, in which pretence is made that Orestês has perished, ten contending chariots are supposed, of which two are Libyan, from Barka: of the remaining eight, one only comes from each place named.

[77] Herodot. iv, 172-182. Compare Hornemann’s Travels in Africa, p. 48, and Heeren, Verkehr und Handel der Alten Welt, Th. ii, Abth. 1, Abschnitt vi, p. 226.

[78] Herodot. iv, 175-188.

[79] Herodot. iv, 178, 179, 195, 196.

[80] Herodot. iv, 42.

[81] Herodot. iv, 170. νόμους δὲ τοὺς πλείστους μιμέεσθαι ἐπιτηδεύουσι τοὺς Κυρηναίων.

[82] Herodot. iv, 161. Θηραίων καὶ τῶν περιοίκων, etc.

[83] Herodot. iv, 186-189. Compare, also, the story in Pindar. Pyth. ix, 109-126, about Alexidamus, the ancestor of Telesikratês the Kyrenæan; how the former won, by his swiftness in running, a Libyan maiden, daughter of Antæus of Irasa,—and Kallimachus, Hymn. Apoll. 86.

[84] Herodot. iv, 155.

[85] Herodot. iv, 164.

[86] Respecting the chronology of the Battiad princes, see Boeckh, ad Pindar. Pyth. iv, p. 265, and Thirge, Histor. Cyrenes, p. 127, seq.

[87] Herodot. iv, 159.

[88] Herodot. ii, 180-181.

[89] Herodot. iv, 160; Skylax, c. 107; Hekatæus, Fragm. 300, ed. Klausen.

[90] Herodot. iv, 204.

[91] Herodot. iv, 160. Plutarch (De Virtutibus Mulier. p. 261) and Polyænus (viii, 41) give various details of this stratagem on the part of Eryxô; Learchus being in love with her. Plutarch also states that Learchus maintained himself as despot for some time by the aid of Egyptian troops from Amasis, and committed great cruelties. His story has too much the air of a romance to be transcribed into the text, nor do I know from what authority it is taken.

[92] Herodot. iv, 161. Τῷ βασιλέϊ Βάττῳ τεμένεα ἐξελὼν καὶ ἱρωσύνας, τὰ ἄλλα πάντα τὰ πρότερον εἶχον οἱ βασιλεῖς ἐς μέσον τῷ δήμῳ ἔθηκε.

I construe the word τεμένεα as meaning all the domains, doubtless large, which had belonged to the Battiad princes; contrary to Thrige (Historia Cyrênês, ch. 38, p. 150), who restricts the expression to revenues derived from sacred property. The reference of Wesseling to Hesych.—Βάττου σίλφιον—is of no avail for illustrating this passage.

The supposition of O. Müller, that the preceding king had made himself despotic by means of Egyptian soldiers, appears to me neither probable in itself, nor admissible upon the simple authority of Plutarch’s romantic story, when we take into consideration the silence of Herodotus. Nor is Müller correct in affirming that Demônax “restored the supremacy of the community:” that legislator superseded the old kingly political privileges, and framed a new constitution (see O. Müller, History of Dorians, b. iii, ch. 9. s. 13.)

[93] Both O. Müller (Dor. b. iii, 4, 5), and Thrige (Hist. Cyren. c. 38, p. 148), speak of Demônax as having abolished the old tribes and created new ones. I do not conceive the change in this manner. Demônax did not abolish any tribes, but distributed for the first time the inhabitants into tribes. It is possible indeed that, before his time, the Theræans of Kyrênê may have been divided among themselves into distinct tribes; but the other inhabitants, having emigrated from a great number of different places, had never before been thrown into tribes at all. Some formal enactment or regulation was necessary for this purpose, to define and sanction that religious, social, and political communion, which went to make up the idea of the Tribe. It is not to be assumed, as a matter of course, that there must necessarily have been tribes anterior to Demônax, among a population so miscellaneous in its origin.

[94] Hesychius, Τριακάτιοι; Eustath. ad Hom. Odyss. p. 303; Herakleidês Pontic. De Polit. c. 4.

[95] Herodot. iv, 163. Ἐπὶ μὲν τέσσερας Βάττους, καὶ Ἀρκεσιλέως τέσσερας, διδοῖ ὑμῖν Λοξίης βασιλεύειν Κυρήνης· πλέον μέντοι τούτου οὐδὲ πειρᾶσθαι παραινέει.

[96] Herodot. iv, 163-164.

[97] Herodot. iii, 13; iv, 165-166.

[98] Polyænus (Strateg. vii, 28) gives a narrative in many respects different from this of Herodotus.

[99] Herodot. iv, 203-204.

[100] Herodot. iv, 205.

[101] Thucyd. i, 15.

[102] Thucyd. i, 26. See the tale in Pausanias (v, 25, 1) of the ancient chorus sent annually from Messênê in Sicily across the strait to Rhegium, to a local festival of the Rhegians,—thirty-five boys with a chorus-master and a flute-player: on one unfortunate occasion, all of them perished in crossing. For the Theôry (or solemn religious deputation) periodically sent by the Athenians to Delos, see Plutarch, Nicias, c. 3; Plato, Phædon, c. 1, p. 58. Compare also Strabo, ix, p. 419, on the general subject.

[103] Homer, Iliad, xi, 879, xxiii, 679; Hesiod, Opp. Di. 651.

[104] Homer, Hymn. Apoll. 150; Thucyd. iii, 104.

[105] Pausan. v, 6, 5; Ælian, N. H. x, 1; Thucyd. iii, 104. When Ephesus, and the festival called Ephesia, had become the great place of Ionic meeting, the presence of women was still continued (Dionys. Hal. A. R. iv, 25).

[106] Strabo, viii, p. 353; Pindar, Olymp. viii, 2; Xenophon, Hellen. iv, 7, 2; iii, 2, 22.

[107] See K. F. Hermann, Lehrbuch der Griechischen Staats-Alterthümer, sect. 10.

[108] Dionys. Halikarn. Ant. Rom. i, 71; Phlegon. De Olympiad. p. 140. For an illustration of the stress laid by the Greeks on the purely honorary rewards of Olympia, and on the credit which they took to themselves as competitors, not for money, but for glory, see Herodot. viii, 26. Compare the Scholia on Pindar, Nem. and Isthm. Argument, pp. 425-514, ed. Boeckh.

[109] See the sentiment of Agesilaus, somewhat contemptuous, respecting the chariot-race, as described by Xenophon (Agesilaus, ix, 6); the general feeling of Greece, however, is more in conformity with what Thucydidês (vi, 16) puts into the mouth of Alkibiadês, and Xenophon into that of Simonidês (Xenophon, Hiero, xi, 5). The great respect attached to a family which had gained chariot victories is amply attested: see Herodot. vi, 35, 36, 103, 126,—οἰκίη τεθριπποτρόφος,—and vi, 70, about Demaratus king of Sparta.

[110] Antholog. Palatin. ix, 588; vol. ii. p. 299, Jacobs.

[111] The original Greek word for this covering (which surrounded the middle hand and upper portion of the fingers, leaving both the ends of the fingers and the thumb exposed) was ἱμὰς, the word for a thong, strap, or whip, of leather: the special word μύρμηξ seems to have been afterwards introduced (Hesychius, v. Ἱμάς): see Homer, Iliad, xxiii, 686. Cestus, or Cæstus, is the Latin word (Virg. Æn. v, 404), the Greek word κεστός is an adjective annexed to ἱμὰς—κεστὸν ἱμάντα—πολύκεστος ἱμὰς (Iliad, xiv, 214; iii, 371). See Pausan. viii, 40, 3, for the description of the incident which caused an alteration in this hand-covering at the Nemean games: ultimately, it was still farther hardened by the addition of iron.

[112] Ἀέθλων πεμπαμέρους ἁμίλλαις,—Pindar, Olymp. v, 6: compare Schol. ad Pindar. Olymp. iii, 33.

See the facts respecting the Olympic Agôn collected by Corsini (Dissertationes Agonisticæ, Dissert. i, sects. 8, 9, 10), and still more amply set forth with a valuable commentary, by Krause (Olympia, oder Darstellung der grossen Olympischen Spiele, Wien, 1838, sects. 8-11 especially).

[113] Hom. Hymn. Apoll. 262.

Also v. 288-394. γυάλων ὑπὸ Παρνήσοιο—484. ὑπὸ πτυχὶ Παρνήσοιο—Pindar, Pyth. viii, 90. Πυθῶνος ἐν γυάλοις—Strabo, ix, p. 418. πετρωδὲς χώριον καὶ θεατροειδὲς—Heliodorus, Æthiop. ii, 26: compare Will. Götte, Das Delphische Orakel (Leipzig, 1839), pp. 39-42.

[114] Βωμοί μ᾽ ἔφερβον, οὕπιών τ᾽ ἀεὶ ξένος, says Ion (in Euripidês, Ion. 334) the slave of Apollo, and the verger of his Delphian temple, who waters it from the Kastalian spring, sweeps it with laurel boughs, and keeps off with his bow and arrows the obtrusive birds (Ion, 105, 143, 154). Whoever reads the description of Professor Ulrichs (Reisen und Forschungen in Griechenland, ch. 7, p. 110) will see that the birds—eagles, vultures, and crows—are quite numerous enough to have been exceedingly troublesome. The whole play of Ion conveys a lively idea of the Delphian temple and its scenery, with which Euripidês was doubtless familiar.

[115] There is considerable perplexity respecting Krissa and Kirrha, and it still remains a question among scholars whether the two names denote the same place or different places; the former is the opinion of O. Müller (Orchomenos, p. 495). Strabo distinguishes the two. Pausanias identifies them, conceiving no other town to have ever existed except the seaport (x, 37, 4). Mannert (Geogr. Gr. Röm. viii, p. 148) follows Strabo, and represents them as different.

I consider the latter to be the correct opinion, upon the grounds, and partly, also, on the careful topographical examination of Professor Ulrichs, which affords an excellent account of the whole scenery of Delphi (Reisen und Forschungen in Griechenland, Bremen, 1840, chapters 1, 2, 3). The ruins described by him on the high ground near Kastri, called the Forty Saints, may fairly be considered as the ruins of Krissa; the ruins of Kirrha are on the sea-shore near the mouth of the Pleistus. The plain beneath might without impropriety be called either the Krissæan or the Kirrhæan plain (Herodot. viii, 32; Strabo, ix, p. 419). Though Strabo was right in distinguishing Krissa from Kirrha, and right also in the position of the latter under Kirphis, he conceived incorrectly the situation of Krissa; and his representation that there were two wars,—in the first of which, Kirrha was destroyed by the Krissæans, while in the second, Krissa itself was conquered by the Amphiktyons,—is not confirmed by any other authority.

The mere circumstance that Pindar gives us in three separate passages, Κρίσᾳ, Κρισαῖον, Κρισαίοις (Isth. ii, 26; Pyth. v, 49, vi, 18), and in five other passages, Κίῤῥᾳ, Κίῤῥας, Κίῤῥαθεν (Pyth. iii, 33, vii, 14, viii, 26, x, 24, xi, 20), renders it almost certain that the two names belong to different places, and are not merely two different names for the same place; the poet could not in this case have any metrical reason for varying the denomination, as the metre of the two words is similar.

[116] Athenæus, xiii, p. 560; Æschinês cont. Ktesiphont. c. 36, p. 406; Strabo, ix, p. 418. Of the Akragallidæ, or Kraugallidæ, whom Æschinês mentions along with the Kirrhæans as another impious race who dwelt in the neighborhood of the god,—and who were overthrown along with the Kirrhæans,—we have no farther information. O. Müller’s conjecture would identify them with the Dryopes (Dorians, i, 2, 5, and his Orchomenos, p. 496); Harpokration, v. Κραυγαλλίδαι.

[117] Schol. ad Pindar, Pyth. Introduct.: Schol. ad Pindar, Nem. ix, 2; Plutarch, Solon, c. 11; Pausan. ii, 9, 6. Pausanias (x, 37, 4) and Polyænus (Strateg. iii, 6) relate a stratagem of Solon, or of Eurylochus, to poison the water of the Kirrhæans with hellebore.

[118] Eurip. Ion, 230.

[119] Thucyd. i, 112.

[120] Mr. Clinton thinks that the Pythian games were celebrated in the autumn: M. Boeckh refers the celebration to the spring: Krause agrees with Boeckh. (Clinton, Fast. Hell. vol. ii, p. 200, Appendix; Boeckh, ad Corp. Inscr. No. 1688, p. 813; Krause, Die Pythien, Nemeen und Isthmien, vol. ii, pp. 29-35.)

Mr. Clinton’s opinion appears to me nearly the truth; the real time, as I conceive it, being about the beginning of August, or end of July. Boeckh admits that, with the exception of Thucydidês (v, 1-19), the other authorities go to sustain it; but he relies on Thucydidês to outweigh them. Now the passage of Thucydidês, properly understood, seems to me as much against Boeckh’s view as the rest.

I may remark, as a certain additional reason in the case, that the Isthmia appear to have been celebrated in the third year of each Olympiad, and in the spring (Krause, p. 187). It seems improbable that these two great festivals should have come one immediately after the other, which, nevertheless, must be supposed, if we adopt the opinion of Boeckh and Krause.

The Pythian games would be sometimes a little earlier, sometimes a little later, in consequence of the time of full moon: notice being always sent round by the administrators beforehand of the commencement of the sacred month. See the references in K. F. Hermann, Lehrbuch der gottesdienstl. Alterth. der Griechen, ch. 49, not. 12.—This note has been somewhat modified since my first edition,—see the note vol. vi, ch. liv.

[121] Demosthen. Philipp. iii, p. 119.

[122] Pindar, Nem. x, 28-33.

[123] Strabo, viii, p. 377; Plutarch, Arat. c. 28; Mannert. Geogr. Gr. Röm. pt. viii, p. 650. Compare the second chapter in Krause, Die Pythien, Nemeen und Isthmien, vol. ii. p. 108, seq.

That the Kleônæans continued without interruption to administer the Nemean festival down to Olympiad 80 (460 B. C.), or thereabouts, is the rational inference from Pindar, Nem. x, 42: compare Nem. iv, 17. Eusebius, indeed, states that the Argeians seized the administration for themselves in Olympiad 53, and in order to reconcile this statement with the above passage in Pindar, critics have concluded that the Argeians lost it again, and that the Kleônæans resumed it a little before Olympiad 80. I take a different view, and am disposed to reject the statement of Eusebius altogether; the more so as Pindar’s tenth Nemean ode is addressed to an Argeian citizen named Theiæus. If there had been at that time a standing dispute between Argos and Kleônæ on the subject of the administration of the Nemea, the poet would hardly have introduced the mention of the Nemean prizes gained by the ancestors of Theiæus, under the untoward designation of “prizes received from Kleônæan men.”

[124] See Boeckh, Corp. Inscript. No. 1126.

[125] K. F. Hermann, in his Lehrbuch der Griechischen Staatsalterthümer (ch. 32, not. 7. and ch. 65, not. 3), and again in his more recent work (Lehrbuch der gottesdienstlichen Alterthümer der Griechen, part iii, ch. 49, also not. 6), both highly valuable publications, maintains,—1. That the exaltation of the Isthmian and Nemean games into Pan-Hellenic importance arose directly after and out of the fall of the despots of Corinth and Sikyon. 2. That it was brought about by the paramount influence of the Dorians, especially by Sparta. 3. That the Spartans put down the despots of both these two cities.

The last of these three propositions appears to me untrue in respect to Sikyon,—improbable in respect to Corinth: my reasons for thinking so have been given in a former chapter. And if this be so, the reason for presuming Spartan intervention as to the Isthmian and Nemean games falls to the ground; for there is no other proof of it, nor does Sparta appear to have interested herself in any of the four national festivals except the Olympic, with which she was from an early period peculiarly connected.

Nor can I think that the first of Hermann’s three propositions is at all tenable. No connection whatever can be shown between Sikyon and the Nemean games; and it is the more improbable in this case that the Sikyonians should have been active, inasmuch as they had under Kleisthenês a little before contributed to nationalize the Pythian games: a second interference for a similar purpose ought not to be presumed without some evidence. To prove his point about the Isthmia, Hermann cites only a passage of Solinus (vii, 14), “Hoc spectaculum, per Cypselum tyrannum intermissum, Corinthii Olymp. 49 solemnitati pristinæ reddiderunt.” To render this passage at all credible, we must read Cypselidas instead of Cypselum, which deducts from the value of a witness whose testimony can never under any circumstances be rated high. But granting the alteration, there are two reasons against the assertion of Solinus. One, a positive reason, that Solon offered a large reward to Athenian victors at the Isthmian games: his legislation falls in 594 B. C., ten years before the time when the Isthmia are said by Solinus to have been renewed after a long intermission. The other reason (negative, though to my mind also powerful) is the silence of Herodotus in that long invective which he puts into the mouth of Sosiklês against the Kypselids (v, 92). If Kypselus had really been guilty of so great an insult to the feelings of the people as to suppress their most solemn festival, the fact would hardly have been omitted in the indictment which Sosiklês is made to urge against him. Aristotle, indeed, representing Kypselus as a mild and popular despot, introduces a contrary view of his character, which, if we admitted it, would of itself suffice to negative the supposition that he had suppressed the Isthmia.

[126] Plutarch, Arat. c. 28. καὶ συνεχύθη τότε πρῶτον (by order of Aratus) ἡ δεδομένη τοῖς ἀγωνισταῖς ἀσυλία καὶ ἀσφάλεια, a deadly stain on the character of Aratus.

[127] Festus, v, Perihodos, p. 217, ed. Müller. See the animated protest of the philosopher Xenophanês against the great rewards given to Olympic victors (540-520 B. C.), Xenophan. Fragment. 2, p 357, ed. Bergk.

[128] Thucyd. vi, 16. Alkibiadês says, καὶ ὅσα αὖ ἐν τῇ πόλει χορηγίαις ἢ ἄλλῳ τῳ λαμπρύνομαι, τοῖς μὲν ἀστοῖς φθονεῖται φύσει, πρὸς δὲ τοὺς ξένους καὶ αὐτὴ ἰσχὺς φαίνεται.

The greater Panathenæa are ascribed to Peisistratus by the Scholiast on Aristeidês, vol. iii, p. 323, ed. Dindorf: judging by what immediately precedes, the statement seems to come from Aristotle.

[129] Simonidês, Fragm. 154-158, ed. Bergk; Pindar, Nem. x, 45; Olymp. xiii, 107.

The distinguished athlete Theagenês is affirmed to have gained twelve hundred prizes in these various agônes: according to some, fourteen hundred prizes (Pausan. vi, 11, 2; Plutarch, Præcept. Reip. Ger. c. 15, p. 811).

An athlete named Apollonius arrived too late for the Olympic games, having stayed away too long, from his anxiety to get money at various agônes in Ionia (Pausan. v, 21, 5).

[130] See, particularly, the treaty between the inhabitants of Latus and those of Olûs in Krête, in Boeckh’s Corp. Inscr. No. 2554, wherein this reciprocity is expressly stipulated. Boeckh places this Inscription in the third century B. C.

[131] Timæus, Fragm. 82, ed. Didot. The Krotoniates furnished a great number of victors both to the Olympic and to the Pythian games (Herodot. viii, 47; Pausan. x, 5, 5–x, 7, 3; Krause, Gymnastik und Agonistik der Hellenen, vol. ii, sect. 29, p. 752).

[132] Herodot. viii, 65. καὶ αὐτῶν ὁ βουλόμενος καὶ τῶν ἄλλων Ἑλλήνων μυεῖται.

The exclusion of all competitors, natives of Lampsakus, from the games celebrated in the Chersonesus to the honor of the œkist Miltiadês, is mentioned by Herodotus as something special (Herodot. vi, 38).

[133] See the remarks, upon the Lacedæmonian discouragement of stranger-visitors at their public festivals, put by Thucydidês into the mouth of Periklês (Thucyd. ii, 39).

Lichas the Spartan gained great renown by treating hospitably the strangers who came to the Gymnopædiæ at Sparta (Xenophon, Memorab. i, 2, 61; Plutarch, Kimon, c. 10),—a story which proves that some strangers came to the Spartan festivals, but which also proves that they were not many in number, and that to show them hospitality was a striking distinction from the general character of Spartans.

[134] Aristot. Poetic, c. 3 and 4; Maximus Tyrius. Diss. xxi. p. 215; Plutarch. De Cupidine Divitiarum. c. 8. p. 527: compare the treatise, “Quod non potest suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum.” c. 16. p. 1098. The old oracles quoted by Demosthenês, cont. Meidiam (c. 15. p. 531. and cont. Makartat. p. 1072: see also Buttmann’s note on the former passage), convey the idea of the ancient simple Athenian festival.

[135] Plutarch. Solon, c. 29: see above, chap. xi. vol. iii. p. 195.

[136] The orator Lysias, in a fragment of his lost Panegyrical Oration preserved by Dionysius of Halikarnassus (vol. v. p. 520 R.), describes the influence of the games with great force and simplicity. Hêraklês, the founder of them, ἀγῶνα μὲν σωμάτων ἐποίησε, φιλοτιμίαν δὲ πλούτῳ, γνώμης δ᾽ ἐπίδειξιν ἐν τῷ καλλίστῳ τῆς Ἑλλάδος· ἵνα τούτων ἁπάντων ἕνεκα ἐς τὸ αὐτὸ ἔλθωμεν, τὰ μὲν ὀψόμενοι, τὰ δὲ ἀκουσόμενοι. Ἡγήσατο γὰρ τὸν ἐνθάδε σύλλογον ἀρχὴν γενέσθαι τοῖς Ἕλλησι τῆς πρὸς ἀλλήλους φιλίας.

[137] Cicero, Tusc. Quæst. v, 3. “Mercatum eum, qui haberetur maximo ludorum apparatu totius Græciæ celebritate: nam ut illic alii corporibus exercitatis gloriam et nobilitatem coronæ peterent, alii emendi aut vendendi quæstu et lucro ducerentur,” etc.

Both Velleius Paterculus also (i, 8) and Justin (xiii, 5), call the Olympic festival by the name mercatus.

There were booths all round the Altis, or sacred precinct of Zeus (Schol. Pindar. Olymp. xi, 55), during the time of the games.

Strabo observes with justice, respecting the multitudinous festivals generally—Ἡ πανήγυρις, ἐμπορικόν τι πρᾶγμα (x, p. 486), especially in reference to Delos: see Cicero pro Lege Maniliâ, c. 18: compare Pausanias, x, 32, 9, about the Panegyris and fair at Tithorea in Phokis, and Becker, Chariklês, vol. i, p. 283.

At the Attic festival of the Herakleia, celebrated by the communion called Mesogei, or a certain number of the demes constituting Mesogæa, a regular market-due, or ἀγοραστικὸν, was levied upon those who brought goods to sell (Inscriptiones Atticæ nuper repertæ 12, by E. Curtius, pp. 3-7).

[138] Pausan. vi, 23, 5; Diodor. xiv, 109, xv, 7; Lucian, Quomodo Historia sit conscribenda, c. 42. See Krause, Olympia, sect. 29. pp. 183-186.

[139] Thucyd. i, 120; Herodot. v, 22-71. Eurybatês of Argos (Herodot. vi, 92); Philippus and Phayllus of Kroton (v, 47; viii, 47); Eualkidês of Eretria (v, 102); Hermolykus of Athens (ix, 105).

Pindar (Nem. iv and vi) gives the numerous victories of the Bassidæ and Theandridræ at Ægina: also Melissus the pankratiast and his ancestors the Kleonymidæ of Thebes—τιμάεντες ἀρχᾶθεν πρόξενοί τ᾽ ἐπιχωρίων (Isthm. iii, 25).

Respecting the extreme celebrity of Diagoras and his sons, of the Rhodian gens Eratidæ, Damagêtus, Akusilaus, and Dorieus, see Pindar, Olymp. vii, 16-145, with the Scholia; Thucyd. iii, 11; Pausan. vi, 7, 1-2; Xenophon, Hellenic. i, 5, 19: compare Strabo. xiv, p. 655.

[140] The Latin writers remark it as a peculiarity of Grecian feeling, as distinguished from Roman, that men of great station accounted it an honor to contend in the games: see, as a specimen, Tacitus, Dialogus de Orator. c. 9. “Ac si in Græciâ natus esses, ubi ludicras quoque artes exercere honestum est, ac tibi Nicostrati robur Dii dedissent, non paterer immanes illos et ad pugnam natos lacertos levitate jaculi vanescere.” Again, Cicero, pro Flacco, c. 13, in his sarcastic style: “Quid si etiam occisus est a piratis Adramyttenus, homo nobilis, cujus est fere nobis omnibus nomen auditum, Atinas pugil, Olympionices? hoc est apud Græcos (quoniam de corum gravitate dicimus) prope majus et gloriosius, quam Romæ triumphasse.”

[141] Lichas, one of the chief men of Sparta, and moreover a chariot-victor, received actual chastisement on the ground, from these staff-bearers, for an infringement of the regulations (Thucyd. v, 50).

[142] Thucyd. v, 18-47. and the curious ancient Inscription in Boeckh’s Corpus Inscr. No. 11. p. 28. recording the convention between the Eleians and the inhabitants of the Arcadian town of Heræa.

The comparison of various passages referring to the Olympia, Isthmia, and Nemea (Thucydidês iii, 11; viii, 9-10; v, 49-51; and Xenophon, Hellenic. iv, 7, 2; v, 1, 29) shows that various political business was often discussed at these Games,—that diplomatists made use of the intercourse for the purpose of detecting the secret designs of states whom they suspected, and that the administering state often practised manœuvres in respect to the obligations of truce for the Hieromenia, or Holy Month.

[143] Himerius, Orat. iii, p. 426, Wernsdorf—ἀγέρωχοι καὶ ὑψαυχένες.

[144] For the whole subject of this chapter, the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth chapters of O. Müller’s History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, wherein the lyric poets are handled with greater length than consists with the limits of this work, will be found highly valuable,—chapters abounding in erudition and ingenuity, but not always within the limits of the evidence.

The learned work of Ulrici (Geschichte der Griechischen Poesie—Lyrik) is still more open to the same remark.

[145] These early innovators in Grecian music, rhythm, metre, and poetry, belonging to the seventh century B. C., were very imperfectly known, even to those contemporaries of Plato and Aristotle who tried to get together facts for a consecutive history of music. The treatise of Plutarch, De Musicâ, shows what very contradictory statements he found. He quotes from four different authors,—Herakleidês, Glaukus, Alexander, and Aristoxenus, who by no means agreed in their series of names and facts. The first three of them blend together mythe and history; while even the Anagraphê or inscription at Sikyon, which professed to give a continuous list of such poets and musicians as had contended at the Sikyonian games, began with a large stock of mythical names,—Amphion, Linus, Pierius, etc. (Plutarch, Music. p. 1132.) Some authors, according to Plutarch (p. 1133), made the great chronological mistake of placing Terpander as contemporary with Hippônax; a proof how little of chronological evidence was then accessible.

That Terpander was victor at the Spartan festival of the Karneia, in 676 B. C., may well have been derived by Hellanikus from the Spartan registers: the name of the Lesbian harper Perikleitas, as having gained the same prize at some subsequent period (Plutarch, De Mus. p. 1133), probably rests on the same authority. That Archilochus was rather later than Terpander, and Thalêtas rather later than Archilochus, was the statement of Glaukus (Plutarch, De Mus. p. 1134). Klonas and Polymnêstus are placed later than Terpander; Archilochus later than Klonas: Alkman is said to have mentioned Polymnêstus in one of his songs (pp. 1133-1135). It can hardly be true that Terpander gained four Pythian prizes, if the festival was octennial prior to its reconstitution by the Amphiktyons (p. 1132). Sakadas gained three Pythian prizes after that period, when the festival was quadrennial (p. 1134).

Compare the confused indications in Pollux, iv, 65-66, 78-79. The abstract given by Photius of certain parts of the Chrestomathia of Proclus (published in Gaisford’s edition of Hephæstion, pp. 375-389), is also extremely valuable, in spite of its brevity and obscurity, about the lyric and choric poetry of Greece.

[146] The difference between Νόμος and Μέλος appears in Plutarch, De Musicâ, p. 1132—Καὶ τὸν Τέρπανδρον, κιθαρῳδικῶν ποιητὴν ὄντα νόμων, κατὰ νόμον ἕκαστον τοῖς ἔπεσι τοῖς ἑαυτοῦ καὶ τοῖς Ὁμήρου μέλη περιτιθέντα, ᾅδειν ἐν τοῖς ἀγῶσι· ἀποφῆναι δὲ τοῦτον λέγει ὀνόματα πρῶτον τοῖς κιθαρῳδικοῖς νόμοις.

The nomes were not many in number; they went by special names; and there was a disagreement of opinion as to the persons who had composed them (Plutarch, Music. p. 1133). They were monodic, not choric,—intended to be sung by one person (Aristot. Problem. xix, 15). Herodot. i, 23, about Arion and the Nomus Orthius.

[147] Mr. Clinton (Fasti Hellen. ad ann. 671, 665, 644) appears to me noway satisfactory in his chronological arrangements of the poets of this century. I agree with O. Müller (Hist. of Literat. of Ancient Greece, ch. xii, 9) in thinking that he makes Terpander too recent, and Thalêtas too ancient; I also believe both Kallinus and Alkman to have been more recent than the place which Mr. Clinton assigns to them; the epoch of Tyrtæus will depend upon the date which we assign to the second Messenian war.

How very imperfectly the chronology of the poetical names even of the sixth century B. C.—Sappho, Anakreon, Hippônax—was known even to writers of the beginning of the Ptolemaic age (or shortly after 300 B. C.), we may see by the mistakes noted in Athenæus, xiii, p. 599. Hermesianax of Kolophon, the elegiac poet, represented Anakreon as the lover of Sappho; this might perhaps be not absolutely impossible, if we supposed in Sappho an old age like that of Ninon de l’Enclos; but others (even earlier than Hermesianax, since they are quoted by Chamæleon) represented Anakreon, when in old age, as addressing verses to Sappho, still young. Again, the comic writer Diphilus introduced both Archilochus and Hippônax as the lovers of Sappho.

[148] The Latin poets and the Alexandrine critics seem to have both insisted on the natural mournfulness of the elegiac metre (Ovid, Heroid. xv, 7; Horat. Art. Poet. 75): see also the fanciful explanation given by Didymus in the Etymologicon Magnum, v. Ἔλεγος.

We learn from Hephæstion (c. viii, p. 45, Gaisf.) that the anapæstic march-metre of Tyrtæus was employed by the comic writers also, for a totally different vein of feeling. See the Dissertation of Franck, Callinus, pp. 37-48 (Leips. 1816).

Of the remarks made by O. Müller respecting the metres of these early poets (History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, ch. xi, s. 8-12, etc.; ch. xii, s. 1-2, etc.), many appear to be uncertified and disputable.

For some good remarks on the fallibility of men’s impressions respecting the natural and inherent ἦθος of particular metres, see Adam Smith (Theory of Moral Sentiment, part v, ch. i, p. 329), in the edition of his works by Dugald Stewart.

[149] See the observations in Aristotle (Rhetor. iii, 9) on the λέξις εἰρομένη as compared with λέξις κατεστραμμένη·—λέξις εἰρομένη, ἣ οὐδὲν ἔχει τέλος αὐτὴ καθ᾽ αὑτὴν, ἂν μὴ τὸ πρᾶγμα τὸ λεγόμενον τελειώθη·—κατεστραμμένη δὲ, ἡ ἐν περιόδοις· λέγω δὲ περίοδον, λέξιν ἔχουσαν ἀρχὴν καὶ τελευτὴν αὐτὴν καθ᾽ αὑτὴν καὶ μέγεθος εὐσύνοπτον.

[150] I employ, however unwillingly, the word thesis here (arsis and thesis) in the sense in which it is used by G. Hermann (“Illud tempus, in quo ictus est, arsin; ea tempora, quæ carent ictu, thesin vocamus,” Element. Doctr. Metr. sect. 15), and followed by Boeckh, in his Dissertation on the Metres of Pindar (i, 4), though I agree with Dr. Barham (in the valuable Preface to his edition of Hephæstion, Cambridge, 1843, pp. 5-8) that the opposite sense of the words would be the preferable one, just as it was the original sense in which they were used by the best Greek musical writers: Dr. Barham’s Preface is very instructive on the difficult subject of ancient rhythm generally.