nian dazzled the astounded spectators, secured to their owner the first and the second prize, and secured to him further the triumph (for the time at least) of his policy. And at the most critical moment of Grecian history, when the Persian Xerxes was advancing into Bœotia with the innumerable hosts which were to avenge upon Athens the burning of the Lydian capital—when Leonidas and his noble company threw away their lives in vain in the defile of Thermopylæ, and the united fleets of Greece were retiring before the irresistible foe at Artemisium,—not all the perils of their common country could make the Greeks abandon their accustomed festival. "What are the Greeks doing?" asked Xerxes of some Arcadian deserters.—They were celebrating the Olympic games.
Thoroughly to explain the Greek idea of the importance of these contests would require a book to itself. It must suffice to point out various considerations which may assist us to some extent in appreciating it.
We must remember first that the methods of war in early Greece made physical strength and dexterity a really important qualification in a warrior. Of strategy or even tactics we find little trace in the early history of Greek wars. The battles of the Iliad are won by the prowess of individual champions, not by skilful organisation of forces, or choice of positions, or well-timed employment of reserves. To fight in the forefront of the battle is Homer's conception of a general's duty. And the result of an ancient Waterloo depended on the presence, on this side or on that, of the
