"But if there be whose grovelling soul hath planned
With churlish scorn his store to hug and hide,
Tell him that such have lived unknown and nameless died."[1]—(S.)
Every city of any importance in Greece encouraged athletic prowess and lavish expenditure of wealth in its citizens by the institution of local contests, sanctified by all the ceremonies of religion, and placed usually under the patronage of a local deity. But all these minor celebrations were eclipsed by the glories of the four great games, and far above all in unapproachable supremacy towered the majestic feast of Olympia. It is impossible now to trace the steps by which these four festivals raised themselves above the mass of similar gatherings to the dignity of Pan-hellenic celebrations—Panegyreis, as they were properly called, "Universal gatherings." That this supremacy was of comparatively recent date can be shown by many arguments: we may content ourselves with one, the silence of Homer. But in Pindar's time they were generally regarded as having existed unchanged from the most remote antiquity. And around the story of their foundation masses of legend had gathered, connecting them with the greatest names and the most thrilling adventures of the Heroic Age. It mattered not that sober chroniclers, and the records of victories preserved in the great Olympian temple, proved beyond doubt that the Olympia had once been a mere local festival of the Pisatans, or that innovations of various kinds were known to have been introduced
- ↑ Isthm. i. 67.
