CHAPTER VI

PROFESSIONALISM AND SPECIALIZATION, 440-338 B.C.

Literature and art purified and refined athletics for a while, but at the same time by encouraging competition intensified these very evils which result from excessive competition, and when the Panhellenic movement had spent its force, and strife and faction once more resumed their sway in the Greek world, the decline of athletics was rapid. Nowhere is excess more dangerous than in athletics, and the charm of poetry and art must not blind us to that element of exaggeration which existed in the hero-worship of the athlete. The nemesis of excess in athletics is specialization, specialization begets professionalism, and professionalism is the death of all true sport.

We have seen how even before the time of Pindar the growth of competition had developed athletics beyond their legitimate sphere of exercise and recreation till they became an end in themselves, and how success in the great games demanded an undue expenditure of time and of money. During the fifth century specialization made rapid progress in the hands of professional trainers, whose business it was to train competitors for the great games.[144]

The earliest trainers were boxers and wrestlers, who probably confined themselves to giving instruction in these exercises. Such training was of course necessary and useful, but shortly after the Persian wars it was discovered that excellence in any particular event could be secured by special training and special diet, and the trainer began to take upon himself the whole direction of his pupil’s life. This specialized artificial training was good neither for the athlete nor for the nation.

The aim of the earlier training had been to produce a harmonious development of the whole body. The new training, by prescribing concentration on some particular exercise, produced a one-sided development. “The runner,” says Socrates, “has over-developed his legs, and the boxer the upper part of his body,”[145] and he humorously suggests that he finds dancing a better form of exercise than athletics. In another passage of the _Memorabilia_, Socrates compliments a sculptor, whom under the name of Cleiton we may perhaps recognize as Polycleitus,[146] on his power of representing the different physical types produced by different forms of sport. Unfortunately we have not sufficient material to enable us to verify this statement for the sculpture of the end of the fifth century. But some idea of the diversity of type produced may be obtained by comparing two somewhat later works, the Apoxyomenos, formerly ascribed to Lysippus (Fig. 19), and the Agias, a genuine work of Lysippus, recently discovered at Delphi[147] (Fig. 20). In the former we see the thoroughbred type of the runner with his length of limb and fine ankles, in the latter the sturdier, heavier type of the pankratiast. Neither of these two statues, however, is open to the charge of one-sided development which Socrates brings against the athletes of his time, and which would probably be more noticeable in inferior works of art. For this we must turn to the vases. A Panathenaic vase in the British Museum, dated 336 B.C., shows us the typical boxer of the period, with his clumsy, bulky body and small coarse head[148] (Fig. 135). A comparison of these boxers with the athletes on the red-figured vases affords convincing proof of the change which had come over athletics.

The old athlete had lived a simple, natural, open-air life. Training in the strict sense of the word he had none. His diet had been mainly vegetarian. Like the diet of the country-folk in Greece at all times, it consisted mainly of figs and cheese from the baskets, of porridge and meal-cakes with only such meat as occasion offered.[149] It has been often stated that a diet of figs and cheese was prescribed by the law of the Olympic festival, and various fanciful interpretations of this custom have been suggested. It is possible that certain forms of food were forbidden to competitors at particular festivals; thus at Delphi we know that the introduction of wine into the stadium was forbidden, and that any breach of this rule was punished by a fine, half of which was paid to the god, the other half to the informer.[150] But such prohibitions were of the nature of a religious taboo, and there is no reason for supposing that the diet of athletes was otherwise regulated by any law. Indeed we have direct evidence to the contrary, for the introduction of a meat diet in the fifth century is ascribed to two private individuals—to Dromeus of Stymphalus, a runner who twice won the long race at Olympia in Ols. 80 and 81, and to Pythagoras of Samos, who trained Eurymenes, the winner of the boxing in Ol. 77.[151]

The introduction of a meat diet was a momentous change: it created an artificial distinction between the life of an athlete and the life of the ordinary man, who ate meat but sparingly and only as a relish. Its object, of course, was to produce the bulk of body and weight which are important considerations in boxing and wrestling, and which were especially so in Greece inasmuch as classification by weight was unknown in those competitions. Boxing, wrestling, and the pankration were, as I have stated, the most popular and most honoured of all the events in Greek sport, and it is in these events that specialization and professionalism first made their appearance, and that their results were most fatal. To produce the necessary bulk of body the trainer prescribed for his pupils vast quantities of meat, which had to be counteracted by violent exercise. Eating, sleeping, and exercise occupied the athlete’s whole time, and left little time or leisure for any other pursuits.[152] “Socrates,” says Xenophon, “disapproved of such a life as incompatible with the cultivation of the soul.” Even from a physical point of view this system of training was vicious and unscientific. It might produce weight and strength, but it did so at the sacrifice of activity and health. In the case of the young it tended to stunt the growth and destroy all beauty of form; and Aristotle, speaking no doubt of his own time, remarks on the fact that the boy victors at Olympia rarely repeated their successes as men.[153] Moreover, the athlete’s strength was useless for practical purposes. Epaminondas, we are told, when he came of age and began to frequent the palaestra, devoted himself to such exercises as produced activity rather than great strength, considering that the latter was of little use for war. So he exercised himself in running, and in wrestling “only so far as he could stand on his feet,” but he spent most of his time in the practice of arms.[154] Equally unsuitable for war was the habit of life produced by athletic training. “The athlete’s nature,” says Plato, “is sleepy, and the least variation from his routine is liable to cause him serious illness.”[155] Such a man is incapable of standing the various vicissitudes of a campaign, and therefore we find athletics condemned not only by philosophers like Plato and Aristotle but by generals such as Epaminondas, Alexander, and Philopoemen.[156] “The athlete,” says Euripides, “is the slave of his jaw and of his belly.”

Medical science confirmed the verdict of the philosopher and the soldier. Hippocrates of Cos, “the father of medicine,” and a contemporary of Herodicus and Gorgias, condemned the high state of training produced by athletics as a dangerous and unstable condition of body.[157] To live in a constant state of training is bad for any man, and especially under a system so unscientific as that of the Greeks.

There was another reason for the condemnation of athletics by military authorities. The old Homeric sports had been practical and military: the system of physical education which had grown out of them had produced that all-round development which made a man fit for all the duties of life in peace or war; but the new specialized education produced only a one-sided development, and at the same time was so exacting as to leave no time for the practice of military exercises. Plato was an ardent advocate of physical training. Trained by his father Ariston, who was a distinguished athlete, he had won victories in wrestling at Delphi, Nemea, and the Isthmus, and is even stated, though with less probability, to have won the Olympic crown. But the philosopher could find no place for the athletics of his day in his ideal state, and he therefore, in the _Laws_,[158] proposes a new and more practical gymnastic based on the requirements of war. From the age of six, boys, and girls too, are to learn to ride, to learn the use of the bow, the javelin, and the sling, and to learn to use the left hand as well as the right. In wrestling and boxing all tricks invented “out of a vain spirit of competition” are to be eschewed and only such forms practised as are likely to be of service for war. The dances, too, must be military in character, marches and processions in armour and on horseback, or mimic contests like the dances of Crete and Sparta. In another passage[159] he describes the competitions suitable for his ideal state. All foot-races are to be run in armour, there is to be a long-distance race of sixty stades in heavy armour, and a still longer race of 100 stades over mountains and across every sort of country for the light-armed archer. Instead of wrestling and the pankration there are to be conflicts in armour, and for the light-armed troops combats with bows, and javelins, and slings under a code of laws drawn up by military experts. The military character of Plato’s scheme indicates the philosopher’s opinion on the unpractical character of the existing athletics.

An interesting development of athletic training which has its parallel in our own day was the rise of “medical gymnastics.” The valetudinarian school of gymnastic originated with Herodicus of Selymbria, a contemporary of Socrates whom Plato ridicules for corrupting the arts of gymnastic and medicine.[160] “By a combination of training and doctoring he found out a way of torturing, first and chiefly, himself, and, secondly, the rest of the world, by the invention of a lingering death. Having a mortal disease, which he perpetually tended, he passed his whole life as a valetudinarian.” By the introduction of elaborate rules for eating and drinking he corrupted athletics, and is justly described by Plato as a gymnastic sophist, a name that might well be applied to many of the advertizing quacks of our own day. In this respect he is coupled by Plato with the somewhat earlier trainer, Iccus of Tarentum, who won the pentathlon at Olympia in Ol. 76, and who was famed for his temperance and self-restraint.[161] These trainers are credited with the invention of medical massage (ἰατραλειπτική), a development of the massage applied to athletes before and after training by the ἀλειπτής. Alexander had in his suite an Athenian Athenophanes, whose duty it was to attend his master in the bath and anoint him with oil.[162]

Of the rich rewards lavished upon successful athletes we have spoken in a previous chapter. In the _Plutus_ of Aristophanes Hermes, having deserted the gods, takes service with Plutus as the “presider over contests.” “For,” says he, “there is no service more profitable to Plutus than holding contests in music and athletics.”[163] Plato knows no life more blessed from a material point of view than that of an Olympic victor, and in the myth of Er he describes the soul of Atalanta choosing the body of an athlete on seeing “the great rewards bestowed on the athlete.” Still more significant is the story of the Rhodian Dorieus, one of the famous Diagoridae. Banished from Rhodes by the Athenians he went to Thurii, and, as a commander of a Thurian ship, took part in the war against Athens. Taken prisoner by the Athenians in 407 B.C. he was set free without ransom in consideration of the fame which he and his family had won at Olympia.[164]

The result of specialization is professionalism. There is a point in any sport or game where it becomes over-developed, and competition too severe, for it to serve its true purpose of providing exercise or recreation for the many. It becomes the monopoly of the few who can afford the time or money to acquire excellence, while the rest, despairing of any measure of success, prefer the role of spectators. When the rewards of success are sufficient there arises a professional class, and when professionalism is once established the amateur can no longer compete with the professional.

Before the close of the fifth century the word ἀθλητής had already come to denote the professional athlete as opposed to the amateur or ἰδιωτής. Xenophon relates a conversation between Socrates and an ill-developed youth, in which the philosopher taunts the latter with his very “unprofessional” condition of body.[165] Athletics were out of fashion at that time among the smart young men of Athens, who, like Alcibiades, disdained to compete with their inferiors. “Of course,” replies the youth indignantly, “for I am not a professional, I am an amateur.” Whereupon the philosopher reads him a lecture on the duty of developing the body to its utmost. “No citizen has a right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training: it is part of his profession as a citizen to keep himself in good condition, ready to serve his state at a moment’s notice. The instinct of self-preservation demands it likewise: for how helpless is the state of the ill-trained youth in war or danger! Finally what a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable!” The ideal of Socrates is the earlier ideal which was already passing away, while the reply of Epigenes illustrates the change which had taken place in the character of the athlete and in the popular attitude towards athletics.

At the time of the Persian wars the Greeks had been a nation of athletes. At the time of the Peloponnesian wars the mass of the people were no longer athletic. Aristophanes bitterly deplores the change.[166] At Athens the young men had deserted the palaestra and gymnasium for the luxurious baths and the market-place; pale-faced and narrow-chested, they had not even sufficient training to run the torch-race. The labour of training was distasteful to the Athenians, who, as Thucydides tells us, preferred to be spectators of the deeds of others rather than doers. Sparta had long taken little part in athletic competitions, with the exception of the foot-race, but her rigorous system of education, brutalizing as it was, saved her at least from the evils of specialized athletics. Of other parts of Greece we know little; in the richer and more progressive cities it is probable that life was much the same as at Athens, while the records of Olympia show that the victors were drawn more and more from the poorer and less progressive country districts, from Thessaly, and particularly from the mountains of Arcadia.[167] It was only when athletics became a profitable profession that the poor but healthy countryman could afford to compete at the great festivals. The large number of competitions for boys and youths offered the promising boxer or wrestler a source of profit from an early age, and at Olympia these competitions were almost monopolized by the youth of Elis and Arcadia.

The severest indictment of professionalism occurs in the well-known fragment of Euripides’ lost play, the _Autolycus_. Euripides was no enemy of sport. His parents had wished to train him as an athlete, and he had won prizes as a boy at the Eleusinian and the Thesean games. He is said to have offered himself as a candidate at Olympia, but to have been disqualified owing to some doubt about his age. Countless allusions in his writings show his appreciation of all manly sports. But athletic success could not satisfy his restless and ambitious spirit, and, like Xenophanes two generations before, he could not be blind to the unreality of the worship of athletics, and to the evils which it was producing. “Of all the countless evils throughout Hellas,” he cries, “there is none worse than the race of athletes.” The evil is not confined to Athens; it is widespread throughout Hellas. “In youth they strut about in splendour, the pride of their city, but when bitter old age comes upon them they are cast aside like threadbare garments.” It is not the athletes themselves but the nation that is to blame for such results. “I blame the custom of the Hellenes who gather together to watch these men, honouring a useless pleasure.” And then, echoing the words of Xenophanes, he proceeds: “Who ever helped his fatherland by winning a crown for wrestling or for speed of foot, or hurling the diskos, or striking a good blow on the jaw? Will they fight the foe with diskoi in their hands or, driving their fists through the foemen’s shields, cast them out of their land? Crowns should be given to the good and wise, to him who guides his city best, a temperate man and just, or who by his words drives away evil deeds, putting away war and faction.” How did the Athenians in the theatre receive this daring denunciation of their idols? Many, at least, with sympathy, and among the number, I believe, would have been the poet’s inveterate foe, Aristophanes.

While athletics were passing into the hands of professionals and losing their hold upon the people, the richer classes devoted themselves more and more to chariot and horse races. These had long been the sport of tyrants and nobles; especially brilliant were the victories of the tyrants of Sicily and Italy at Olympia. But the Persian wars gave a fresh impulse to horse-breeding and riding in Greece. Cavalry and light-armed troops played a more and more important part in war. Themistocles, we are told, himself taught his sons to ride, to throw javelins standing on horseback, and perform other equestrian feats.[168] At the Panathenaea, besides a variety of races for chariots and horses, there were parades, processions, and military manœuvres on horseback. The frieze of the Parthenon bears witness to the grace and skill of the Athenian horsemen. The horsiness of the fashionable young Athenian is ridiculed by Aristophanes.[169] He spent large sums on horses, affected horsy names, and talked of horses all the day long. Alcibiades entered no less than seven chariots at Olympia in 416 B.C., and obtained first, second, and fourth places in the race.[170] He celebrated his success by entertaining the whole assembly at a sumptuous banquet.

At Sparta chariot-racing had long been popular; one Euagoras in the sixth century had won the chariot-race in three successive Olympiads with the same team, and King Damaratus himself had won a victory there. After the Persian wars the Spartans gave increased attention to horse-breeding; their victories were frequent, and their enthusiasm for the sport is shown by the story of Lichas. Their victories at the Panathenaea are proved by the recent discovery at Sparta of a number of Panathenaic vases representing the chariot-race,[171] and an inscription detailing the victories of one Damonon in chariot and horse racing records the fact that his horses were got by his own stallion out of his own mares.[172] The addiction of the Spartans to chariot-racing did not meet with the approval of Agesilaus, if we may believe Plutarch’s story about his sister Cynisca, who won the chariot-race in Ol. 96, 97.

Chariot-racing was, of course, merely a fashionable amusement, and except so far as it encouraged horse-breeding, of no service for war. Poorer states could not compete in it at all unless, like Argos, they entered public chariots or horses.[173] But the chariot-race was a great attraction to the spectators, and its growing popularity is evidenced by the introduction of two new races at Olympia and at Delphi. A two-horse chariot-race was introduced at Olympia in 408 B.C., at Delphi in 398 B.C., a four-horse chariot-race for colts at Olympia in 384 B.C., and at Delphi in 378 B.C. The introduction of colt-races was of course dictated by the wish to encourage horse-breeding, in which the country gentlemen of Elis were greatly interested.

The evil results of professionalism were not long in showing themselves. When money enters into sport, corruption is sure to follow. It will be remembered how Astylus of Croton had sold his victory for the favour of a Sicilian tyrant. In Ol. 97 or 98 the boys’ boxing match was won by Antipater of Miletus, the first Ionian to have his statue erected at Olympia as he recorded in the inscription.[174] Some emissaries of Dionysius of Syracuse had bribed his father to let his son be proclaimed a Syracusan; but Antipater despised the tyrant’s bribe and proclaimed himself of Miletus. Not so Sotades of Crete,[175] who, having won the long race in Ol. 99, in the next Olympiad accepted a bribe from the Ephesians to proclaim himself an Ephesian, for which offence he was deservedly banished by his countrymen. Worse, however, than this transfer of victories was their actual sale. The first instance of such bribing occurred in Ol. 98 (388 B.C.) when Eupolus of Thessaly[176] bribed his opponents in boxing to let him win the prize. These were Agenor of Arcadia, Prytanis of Cyzicus, and Phormio of Halicarnassus, who had won the boxing in the previous Olympiad. The offence was discovered, and Eupolus and those who had been bribed by him were heavily fined by the Eleans. From the fines were made six bronze statues of Zeus, called Zanes, which were set up at the entrance to the Stadium, with inscriptions commending the justice of the Eleans, and warning competitors that “not with money but with speed of foot and strength of body must prizes be won at Olympia.” The warning apparently had its effect for a time. It was not till 332 B.C. that another case of bribing occurred. On this occasion the Athenian Callippus bribed his opponents in the pentathlon.[177] The guilty parties were fined, but the Athenians despatched the orator Hyperides to beg the Eleans to remit the fine. His mission failed, and the Athenians thereupon, with a high hand, refused to pay, and absented themselves from Olympia till they were compelled to give in by the Delphic god, who declined to give them any answers until the fines were paid. Six more Zanes were made out of the money, with inscriptions similar to the first. It is a high testimonial to the sanctity of Olympia and the prestige of its authority that cases of corruption were so rare. Yet the Eleans themselves did not escape without reproach. In Ol. 96 (396 B.C.) there was a scandal in connection with the foot-race.[178] Two of the Hellanodicae decided in favour of Eupolemus of Elis, and the third in favour of Leon of Ambracia. The latter appealed to the council, who upheld his appeal and punished the two officials. It seems, however, that an award once given could not be reversed, and Eupolemus therefore retained his victory, and even commemorated it by a statue. A few years later, in Ol. 102, there was a similar scandal with regard to the horse-race which was won by another Elean Troilus, who owed his victory, says Pausanias, partly to the fact that he was a Hellanodicas.[179] In consequence of this incident a regulation was introduced forbidding the Hellanodicae to compete in the chariot or horse races.

The apparent breakdown in the machinery of Olympia during the early years of the fourth century is partly due to political circumstances with which we shall deal shortly. The struggle between Athens and Sparta, involving the whole Greek world in strife, contributed in no small degree to the decay of athletics. But when corruption was possible at Olympia we may be sure that it was rife elsewhere. A class of useless athletes, an unathletic nation of spectators, a corrupt and degraded sport, such were the results which we find in Greece within a century of the glorious 76th Olympiad that celebrated the freedom of Greece. Yet such was the strength and persistency of the old ideal that it was destined to survive for centuries after all freedom had been lost.

The character of the competitions themselves underwent little change during this period. Such changes as took place were due to changes in the conditions of war and to the increased importance of light-armed troops and cavalry.[180] Not only were equestrian events multiplied, but separate competitions were introduced in javelin-throwing and in archery. The javelin had hitherto been confined to the pentathlon. Now we find separate prizes offered for javelin-throwing, both on foot and on horseback, at a target as well as for distance. But such innovations seem to have been confined to local festivals like the Panathenaea, and found no place in the programme of the great festivals. The brutalising effects of professionalism may be traced in the change of the caestus. The soft leather thongs which alone appear on the fifth-century vases were, by the addition of bands of hard leather round the knuckles, developed into the formidable weapon called the σφαῖρα, which we see depicted on the Panathenaic vase in Fig. 135. It is curious to find Plato commending the use of the σφαῖρα on account of its brutality as more closely reproducing the conditions of warfare, and so more suitable for training soldiers than the “soft thongs.” We are less surprised at the approval with which he and Aristotle regard the pentathlon, the one competition which required the all-round development of the older athletics. But it is to be feared that this event was not really popular. Of the victors in the pentathlon at Olympia during this period we know only three, and of these, two, Stomius and Hysmon, were Eleans, the third the Athenian Callippus, who owed his victory to corruption. Of the statues erected at Olympia the vast majority were in honour of boxing, wrestling, and the pankration.[181]

Despite the decline of athletics there was no diminution of the influence and popularity of the athletic festivals. Wealth had increased, means of communication had improved, and with the growing attractions of the festivals and the growing love of sight-seeing among the people the crowds that flocked to the games showed no falling off. It is hardly possible to exaggerate the importance of these gatherings. In an age distracted by civil war and faction they served to remind the Greeks of their common brotherhood and to promote a spirit of good-will.[182] Especially was this true of Olympia, which, under the rigorous administration of the Eleans, had become the chief centre of Panhellenism. The sacred month, jealously guarded by the Eleans, afforded a brief respite from arms and security for all who wished to attend the festival, whether in a public or private capacity. All through the Peloponnesian war the representatives of Athens could travel unmolested to the festival.[183] There all states, unless under the ban of the Eleans, sent embassies, composed of wealthy and prominent citizens, who vied with one another in displaying the wealth and power and culture of their cities.[184] At Olympia the representatives of states at war with one another laid aside their animosities for a time, and opportunity was afforded for the discussion and settlement of many a grievance and dispute.

To these meetings we may partly attribute the growing tendency to the formation of leagues. There, too, the terms of treaties could be proclaimed and made known to the whole Greek world. The terms of the thirty years’ truce between Athens and Sparta were recorded on a stele at Olympia;[185] so too was the 100 years’ treaty made in 420 B.C. between Athens, Argos, Mantinea, and Elis, and it was ordered that the treaty should be periodically renewed at the Olympia and the Panathenaea.[186] It was to Olympia that the envoys of Mytilene came at the commencement of the Peloponnesian war[187] to protest against the tyranny of Athens and plead for their autonomy before the assembled Greeks. Finally, when Athens and Sparta, false to the cause of Hellenism, were treacherously intriguing with Persia, it was at Olympia that on three occasions a noble appeal for unity was made. In 408 B.C. Gorgias of Leontini, addressing the assembled crowds from the steps of the temple of Zeus, appealed to them to forget their rivalries and unite together in the crusade of Hellenism against Persia.[188] His voice was unheeded at the time, but a later generation appropriately commemorated his appeal by erecting his statue in the Altis.[189] Twenty-four years later Sparta, in alliance with Artaxerxes and the Sicilian tyrant Dionysius, was once more trampling on the liberties of Greece. Dionysius had sent to Olympia a magnificent embassy headed by his brother Thearion; his tents of gold and purple were pitched within the sacred precincts, splendid chariots were entered in his name for the four-horse chariots, while hired rhapsodists recited continually the praises of their master. By a curious chance the winner of the foot-race was Dicon, proclaimed of Syracuse, but in reality a citizen of Caulonia, a city that Dionysius had recently destroyed, transferring its citizens to Syracuse.[190] Such were the circumstances in which the Athenian Lysias, in graceful but vigorous language, warned the Greeks that Artaxerxes and Dionysius were the real enemies of Hellas, and, bidding them lay aside their differences, called on them to unite and show their patriotism by an attack on the tyrant’s tents.[191] The appeal was only partially successful, and one cannot but rejoice that the peace of the festival was not broken by such an outrage upon hospitality. Lastly, at the next Olympiad of 380 B.C. Isocrates distributed at the festival copies of his famous Panegyric, a work to which he is said to have devoted ten years’ work, in which he once more advocated a Panhellenic crusade against Persia, under the united command of Athens and Sparta.[192]

It was one of the fictions of a later time that no memorial might be set up in the Altis to commemorate the triumph of one Greek state over another. But though Olympia did undoubtedly work for unity, the monuments prove that the ideal was often disregarded, and the Altis bore witness to the divisions as well as to the unity of Greece. Apart from votive offerings of helmets, spears, and shields[193] Pausanias saw at Olympia a statue of Zeus twelve feet high, set up by the Spartans to commemorate the repression of the Messenian revolt.[194] It is doubtful whether this refers to the revolt of 464 B.C. or to an earlier war in the sixth century, but certainly this statue, and probably other statues, mentioned by Pausanias were offerings for wars in which Greeks fought against Greeks.[195] In 424 the Messenians had their revenge, and they commemorated the part which they had played at Pylos by erecting a statue of victory with an inscription stating that it was dedicated by the Messenians and Naupactians from the spoil of their enemy. The statue was the work of the sculptor Paeonius, who is said to have made the sculptures of the eastern pediment of the temple of Zeus.[196] Raised on a lofty triangular pedestal, it must have been the most conspicuous monument in the Altis. The Messenians, says Pausanias, omitted to insert the name of their enemies from fear of the Spartans, but no such fear deterred the Eleans, who celebrated a victory won at Olympia itself in the war at the beginning of the fourth century by setting up a trophy in the Altis with an inscription on the shield that it was dedicated out of the spoils of the Lacedaemonians, and their final triumph over the Arcadians after the 104th Olympiad was commemorated by a colossal monument that rivalled the Victory of the Messenians.[197]

Interest at Olympia was no longer confined to religious ceremonies and sports. It is true that there were no musical or dramatic competitions such as were held at other festivals. The contests for heralds and trumpeters introduced in 396 B.C. had certainly no such character.[198] But the gathering together of crowds from all parts of the Greek world afforded a unique opportunity for profit and advertisement which appealed to many classes, not only to the huckster and pedlar, who provided for the material wants of the people,[199] to the acrobat and mountebank, who catered for their amusement, but to the man of science, of literature, and of art. The artist, the writer, or the inventor had little means of making himself known outside his own city except by travelling from place to place. All such flocked to Olympia, where all would find an appreciative and critical audience. Lucian[200] tells us that Herodotus was the first to realise the unique possibilities of Olympia for purposes of advertisement, and read his history to the people in the Opisthodome of the temple of Zeus; and another account adds that the youthful Thucydides, who happened to be present, was moved to tears by his recitation. He is also said to have recited his work at Athens, Thebes, and Corinth. Whatever the truth of these stories, it is certain that the practice of public recitation was widely spread in the fifth century, and nowhere could such an audience be found as at Olympia. Moreover, the demand for hymns of victory and athletic statues must have brought thither poets and artists before the day of Herodotus. The practice commended itself especially to the sophists and rhetoricians who travelled about amassing large sums of money by their learning, real or pretended. Some of these have been already mentioned.

Olympia was a meeting-place for all. There one might have seen Socrates listening with polite amusement to the encyclopaedic Hippias of Elis as he proclaimed to an admiring audience his varied knowledge and accomplishments, and told them that everything he had about his person was the work of his own hands, from the shoes on his feet to the girdle of his tunic, fine as the most costly fabric of Persia. There, too, one might have seen many another whose person is familiar to us in Plato’s dialogues, the great Gorgias himself, with his pupil, Polus, “impetuous as a runaway colt”; or Prodicus of Ceos declaiming in that fine bass voice of his on subtleties of language or of grammar. Or one might have listened to the mathematician, Oenopides, explaining to a select few the mysteries of the great year, a diagram of which, engraved on a bronze tablet, he had set up in the Altis. There one might have gazed on Zeuxis as he strutted about in his peacock clothes, displaying to the world his vanity and wealth. Every one who had anything to sell, to exhibit, or make known came to Olympia, which thus became a centre from which Hellenic culture was diffused throughout the world.

This expansion of interests is evident in the list of honorary statues which cease in this period to be confined to victors in the games. Thus the Samians commemorated the freedom which they thought they had gained by the victory of Aegospotami by setting up in the Altis a statue of Lysander.[201] The statue of Gorgias has been already mentioned. In Macedonian times the custom spread, while the number of athletic statues steadily declined. Besides kings and princes, the historian Anaximenes of Lampsacus and the philosopher Aristotle received this honour.[202]

Neutrality was the natural and obvious policy of the Eleans. Removed by their geographical situation from the main stress and turmoil of Greek politics, they appreciated to the full the advantages of the position which they had usurped as sole guardians of the Olympian precinct, and lost no opportunity of enforcing and extending the privilege attaching to that position. Thus they claimed for the whole of Elis the sanctity belonging to the sacred plain; their lives were consecrated and their territory immune from war.[203] Elis city was the official headquarters of Olympia, with which it was connected by a sacred road, and there all competitors were forced to assemble to undergo a month’s training before the games. Yet the scanty records of history show that the immunity enjoyed by the Eleans was due more to the accident of their position than to a general recognition of their sanctity. Religious scruples, though often convenient as an excuse, were seldom allowed to stand in the way of more practical considerations. Hence the Eleans, however anxious to preserve their neutrality, could not avoid being involved in the complications caused by the Peloponnesian war. Sparta must have regarded with jealousy and suspicion the influence possessed by Athens and the growth of democracy in the new state. In Triphylia and Arcadia the cause of the Pisatans was still popular, and the control of Elis was regarded as an act of usurpation. It was in connection with Lepreum, one of the cities of the old Pisatan league, that difficulties arose.

Sparta had interfered in a quarrel between Elis and Lepreum, which from the commencement of the Peloponnesian war had refused to pay its tribute of a talent to Olympian Zeus, and a Spartan force of 1000 men was despatched in the summer of 424 B.C. to the help of the Lepreates. The Eleans complained that this act was a violation of the Olympic truce which had just been proclaimed, and imposed a fine of 2000 minae—2 minae per head—payable half to Olympian Zeus, half to themselves. The Spartans refused to pay, and after fruitless negotiations the Eleans, unable to obtain satisfaction, excommunicated Sparta, and forbade her to take any part in the forthcoming festival. So, says Thucydides,[204] while all other states were represented the Spartans and Lepreates had no representatives, and offered their sacrifices at home. Alarmed at their own bold action, the Eleans had so little confidence in the protection of sanctity that they put their whole force under arms and summoned assistance from Argos, Mantinea, and Athens. The alarm of the assembly was increased by another insult inflicted on Sparta in the course of the games. Lichas, the son of Arcesilaus, a member of the Spartan royal family, unable to compete in his own name, had entered his team for the chariot-race under the name of the Boeotian commonwealth. When his chariot won, he advanced boldly into the course to bind the fillet of victory on the charioteer’s head, but was publicly driven off by the officials and beaten with their rods. Yet in spite of this fresh insult Sparta, deeming the occasion inexpedient to excite the religious susceptibilities of Greece, did nothing, but bided her time, and Elis, three years afterwards, joined the Argive alliance.

Sparta never forgot and never forgave. In 399 Agis led an army against Elis, nominally to force Elis to acknowledge the independence of the Arcadian and Triphylian towns, in reality to wreak vengeance for her conduct during the Peloponnesian war. Agis had also a recent and more personal grievance. Having gone to Olympia to consult the oracle, he had been refused an answer by the Eleans, who invoked an ancient canon forbidding oracles to be given to Greeks engaged in war against Greeks. This time their sanctity could not save them. Frightened away the first year by a providential earthquake,[205] Agis returned in the following summer, and, reinforced by the Triphylian towns, advanced to Olympia, where he offered the sacrifice which had been forbidden before. He then marched through the rich plains of Elis, the plunder of which attracted to his standard numerous Arcadian and Achaean volunteers. In spite of assistance from Xenias and the oligarchical party he failed to take the city, but finally, by occupying a fortified post on the border and ravaging the country, he reduced the Eleans to complete submission. They were forced to raze their fortifications, surrender their harbour, and acknowledge the independence of all the towns of Arcadia and Triphylia. Only the presidency of the Olympic festival was left to them, for, though the Pisatans claimed it as having belonged to them originally, the Spartans refused to acknowledge their claim, considering, says Xenophon, that they were country bumpkins, and incapable of exercising the presidency, a remarkable testimony to the efficiency of the Elean administration.[206]

The effects of this humiliation were seen in the scandals which disgraced the following Olympiads. The prestige of the festival itself must have suffered. In the next Olympiad, 396 B.C., the competition was so reduced that no less than six events were won by Eleans.[207]

The Spartans had refused to deprive the Eleans of the presidency from no respect for their sanctity, but from disinclination to increase the importance of the country districts of Arcadia and Triphylia. How little real respect they had for religious tradition may be judged from the conduct of Agesilaus at the Isthmia in 390 B.C., when, at the head of an army, he interrupted the games, and, in conjunction with the Corinthian exiles, himself presided at them.[208] The rise of Thebes once more raised the hopes of the disappointed Triphylians.[209] In 371 B.C. Arcadia was consolidated into the Pan-Arcadian league, with its headquarters at the newly founded Megalopolis. The Messenians, who had been so prominent at Olympia in its early days, recovered their liberty. The Messenian exiles from every part flocked to the rising city of Messene, founded by Epaminondas, at the foot of Mount Ithome, and they celebrated their return by winning a victory at Olympia in the boys’ foot-race—the first victory, says Pausanias, that they had won since their exile.[210] Everything seemed favourable to the Triphylians. Unfortunately a breach occurred between Thebes and Arcadia, and when Thebes, following the example of Sparta and Athens, sent Pelopidas to Persia to secure the sanction of the great king for her authority, the terms of the imperial rescript reaffirmed the rights of Elis in Triphylia. The Arcadian ambassador, the pankratiast Antiochus, returned home in dudgeon, without even deigning to receive the royal gifts.

The Arcadians refused to accept the king’s rescript. When in 365 the Eleans attempted to assert their authority over Lasion, on the Arcadian border, they were driven off by the Arcadians, who followed up their success by overrunning Elis, and occupied Olympia itself, fortifying and garrisoning the hill of Cronus. The next year, under the protection of the whole armed force of Arcadia, the Pisatans at last found themselves presiding over the games. But the festival was not to pass off undisturbed. The Eleans, with some Achaean allies, arrived on the west bank of the Cladeus while the pentathlon was in progress. There was general alarm among the spectators, who had just left the Stadium and were congregated on the steps of the Treasuries and in the Colonnades watching the progress of the wrestling match which took place in the open space between the buildings and the great altar. The Arcadian troops advanced to the Cladeus and fell in opposite to the Eleans. But the latter, having crossed the river, charged them with unexpected courage, and drove them back into the Altis, where a desperate fight took place in the space “between the Council House, the shrine of Hestia, and the Theatre adjoining these buildings.”[211] There, however, they were exposed to a shower of missiles from the roofs of the Council House, the Colonnades, and the Temple of Zeus. And though they maintained the combat and bore their opponents back towards the altar, their losses were heavy, and Stratolas, their captain, being slain, they drew off to their encampment. During the night the Arcadians, fearful of a renewed attack, occupied themselves in pulling to pieces their elaborately constructed quarters between the Altis and the Cladeus and making a stockade of the material; and in the morning the Eleans, seeing the strength of the fortifications, returned home, leaving the Pisatans to celebrate the festival. Their triumph was only short-lived. The religious feeling of Greece, outraged by the sacrilege at Olympia, was still further scandalized by the appropriation of the sacred treasures of Zeus for the use of the Arcadian league. There was disunion in the league itself, and when, two years later, the Peloponnese was once more threatened by a Theban invasion, the Arcadians made peace with Elis and acknowledged her rights over Olympia.

This was the last attempt of the Pisatans. The Eleans rapidly recovered their power. The 104th Olympiad was expunged from the records and declared an Anolympiad. And the triumph of the Eleans was commemorated by a colossal statue of Zeus, with an inscription truly appropriate to the part which Olympia had played in Greek history—“The Eleans for concord” (Ϝαλείων περὶ ὁμονοίαρ).[212]

Footnote 144:

The first trainer of whom we hear is Tisias, who trained Glaucus of Carystus (Philostratus, _Gym._ 20). Pindar mentions Menander (_N._ v.; cp. Bacchylides xii.), Orseas (_I._ iii.), Ilas (_O._ xi.), Melesias (_O._ viii.; _N._ iv., vi.).

Footnote 145:

_Symposium_, 2, 17.

Footnote 146:

_Mem._ iii. 10, 6; iii. 8, 4; cp. P. Gardner, _Grammar of Greek Art_, p. 17.

Footnote 147:

_Greek Sculpture_, p. 550; and _J.H.S._ 1905, p. 235.

Footnote 148:

_B.M. Vases_, 607. Quite different is the type of the long-distance runner of B. 611 (328 B.C.) and B. 609 (333 B.C.), and of the Hoplitodromos of B. 608 (336 B.C.). _Vide_ Figs. 51, 58.

Footnote 149:

Paus. vi. 7, 10 τυρὸν ἐκ τῶν ταλάρων. Diogen. Laert. ἰσχάσι ξηραῖς καὶ πυροῖς. Philostrat. _Gym._ 43 αἵ τε μᾶζαι καὶ τῶν ἄρτων οἱ ἅπτιστοι καὶ μὴ ζυμῖται καὶ τῶν κρεῶν τὰ βόειά τε καὶ ταύρεια καὶ τράγεια καὶ δόρκοι. _Vide_ Jüthner, _Philostratus_, pp. 268 ff., and Krause, _Gym._ pp. 654 ff.

Footnote 150:

_B.C.H._, 1899, p. 611. I have accepted the rendering of the inscription given by A. D. Keramopoullos in Ἐφ. Ἀρχ., 1906, p. 167. Instead of the name Εὐδρόμου, an utterly unknown hero, of whose shrine not a vestige has been found, he reads δρόμου. He repeats a misstatement made in Dar.-Sagl., Paully-Wissowa, and other dictionaries to the effect that athletes were not allowed to drink any wine. The _only_ authority for the statement is a single passage from Galen, _de Salub. vict. rat._, in which he says that “after exercise athletes do not drink wine but water first, having learnt this from experience!” An egregious example of the absurdities which crowd the pages of our dictionaries!

Footnote 151:

Paus. vi. 7, 3; Diogen. Laert. viii. 13; Pliny, _Hist. Nat._ xxiii. 7.

Footnote 152:

Xen. _Mem._ i. 2, 4; Aristoph. _Pax_, 33, 34; Aristot. _Eth. Nic._ ii. 6, 7. Eating like a wrestler was proverbial.

Footnote 153:

_Pol._ v. 1339 a. Krause (_Gym._ p. 645, n. 3), and other writers following him, discredit this statement, not realizing that Aristotle is speaking of professional athletics. Of the eight examples quoted by Krause of athletes who had won victories both as boys and as men, five belong to the sixth or early fifth century, one is later than Aristotle, one is contemporary with him, the date of the eighth is doubtful.

Footnote 154:

Corn. Nepos, _Epam._ 2.

Footnote 155:

_Rep._ iii. 404 A; cp. Arist. _Pol._ 1335 b.

Footnote 156:

Plutarch, _Vit. Alexander_ and _Philopoemon_.

Footnote 157:

Galen, Προτρεπτ. λόγ. ii. ἡ δὲ τῶν ἀθλητῶν ἐπ’ ἄκρον εὐεξία σφαλερά τε καὶ εὐμετάπτωτος. Krause, _Gym._ p. 47, n. 1.

Footnote 158:

_Leg._ 794 ff.

Footnote 159:

_Leg._ 833 ff.

Footnote 160:

Rep. 406 B; _Protag._ 316 D; Aristot. _Rhet._ i. 5.

An entirely different view of Herodicus is ably stated by Dr. Jüthner in the introduction to his Philostratus. He regards Herodicus as the father of scientific and medical gymnastic, as applied to the preservation of health and the cure of disease, and he claims that Plato himself shows warm recognition of his merits in the passage in the _Protagoras_, where he classes him with Homer, Hesiod, and others, among the great sophists who beguiled mankind. The passage certainly proves the ability and popularity of Herodicus, but I can see in it no evidence that Plato did not genuinely dislike his system. The strongest proof of the unscientific and useless character of his system is supplied by the deterioration of the athlete and of the national physique, which dates from this period.

Footnote 161:

Plato, _Leg._ 839 C.

Footnote 162:

Plutarch, _Vita. Alexand._ 35.

Footnote 163:

_Plutus_, 1161.

Footnote 164:

Xen. _Hell._ i. 5, 19; Paus. vi. 7, 4.

Footnote 165:

_Mem._ iii. 12. For the contrast between ἀθλητής and ἰδιωτής cp. _Hieron_, 4, 6; _Mem._ iii. 7, 7.

Footnote 166:

_Nub._ 961-1023; _Ran._ 1086.

Footnote 167:

Thus in the present day professional football-players are largely drawn from the country districts of Scotland.

Footnote 168:

Plato, _Meno_, 93 D.

Footnote 169:

_Nubes_, passim.

Footnote 170:

Thuc. vi. 16, 2. The epinikion written by Euripides states that he was first, second, and third. So too does Isocrates, _de Bigis_, 34.

Footnote 171:

_vide infra_, Fig. 165.

Footnote 172:

Part of the inscription was found in 1877, and is now in the Museum at Sparta. Tod, _Sparta Mus. Cat._ 440. The rest has been recently discovered during the excavations of the British School, and is discussed in the _B.S.A._ xiii. p. 174. It contains a list of victories won by Damonon and his son, Enymacratidas, in the chariot-race, horse-race, and foot-races at nine local festivals, most of them in Laconia. The inscription belongs to the middle or end of the fifth century. It throws an interesting light on the number of local festivals at this period.

Footnote 173:

_Ox. Pap._ ii. 222.

Footnote 174:

Paus. vi. 2, 6.

Footnote 175:

Paus. vi. 18, 4.

Footnote 176:

Paus. v. 21, 5.

Footnote 177:

Paus. v. 21, 5.

Footnote 178:

Paus. vi. 3, 7.

Footnote 179:

Paus. vi. 1, 4.

Footnote 180:

These changes were particularly connected with the Athenian Iphicrates and Jason of Therae.

Footnote 181:

Taking the lists given by Hyde, pp. 75-77, we find that between Ols. 84-106 out of 54 statues 20 were in honour of boxers, 6 of pankratiasts, 11 of wrestling, 7 of runners, 2 of pentathletes, and 8 of chariots or horses.

Footnote 182:

Isocrates, _Panegyric_, 43 ff.; Lysias, _Olymp._

Footnote 183:

Thuc. v. 49; cp. viii. 10 of the Isthmia.

Footnote 184:

Isocrates, _de Bigis_, 32, ὁρῶν τὴν ἐν Ὀλυμπίᾳ πανήγυριν ὑπὸ πάντων ἀνθρώπων ἀγαπωμένην καὶ τοὺς Ἕλληνας ἐπίδειξιν ἐν αὐτῇ ποιουμένους πλούτου καὶ ῥώμης καὶ παιδεύσεως, κτλ.

Footnote 185:

Paus. v. 23, 4.

Footnote 186:

Paus. v. 12, 8; Thuc. v. 47.

Footnote 187:

Thuc. iii. 8 ff.

Footnote 188:

Phil. _Vita. Soph._ i. p. 209.

Footnote 189:

Paus. vi. 17, 7; _Ol. Ins._ 293.

Footnote 190:

Paus. vi. 3, 11; _Anth. Pal._ xiii. 5; Hyde, _Olymp. Stat._ p. 33.

Footnote 191:

Lysias, _Olympiakos_; Dionys. Hal. _Jud. de Lysia_, p. 519; Diodor. xiv. 109. A similar tale is narrated by Aelian of Themistocles, who is said to have urged the Greeks in 476 not to allow Hieron of Syracuse to compete, on the ground that he had not shared in the dangers of Greece. Ael. _V.H._ 9. 5.

Footnote 192:

Isocrates, _Panegyrikos_.

Footnote 193:

Helmet of Argives (_Ol. Ins._ 250), spears of Sicyonians, Methonii, Tarentines (_Ins._ 245, 247, 254), of Argives and Athenians for Tanagra (Paus. v. 10, 4).

Footnote 194:

Paus. v. 24; _Ol. Ins._ 252.

Footnote 195:

Such must certainly have been the statue of Victory by Calamis set up by the Mantineans. Paus. v. 26, 6.

Footnote 196:

Paus. v. 26, 1.

Footnote 197:

Paus. v. 27, 11; 24, 4.

Footnote 198:

They were merely competitions in strength of lung. Herodorus of Megara, a famous trumpeter who won ten times at Olympia, was said to be able to blow two trumpets at once with such force that no one could stand in his neighbourhood. Athen. 10, 7, p. 415.

Footnote 199:

Hence the term “Mercatus Olympiacus,” Vell. Paterc. i. 8; Cicero, _Tuscul._ v. 3; Krause, _Olympia_, p. 190, n. 2.

Footnote 200:

Lucian, _Herodotus_.

Footnote 201:

Paus. vi. 3, 14.

Footnote 202:

Paus. vi. 18, 2.

Footnote 203:

Polyb. iv. 73.

Footnote 204:

Thuc. v. 31 and 49.

Footnote 205:

From Pausanias, v. 4, 8, and 27, 11; vi. 2, 8, we gather that the Eleans, in the course of this war, obtained a decided success in a fight which took place at Olympia, and erected a trophy for the same in the Altis. Was it really this success which prevented the Spartans from depriving them of the presidency of the games, or have we here the Elean version of the war?

Footnote 206:

Xenophon, _Hell._ iii. 2, 31.

Footnote 207:

Förster, _Ol. Sieger_.

Footnote 208:

Xenophon, _Hell._ iv. 5. 1, 2.

Footnote 209:

Inscriptions found at Olympia illustrate the political relations of this time. In _Ol. Ins._ 31, Theban, Sicyonian, and Argive benefactors of Olympia are named πρόξενοι of the Arcadians. In _Ol. Ins._ 36, two Sicyonians are named πρόοξενοι and θεαροδόκοι of the Pisatans. Curtius, _Ol._ Text, i. 50.

Footnote 210:

Compare the triumphant inscription on Sophius of Messene, who won the same events _circa_ 300 B.C. Paus. vi. 2, 10, and 3, 2.

Footnote 211:

The view adopted above is that of the late Mr. Louis Dyer, and is fully discussed by him in _J.H.S._ vol. xxviii. pp. 250 ff. The word θέατρον is here used of the arrangements for spectators overlooking the bare north-eastern corner of the Altis, and consisting in (1) the tiers of steps at the foot of the treasuries, (2) the Colonnade and its southward extension by the Hellanodiceon.

Footnote 212:

_Ol. Ins._ 260.