Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates

FESTIVALS

But as in these athletic sports the praiseworthy emulation of cities and districts was the driving impulse, so also the particularistic discord due to jealousy was only deferred to burst forth anew and with less restraint. But certainly the life the scene of which was laid during the festal week on the banks of the Alpheus was an incomparable one, rejoicing in colour, fresh and stirring.

An exhaustive description of the festival of Olympia and the other national games does not come within the limits of this book, whose task is the description of the morals, that is the sexual life, of the Greeks. Only what is most important may be mentioned to give the reader his bearings or to freshen his memory. As the cult of Zeus at Olympia was very old it was believed that Heracles or Pelops had founded these games ; after having been for a time forgotten, they were revived about 800 B.c. by Iphitus, king of Elis. The festival was celebrated every fifth year, at the time of the first full moon after the summer solstice, consequently at the beginning of July. During the games all weapons were to remain unused; the land of Elis, in which the national sanctuary was situated, was placed for all time under the protection of the god as inviolable.

The contests (or agones) were partly gymnic, that is, those in which the strength and agility of the naked body decided the result, such as running, wrestling, boxing, throwing the discus, etc.and partly hippic (from hippos, horse) that 1s, races with horses or mules, with teams of two or four horses, or with race-horses. ‘The Olympiad was named after the victor, z.e., the recipient of the first prize for running, in pious remembrance of earlier times when contests took place only in that branch of athletics.

If in oldest times the prize of victory had been any object of value, later, by command of the Delphian oracle, the victor was presented with

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