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

FESTIVALS

Then followed a banquet, which the Eleans arranged in honour of the victors in the dining-hall of the Prytaneum, at the hearth of the sanctuary. Loud joy prevailed inside and outside the Prytaneum through the whole festive assembly. Pindar says : ‘When the beloved evening light of the beautiful moon shines, then the whole floor re-echoes with songs of victory at festive banquets.’

‘“An Olympian victory was almost more highly thought of by the Hellenes than a triumph by a Roman general; the man who had attained it, according to Pindar’s expression, had reached the pillars of Heracles ; he had achieved the greatest earthly happiness, and the wise poet warns him against trying to mount higher and striving to become equal to the gods. Chilo of Sparta, one of the Seven Wise Men, died for joy at his son’s victory. Diagoras of Rhodes, belonging to a family descended from Heracles and distinguished for boxing, had been victorious twice at Olympia and several times at the other national games. When he saw his two sons victorious at Olympia, a Spartan cried out to him: ‘Die, O Diagoras, for thou shalt not ascend to heaven!’ And he died when the two young men embraced him and placed their crowns upon his head. The friends and relatives of the victor had the right to erect a statue of him in the Altis (the sacred grove of Zeus); but one who had been victorious three times may have his statue set up life-size and as lifelike as possible.

‘A victor was usually represented as a contestant in the game in which he had distinguished himself, and often at the moment when he gained the victory. The Altis must have possessed a remarkably large number of such statues, for Pausanias, who only mentions the most distinguished, enumerates more than 200. Rich victors in the knightly contests had themselves, their charioteers, horses, and chariots, set up in bronze.

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