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

NATIONAL FESTIVALS

The Pythia, the festival of the Pythian Apollo at Delphi, was originally held every nine years, with musical contests, that is, the contest of singers with the accompaniment of the cithara, who were hence called citharedi. But after 586 the festival took place every five years, each time in the third year of the olympiad, and the musical agon was enlarged, auleie (flute-players) and aulode (singers accompanied by flutes) entering the contest ; gymnic and hippic games were also added, in which the laurel sacred to Apollo was used as the crown of victory.

The Isthmia and Nemea were also national games, the former being held on the isthmus of Corinth near the sanctuary of Poseidon, the latter in the grove of Zeus at Nemea, both taking place every third year. Beside these there was a number of local games which could not compare with the four great games, especially the Olympian, of which we need only mention two in the framework of our description. In Corinth, besides the great Isthmian games, the Hellotia in honour of Pallas were celebrated ; and in them a race of beautiful youths, who carried torches in their hands (Pindar, Olympia, xiii, 40; with Scholiast), took place. In Megara, at the beginning of spring, were celebrated the Diocleia games in honour of the national hero Diocles. Different accounts are given of Diocles ; of his death it is related that he fought in battle by the side of his favourite and in the moment of danger covered with him his shield and saved his life, but lost his own. These games were instituted to keep green the memory of the Athenian stranger and his sacrifice of his life, and at them a kissing contest of youths took place, as described by Theocritus (xii, 30): “‘ About his tomb, so surely as Spring comes round, your children vie in a kissing-match, and whoso sweetliest presses lip upon lip, returns laden with garlands to his mother.” This kissing contest of beautiful boys,

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