Olympic Cavalcade

THE ANCIENT -OLYMPIC GAMES pentathlon occupied the rest of th'e day. The foot race, the long.jump, the discus and the javelin events were there decided, but the wrestling match; which was the fifth event, was cQntested in the open space before the altar. The morning of the third -day was mainly ~eremonial; sacrifices were made and portions thereof set aside for a feast. The boy competitors had the afternoon for th_eir foot race, wrestling - and boxing. There was much revelry that night. _ Ori the fourth day of the Games the chief athletic events wok place. There were three foot races in the Stadium in the morning; three fighting events in the afternoon (wrestling, boxing and the pancration). These were decided in the Altis in front of the -altar. A race in armour concluded the programme and, again, the evening was given up to revelry. The fifth and last day, there was feasting and rejoicing. The victors paid their vows at the altars of the gods and were entertained at a banquet in the Prytaneion. ~ · Meanwhile, the multiplication of local contests had given to athletics - an atmosphere of national importance. . - _ ~ · The rise of Macedon had. threatened the independence of the city states, and Philip and Ale~ander, though -seeking to impose unity op the Greek world, realizd the importance of the national festivals, which they therefore encouraged and utilized for their own ends. The athletic ideal and the regard -in which it was held further aided the inspiration of poets and sculptors alike in the sixth and fifth centuries during which the greatest of the former wrote Epinikia, or hymns of victory, to b~ sung by choirs of boys in the tr}umphal procession which welcomed the vtctor to his native city, ~nd th~ latter were employed to commemorate successes in the Games. -Simonides of Ceos and his nephew Bacchylides, of athletic stock, wrote of this at the end of the sixth century, and it was finally interpreted for us by P~hdar, the great lyric poet of the 6fth century. He said of the youthful boxer Agesidemus: "lfone be born with excellent gifts then may another who sharpeneth his natural edge, speed him; God helping, to an exceeding weight of glory. Without toil there have triumphed a very few:' - According to the theories of Pindar, it was not enough for an athlete to – be end?wed only with great gifts by-nature. Zeus, <;races and the Fates must giVe him strength ·and beauty, the natural attributes o£ the aristocrat, but he must match his beauty by beautiful deeds; not shame his beauty, but develop it at the cost-of toil and thus give to athletic fame a moral dignity. Pindar's patrons were the men of courage and endurance-the boxers, w:e~tlers and pancratists. Hercules, his ideal athlete, a man of unbending spmt. - is T?e sixth century was the Age-Qf Strength, in connection with which it - enttrely fallacious to say that the foot race was honoured beyond all other events. It was the age of mighty gymnasts, their objec~, according to