Olympic Cavalcade

r8 OLYMPIC CAVALCADE in A.D. 217. The list, as drawn up by Julius Africanus_, has been preserved -intact for us by Eusebius. . The Olympic Games, as a permanent festival, apparently ceased after the Gothic iiwasion during which Rome had called upon the Greeks to fight once more for their native land. The policy of Constantine hastened - the process of decay. Christianity, now the official religion, regarded the 4-ncient Games with disfavour and in .1\..D. 393 Theod-osius I, acting prob– ably on the advice of St. Ambrose, finally abolished the Games by imperial edict. The last of the ancient Olympic victors known to history wa:s a gigantic Armenian, named Varaztad. No longer :was it necessary for a competitor to establish the purity ofhis Greek birth before he was permitted to partiCi- _pate in the Olympic Games. -