Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/826

766 OLYMPIA Pisa were at first associated, as equal states, in the control of the Olympian festival. Sixteen women, representing eight towns of Elis and eight of Pisatis, wove the festal peplus for the Olympian Hera. Olympia thus became the centre of an a/xc/HK-ruovia, or federal league under religious sanction, for the west coast of the Peloponnesus, as Delphi was for its neighbours in northern Greece. It suited the interests of Sparta to join this amphictyony ; and, before the regular catalogue of Olympic victors begins in 776 B.C., Sparta had formed an alliance with Elis. Aristotle saw in the temple of Hera at Olympia a bronze disk, recording the traditional laws of the festival, on which the name of Lycurgus stood next to that of Iphitus, king of Elis. Whatever may have been the age of the disk itself, the relation which it indicates is well attested. Elis had from the first been stronger than Pisa. Elis and Sparta, making common cause, had no difficulty in excluding the Pisatans from their proper share in the management of the Olympian sanctuary. Pisa had, indeed, a brief moment of better fortune. The ascendency of Pheidon of Argos enabled him to reassert the old Acheean claim by celebrating the 28th Olympiad under the presidency of the Pisatans, This festival, from which the Eleans and Spartans were excluded, was afterwards struck out of the official register, as having no proper existence. At last, about 570 B.C., the destruc tion of Pisa by the combined forces of Sparta and Elis put an end to the long rivalry. Not only Pisatis, but also the district of Triphylia to the south of it, now became depend ent on Elis. So far as the religious side of the festival was concerned, the Eleans had now an unquestioned supre macy. It was at Elis, in the gymnasium of the city, that candidates from all parts of Greece were tested, before they were admitted to the athletic competitions at Olympia. To have passed through the training (usually of ten months) at Elis Avas regarded as the most valuable preparation. Elean officials, who not only adjudged the prizes at Olympia, but decided who should be admitted to compete, marked the national aspect of their functions by assuming the title of Hellanodicae. Long before the overthrow of Pisa the list of contests at Olympia had been so enlarged and diversified as to invest the celebration with a Panhellenic character. Exercises of a Spartan type testing endurance and strength with an especial view to war had almost exclusively formed the earlier programme. But as early as the 25th Olympiad i.e., several years before the interference of Pheidon on behalf of Pisa the four -horse chariot -race was added. This was an invitation to wealthy competitors from every part of the Hellenic world, and was also the recognition of a popular or spectacular element, as distinct from the skill which had a merely athletic or military interest. Horse-races were added later. For such contests the hippodrome was set apart. Meanwhile the list of contests on the old racecourse, the stadion, had been enlarged. Besides the foot-race in which the course was traversed once only, there were now the diaulos or double course, and the "long " foot-race (dolichos). Wrestling and box ing were combined in the pancration. Leaping, quoit- throwing, javelin-throwing, running, and wrestling were combined in the pentathlon. After the conquest of Messenia Spartan ambition had turned towards Arcadia. The aim of the Spartans was nothing less than the subjugation of the entire Pelo ponnesus. But the decided check which the aggressors experienced in their new attempt produced a change of design. It became evident that a policy of forcible an nexation could be pushed no further. Yet Sparta might at least aspire to the hegemony of the peninsula. The other states of the Peloponnesus, while remaining independent, might be virtually under Spartan control. And for the establishment of such a hegemony what agency could be more suitable than that of Olympia 1 In the Olympian amphictyony, Sparta, closely allied with Elis, already held a commanding position. The rising popularity of the festival was constantly tending to make Olympia the religious and social centre of Peloponnesian life indeed, in some sense, of the Hellenic world. As the Eleans, there fore, were now the religious supervisors of Olympia, so the Spartans aimed at constituting themselves its political protectors. Their military strength greatly superior at the time to that of any single Hellenic state readily enabled them to do this in the most effectual manner. Spartan arms could enforce the sanction which the Olympian Zeus gave to the oaths of the amphictyones, whose federal bond was symbolized by common worship at his shrine. Spartan arms could punish any violation of that " sacred truce " which was indispensable if Hellenes from all cities were to have peaceable access to the Olym pian festival. And in the eyes of all Dorians the assured dignity thus added to Olympia would be enhanced by the fact that the protectors were the Spartan Heraclidse. Thus, under the permanent guarantee of the strongest military power, and at the same time under auspices which, for a large part of the Greek world, were the most illustrious possible, Olympia entered on a new phase of brilliant and secure existence as a recognized Panhellenic institution. This phase may be considered as beginning after the de struction of Pisa, about 570 B.C. And so it continued to be to the last. While the details of the scene and of the festival were the subjects of endless modification or change, Olympia always remained a central expression of the Greek ideas that the body of man has a glory as well as his intellect and spirit, that body and mind should alike be disciplined, and that it is by the harmonious discipline of both that men best honour Zeus. The significance of Olympia was larger and higher than the political fortunes of the Greeks who met there, and it survived the overthrow of Greek independence. In the Macedonian and Roman ages the temples and contests of Olympia still interpreted the ideal at which free Greece had aimed. Philip of Macedon and Nero are, as we shall see, among those whose names have a record in the Altis. Such names are typical of long series of visitors who paid homage to Olympia. Even those who were least in sympathy with the old spirit of the festival could still feel that the place was represent ative and unique. According to Cedrenus, a Greek writer of the llth century (Swoi/ is Io-To/aiwVji. 326), the Olympian festival ceased to be held after 393 A.D., the first year of the 293d Olympiad. The list of Olympian victors, which begins in 776 B.C. with Corcebus of Elis, closes with the name of an Armenian, Varastad, who is said to have be longed to the race of the Arsacidae. In the 5th century the desolation of Olympia had set in. The chryselephant ine statue of the Olympian Zeus, by Phidias, was carried to Constantinople, and perished in a great fire, 476 A.D. The Olympian temple of Zeus is said to have been destroyed, either by the Goths or by Christian zeal, in the reign of Theodosius II. (402-450 A.D.). The German excavations at Olympia were begun in 1875. After six campaigns, of which the first five lasted from September to June, they were completed on the 20th of March 1881. The result of these six years labours was, first, to strip off a thick covering of earth from the Altis, the consecrated precinct of the Olympian Zeus. This covering had been formed, during some twelve centuries, partly by clay swept down from the Cronion, partly by deposit from the overflowings of the Cladeus. The task presented to the German explorers may be judged by the fact that the coating of earth over the Altis had an average depth of no less than five metres.