Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/83

NEMEAN AXD ISTHMIAN GAMES. $, The Olympic and Pythian games continued always to be the most venerated solemnities in Greece : yet the Nemea and Isth- mia acquired a celebrity not much inferior; the Olympic prize counting for the highest of all. 1 Both the Nemea and the Isth- mia were distinguished from the other two festivals by occurring, not once in four years, but once in two years ; tho former in the second and fourth years of ?ach Olympiad, the latter in the first and third years. To both is assigned, according to Greek custom, an origin connected witl the interesting persons and circum- stances of Grecian antiquity : but our historical knowledge of both begins with the sixth century B.C. The first historical Nemead is presented as belonging to Olympiad 52 or 53 (572-5 G8 B.C.), a few years subsequent to the Sacrod War above mentioned and to the origin of the Pythia. The festival was celebrated in honor of the Neniean Zeus, in the valley of Nemea, between Phlius and Kleonoc, and orig ; nally by the Kleonccans them- selves, until, at some period after 460 B.C., the Argeians deprived them of that honor and assumed the honors of administration to themselves.' 3 The Nemean games had their Hellanodikre 3 to superintend, to keep order, and to distribute the prizes, as well as the Olympic. Respecting the Isthmian festival, our first histori- cal information is a little earlier, for it has already been stated 1 Pindar, Nem. x, 28-33. Strabo, viii, p. 377 ; Plutarch, Arat. c. 28 ; Manncrt, Geogr. Gr. Rom. pt. viii, p. 550. Compare the second chapter in Krause, Die Pythien, Nemeen nnd Isthmien, vol. ii, p. 108, seq. That the Klconrcans continued without interruption to administer the Nemean festival down to Olympiad 80 (4CO B.C.), or thereabouts, is the rational inference from Pindar, Nem. x, 42 : compare Ncm. iv, 17. Euse- bius, indeed, states that the Argeians seized the administration for them- selves in Olympiad 53, and in order to reconcile this statement with the above passage in Pindar, critics have concluded that the Argeians lost 11 again, and that the Kleonrcans resumed it a little before Olympiad 80. I take a different view, and am disposed to reject the statement of Eusebius altogether; the more so as Pindar's tenth Nemean ode is addressed to an Argeian citizen named Theiajus. If there had been at that time a standing dispute between Argos and Kleonne on the subject of the adminis- tration of the Nemea, the poet would hardly have introduced the mention ol the Nemean prizes gained by the ancestors of Theiaeus, under the onto ward designation of " prizes received from Kle "na;an men. '* See Boeckh, Corp Insorip*. Jo. H28. VOL. iv 5oc.