Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/89

IMPORTANT EFFECT OF THF.SE FESTIVALS. 7J of fair, including much traffic amid so large a mass of spectators,* and besides the exhibitions of the games themselves, there were recitations and lectures in a spacious council-room for those who chose to listen to them, by poets, rhapsodes, philosophers, and his- torians, among which last, the history of Herodotus is said to have been publicly read by its author. 2 Of the wealthy and great men in the various cities, many contended simply for the chariot victories and horse victories. But there were others whose am- bition was of a character more strictly personal, and who strip- ped naked as runners, wrestlers, boxers, or pankratiasts, having gone through the extreme fatigue of a complete previous train- ing. Kylon, whose unfortunate attempt to usurp the sceptre at Athens has been recounted, had gained the prize in the Olympic stadium : Alexander son of Amyntas, the prince of Macedon, had run for it. 3 The great family of the Diagoridae at Rhodes, 1 Cicero, Tusc. Quaest. v, 3. " Mercatum cum, qui habcretur maximo ludortim npparatu totius Grseciai cclcbritate: nam ut illic alii corporibus exercitatis gloriam et nobilitatcra coronas pctcrcnt, alii cmendi aut vcndendl quasstu et lucro duc.erentur," etc. Both Vclleius Paterculus, also, (i, 8) and Justin (xiii, 5), call the Olympic festival by the name mercatus. There were booths all round the Altis, or sacred precinct of Zeus (Schol Pindar. Olymp. xi, 55), during the time of the games. Strabo observes with justice, respecting the multitudinous festivals gen- erally 'H wavfj-yvpts, e/tTropi/cov TI n-pdyfia (x, p. 486), especially in refer- ence to Delos: see Cicero pro Lege Manilla, c. 18: compare Pausanias, x, 82, 9, about the Panegyris and fair at Tithorea in Phokis, and Becker. Charikles, vol. i, p. 283. At the Attic festival of the Herakleia, celebrated by the communion called Mcsogei, or a certain number of the denies constituting Mesogaea, a regular market-due, or uyopa<m/cov, was levied upon those who brought goods to sell (Inscriptiones Atticas nuper repertas 12, by E. Curtius, pp 3-7). u Pausan. vi, 23, 5; Diodor. xiv, 109, xv, 7; Lucian, Quomodo Histotia eit conscribenda, c. 42. See Krause, Olympia, sect. 29, pp. 183-186. 3 Thucyd. i, 120; Herodot. v, 22-71. Eurybat6s of Argos (Herodot. vi ; 92); Philippus and Phayllus of Kroton (v, 47; viii, 47); Eualkides cf Erctria (v, 102); Hermolykus of Athens (ix, 105). Pindar (Nem. iv and vi) gives the numerous victories of the fiassida and Theandridae at JEgina : also Melissus the pankratiast and his ancestors the Kleonymidce of Thebes r^ucvrcf upxddsv irp6!;voi r' x : fTsthm. iii,"25)