ewarded
with the garland of leaves. The victors of these games thus acquired a
social pre-eminence, and were held in especial honor, like those heroes in
the Middle Ages who obtained the honor of tournaments and tilts, and, in
modern times, those who receive decoration at the hands of kings.

(M398) The celebrity of the Olympic games, which drew spectators from Asia
as well as all the States of Greece, led to similar institutions or
festivals in other places. The Pythian games, in honor of Apollo, were
celebrated near Delphi every third Olympic year; and various musical
contests, exercises in poetry, exhibitions of works of art were added to
gymnastic exercises and chariot and horse races. The sacrifices,
processions, and other solemnities, resemble those at Olympia in honor of
Zeus. They lasted as long as the Olympic games, down to A.D. 394. Wherever
the worship of Apollo was introduced, there were imitations of these
Pythian games in all the States of Greece.

(M399) The Nemaean and Ithmian games were celebrated each twice in every
Olympiad, the former on the plain of Nemaea, in Argolis; the latter in the
Corinthian Isthmus, under the presidency of Corinth. These also claimed a
high antiquity, and at these were celebrated the same feats of strength as
at Olympia. But the Olympic festival was the representation of all the
rest, and transcended all the rest in national importance. It was viewed
with so much interest, that the Greeks measured time itself by them. It
was Olympiads, and not years, by which the date of all events was
determined. The Romans reckoned their years from the foundation of their
city; modern Christian nations, by the birth of Christ; Mohammedans, by
the flight of the prophet to Medina; and the Greeks, from the first
recorded Olympiad, B.C. 776.

(M400) It was in these festivals, at which no foreigner, however eminent,
was allowed to contend for prizes, that the Greeks buried their quarrels,
and incited each other to heroism. The places in which they were
celebrated became marts of commerce like the mediaeval fairs of Germany;
and the vast assemblage of spectators favored that communication of news,
and inventions, and improvements which has been produced by our modern
exhibitions. These games answered all the purposes of our races, our
industrial exhibitions, and our anniversaries, religious, political,
educational, and literary, and thus had a most decided influence on the
development of Grecia