ood. In the Homeric poems much is
said about the common gods, and about special places consecrated to and
occupied by several of them; the chiefs celebrate funeral games in honor
of a deceased father, which are visited by competitors from different
parts of Greece, but nothing appears to manifest public or town
festivals open to Grecian visitors generally. And though the rocky Pytho
with its temple stands out in the _Iliad_ as a place both venerated and
rich--the Pythian games, under the superintendence of the Amphictyons,
with continuous enrollment of victors and a pan-Hellenic reputation, do
not begin until after the Sacred War, in the 48th Olympiad, or B.C. 586.

The Olympic games, more conspicuous than the Pythian as well as
considerably older, are also remarkable on another ground, inasmuch as
they supplied historical computers with the oldest backward record of
continuous time. It was in the year B.C. 776 that the Eleans inscribed
the name of their countryman Coroebus as victor in the competition of
runners, and that they began the practice of inscribing in like manner,
in each Olympic or fifth recurring year, the name of the runner who won
the prize. Even for a long time after this, however, the Olympic games
seem to have remained a local festival; the prize being uniformly
carried off, at the first twelve Olympiads, by some competitor either of
Elis or its immediate neighborhood. The Nemean and Isthmian games did
not become notorious or frequented until later even than the Pythian.
Solon in his legislation proclaimed the large reward of 500 drams for
every Athenian who gained an Olympic prize, and the lower sum of 100
drams for an Isthmiac prize. He counts the former as pan-Hellenic rank
and renown, an ornament even to the city of which the victor was a
member--the latter as partial and confined to the neighborhood.

Of the beginnings of these great solemnities we cannot presume to speak,
except in mythical language; we know them only in their comparative
maturity. But the habit of common sacrifice, on a small scale and
between near neighbors, is a part of the earliest habits of Greece. The
sentiment of fraternity, between two tribes or villages, first
manifested itself by sending a sacred legation or Theoria to offer
sacrifices to each other's festivals and to partake in the recreations
which followed; thus establishing a truce with solemn guarantee, and
bringing themselves into direct connexion each with the g