d only to the
Olympic, over which indeed they had some advantages; first, that they
were not abused for the purpose of promoting petty jealousies and
antipathies of any administering state, as the Olympic games were
perverted by the Eleans on more than one occasion; next, that they
comprised music and poetry as well as bodily display. From the
circumstances attending their foundation, the Pythian games deserved,
even more than the Olympic, the title bestowed on them by
Demosthenes--"the common _Agon_ of the Greeks."

The Olympic and Pythian games continued always to be the most venerated
solemnities in Greece. Yet the Nemea and Isthmia acquired a celebrity
not much inferior; the Olympic prize counting for the highest of all.
Both the Nemea and Isthmia were distinguished from the other two
festivals by occurring not once in four years, but once in two years;
the former in the second and fourth years of each Olympiad, the latter
in the first and third years. To both is assigned, according to Greek
custom, an origin connected with the interesting persons and
circumstances of legendary antiquity; but our historical knowledge of
both begins with the sixth century B.C. The first historical Nemead is
presented as belonging to Olympiad B.C. 52 or 53 (572-568), a few years
subsequent to the Sacred War above mentioned and to the origin of the
Pythia. The festival was celebrated in honor of the Nemean Zeus, in the
valley of Nemea between Philus and Cleonae. The Cleonaeans themselves were
originally its presidents, until, some period after B.C. 460, the
Argians deprived them of that honor and assumed the honors of
administration to themselves. The Nemean games had their Hellanodicae to
superintend, to keep order, and to distribute the prizes, as well as the
Olympic.

Respecting the Isthmian festival, our first historical information is a
little earlier, for it has already been stated that Solon conferred a
premium upon every Athenian citizen who gained a prize at that festival
as well as at the Olympian--in or after B.C. 594. It was celebrated by
the Corinthians at their isthmus, in honor of Poseidon, and if we may
draw any inference from the legends respecting its foundation, which is
ascribed sometimes to Theseus, the Athenians appear to have identified
it with the antiquities of their own state.

We thus perceive that the interval between B.C. 600-560, exhibits the
first historical manifestation of the Pythia, Isthmia, and Ne