nd attractive character by checking the license of the rhapsodes and
insuring to those present a full orderly recital of the _Iliad_.

The sacred games and festivals took hold of the Greek mind by so great a
variety of feelings as to counterbalance in a high degree the political
disseverance, and to keep alive among their widespread cities, in the
midst of constant jealousy and frequent quarrel, a feeling of
brotherhood and congenial sentiment such as must otherwise have died
away. The Theors, or sacred envoys who came to Olympia or Delphi from so
many different points, all sacrificed to the same god and at the same
altar, witnessed the same sports, and contributed by their donatives to
enrich or adorn one respective scene. Moreover the festival afforded
opportunity for a sort 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
historians--among which last the history of Herodotus is said to have
been publicly read by its author. 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 ambition was of a character
more strictly personal, and who stripped naked as runners, wrestlers,
boxers, or pancratiasts, having gone through the extreme fatigue of a
complete previous training. Cylon, whose unfortunate attempt to usurp
the scepter 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; the great family of the Diagoridae at Rhodes, who furnished
magistrates and generals to their native city, supplied a still greater
number of successful boxers and pancratiasts at Olympia, while other
instances also occur of generals named by various cities from the list
of successful Olympic gymnasts; and the odes of Pindar, always dearly
purchased, attest how many of the great and wealthy were found in that
list. The perfect popularity and equality of persons at these great
games, is a feature not less remarkable than the exact adherence to
predetermined rule, and the self-imposed submission of the immense crowd
to a handful of servants armed with sticks, who executed the orders of
the Elean Hellanodice. The ground upon which the ceremony took place,
and even