us really ruled the State, a
Senate of four hundred members preparing the cases which were to be
brought before it for decision.

Athens prospered under this rule. But an ambitious noble stirred the
people to believe they were unjustly excluded from office and from power,
and produced a new government, which, under the cloak of a democracy, was
really a despotism, with the scheming Pisistratus at its head, or, as it
was called, its "Tyrant" (meaning simply ruler).

But Lycurgus did something else besides placing an austere and merciless
system upon Sparta. He helped to re-establish the famous and ancient
Olympic Games (776 B.C.).

You know how we feel about our great baseball and football games; how
excited we are, and how glad or how sorry if one team or the other is
defeated. Well, suppose, instead of these, there was one great game every
four years, in which all the country could compete. And suppose the victor
in this great game was crowned and treated like a king forever afterward.
That would be what the Olympic Games were in Greece.

Every four years the young Greeks from all parts of the country met at
Olympia and contended for prizes in athletic games. There was running,
jumping, wrestling, boxing, the throwing of javelins and quoits (the
"discus"), and races of horses and chariots. For one month, during this
great festival, wars were suspended throughout Greece.

The only reward of the victor was a crown of wild-olive leaves; but this
was regarded as the dearest prize in life and the greatest honor a Greek
could attain.

The wearer of the olive crown was carried home like a king, with
processions and songs of triumph, and all his life afterward he was a
privileged and honored person. He had conferred everlasting distinction
upon his family and his country, and his statue was erected in the Sacred
Grove of Jupiter, in whose honor these festivals occurred.

Other festivals were established afterward in honor of Apollo, called the
Pythian and Isthmian games, in which there were contests, not alone in
gymnastics and in chariot races, but in music, poetry, and eloquence; and
these prizes were also sought as the richest rewards life could bring. The
Spartans took no part in them. But it was the Olympic games which brought
together all of Greece every four years, cemented the states with a common
sympathy, and kept alive the fraternal spirit.

This national festival was to them what the Christian era is to us.