DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.13851#0408
38b
Ol THE RELIGION OF GREECE.
ed, though not after the manner of other olive trees, but spreading out
its boughs more like myrtle ; it was called x»XXig-s<petvos, i. e.Jitfor crowns,
and garlands given to victors in these games were always composed of it ;
and it was forbidden, under a great penalty, to cut it for any other use.
These Dactyli were five in number, whence it is that the Olympian games
were celebrated once in five years, though others make them to be solem-
nized once in four ; wherefore, according to the former, an olympiad
must consist of five, according to the latter, of four years ; but neither
of these accounts are exact ; for this solemnity was held indeed every
fifth year, yet not after the term of five years was* quite past, but every
fiftieth month, which is the second month, after the completion of four
years (1) ; and as these games were celebrated every fifth year, so they
lasted five days ; for they began upon the eleventh, and ended upon the
fifteenth day of the lunar month, when the moon was at the fulL
Others (ifwe may believe Julius Scaliger) report that these games were
instituted by Pelops, to the honour of Neptune, by whose assistance he
had vanquished Oenomans, and married his daughter Hippodamia.
Others say, they were first celebrated by Hercules, the son of Alcme-
na, to the honour of Pelops, from whom he was descended by the mo-
ther's side (2) ; but being after that discontinued for some time, they
were received by Iphitus, or Iphiclus, one of Hercules's sons.
The most common opinion is, that the Olympian games were first in-
stituted by this Hercules, to the honour of Olympian Jupiter, out of the
spoils taken from Auges king of Elis. whom he had dethroned and plun-
dered, being defrauded of the reward he had promised him for cleansing
his stables, as Pindar reports (3) : Diodorus the Sicilian (4) gives the
same relation, and adds, that Hercules proposed no other reward to the
victors but a crown, in memory of his own labours, all which he accom-
plished for the benefit of mankind, without designing any reward to him-
self, besides the praise of doing well. At this institution, it is reported
that Hercules himself came offconqueror in all the exercises, except wrest-
ling, to which when he had challenged all the field, and could find no man
that could grapple with him, at length Jupiter, having assumed an human
shape, entered the lists ; and when the contention had remained doubtful
for a considerable time, neither party having the advantage, or being will-
ing to submit, the god discovered himself to his son, and, from this action,
gotthe surname of naXcuys??, or wrestler, by which he is known in Lyco-
phron (5).
All these stories are rejected by Strabo, in his description of Elis,
where he reports, that an iEtolian colony, together with some of Hercu-
les's posterity, subdued a great many of tho Pisaean towns, and amongst
them, Olympia, when they first instituted, or, at least, revived, enlarged,
and augmented these games, which (as my author thinks) could not have
been omitted by Homer, who takes every opportunity to adorn his poems
with descriptions of such solemnities, had they been of any note before
the Trojan war. Whatever becomes of the first author of the Olympian
games, it is certain they were either wholly laid aside, or very little fre-
quented, till the time of Iphitus, who was contemporary with Lycurgus
the Spartain lawgiver (6). He reinstituted this solemnity about four hun-
(1) Isaac. Tzet. in Lycophr. et Johannes Tzez. (4) Bibliothec.'Hist/lib. iv.
Chiliad. I. Hist. xxi. (5) Cassandra, v. 41.
(2) Solinus Polyhist. et Satius Theb. vi (6) Aristoteles in Plutarchi Lycurgo, Pausam
(3) Olympion, initio, Od. H. as,
Ol THE RELIGION OF GREECE.
ed, though not after the manner of other olive trees, but spreading out
its boughs more like myrtle ; it was called x»XXig-s<petvos, i. e.Jitfor crowns,
and garlands given to victors in these games were always composed of it ;
and it was forbidden, under a great penalty, to cut it for any other use.
These Dactyli were five in number, whence it is that the Olympian games
were celebrated once in five years, though others make them to be solem-
nized once in four ; wherefore, according to the former, an olympiad
must consist of five, according to the latter, of four years ; but neither
of these accounts are exact ; for this solemnity was held indeed every
fifth year, yet not after the term of five years was* quite past, but every
fiftieth month, which is the second month, after the completion of four
years (1) ; and as these games were celebrated every fifth year, so they
lasted five days ; for they began upon the eleventh, and ended upon the
fifteenth day of the lunar month, when the moon was at the fulL
Others (ifwe may believe Julius Scaliger) report that these games were
instituted by Pelops, to the honour of Neptune, by whose assistance he
had vanquished Oenomans, and married his daughter Hippodamia.
Others say, they were first celebrated by Hercules, the son of Alcme-
na, to the honour of Pelops, from whom he was descended by the mo-
ther's side (2) ; but being after that discontinued for some time, they
were received by Iphitus, or Iphiclus, one of Hercules's sons.
The most common opinion is, that the Olympian games were first in-
stituted by this Hercules, to the honour of Olympian Jupiter, out of the
spoils taken from Auges king of Elis. whom he had dethroned and plun-
dered, being defrauded of the reward he had promised him for cleansing
his stables, as Pindar reports (3) : Diodorus the Sicilian (4) gives the
same relation, and adds, that Hercules proposed no other reward to the
victors but a crown, in memory of his own labours, all which he accom-
plished for the benefit of mankind, without designing any reward to him-
self, besides the praise of doing well. At this institution, it is reported
that Hercules himself came offconqueror in all the exercises, except wrest-
ling, to which when he had challenged all the field, and could find no man
that could grapple with him, at length Jupiter, having assumed an human
shape, entered the lists ; and when the contention had remained doubtful
for a considerable time, neither party having the advantage, or being will-
ing to submit, the god discovered himself to his son, and, from this action,
gotthe surname of naXcuys??, or wrestler, by which he is known in Lyco-
phron (5).
All these stories are rejected by Strabo, in his description of Elis,
where he reports, that an iEtolian colony, together with some of Hercu-
les's posterity, subdued a great many of tho Pisaean towns, and amongst
them, Olympia, when they first instituted, or, at least, revived, enlarged,
and augmented these games, which (as my author thinks) could not have
been omitted by Homer, who takes every opportunity to adorn his poems
with descriptions of such solemnities, had they been of any note before
the Trojan war. Whatever becomes of the first author of the Olympian
games, it is certain they were either wholly laid aside, or very little fre-
quented, till the time of Iphitus, who was contemporary with Lycurgus
the Spartain lawgiver (6). He reinstituted this solemnity about four hun-
(1) Isaac. Tzet. in Lycophr. et Johannes Tzez. (4) Bibliothec.'Hist/lib. iv.
Chiliad. I. Hist. xxi. (5) Cassandra, v. 41.
(2) Solinus Polyhist. et Satius Theb. vi (6) Aristoteles in Plutarchi Lycurgo, Pausam
(3) Olympion, initio, Od. H. as,