We can scarcely conceive the vast importance attached to victory in these games [115]; it not only immortalized the winner, it shed glory upon his tribe. It is curious to see the different honours characteristically assigned to the conqueror in different states. If Athenian, he was entitled to a place by the magistrates in the Prytaneum; if a Spartan, to a prominent station in the field. To conquer at Elis was renown for life, “no less illustrious to a Greek than consulship to a Roman!” [116] The haughtiest nobles, the wealthiest princes, the most successful generals, contended for the prize [117]. And the prize (after the seventh Olympiad) was a wreath of the wild olive!
Numerous other and similar games were established throughout Greece. Of these, next to the Olympic, the most celebrated, and the only national ones, were the Pythian at Delphi, the Nemean in Argolis, the Isthmian in Corinth; yet elsewhere the prize was of value; at all the national ones it was but a garland--a type of the eternal truth, that praise is the only guerdon of renown. The olive-crown was nothing!-- the shouts of assembled Greece--the showers of herbs and flowers--the banquet set apart for the victor--the odes of imperishable poets--the public register which transmitted to posterity his name--the privilege of a statue in the Altis--the return home through a breach in the walls (denoting by a noble metaphor, “that a city which boasts such men has slight need of walls” [118]), the first seat in all public spectacles; the fame, in short, extended to his native city-- bequeathed to his children--confirmed by the universal voice wherever the Greek civilization spread; this was the true olive-crown to the Olympic conqueror!
No other clime can furnish a likeness to these festivals: born of a savage time, they retained the vigorous character of an age of heroes, but they took every adjunct from the arts and the graces of civilization. To the sacred ground flocked all the power, and the rank, and the wealth, and the intellect, of Greece. To that gorgeous spectacle came men inspired by a nobler ambition than that of the arena. Here the poet and the musician could summon an audience to their art. If to them it was not a field for emulation [119], it was at least a theatre of display.