But as regards genuine early monuments, Pausanias tells us that Coroebus had no statue at Olympia, and implies that _there was no record of his victory save the epigram on his tomb_ at the border of Elis and Arcadia. Then comes the case of the Spartan Eutelidas (vi. 15, 8), who conquered as a boy in the 38th Ol., the only contest ever held for a pentathlon of boys. +esti de hê te eikôn archaia tou Eut., kai ta epi tô bathrô grammata amydra hypo tou chronou.+ But this statue cannot have been so old even as the 38th Ol. For in vi. 18, 7, Pausanias tells us that the first athlete's statues set up at Olympia were those of Praxidamas the Æginetan, who won in boxing at the 59th Ol., and that of the Opuntian Rexibios the pancratiast, at the 61st. 'These portrait statues are not far from the pillar of Oenomaos, and are made of wood, Rexibios' of fig-tree, but the Æginetan's of cypress, and less decayed than the other.' Just below this we have a mention of a treasure-house, dedicated by the Sicyonian tyrant Myron in the 33rd Ol. In this treasure-house was an inscribed shield, 'an offering to Zeus from the Myones.' +ta de epi tê aspidi grammata parêktai men epi brachy, peponthe de auto dia tou anathêmatos to archaion+ (vi. 19, 5).
These exhaust the oldest dated monuments found by Pausanias. He mentions indeed an ancient treasury of the Megarians, built in a time before either yearly archons at Athens or Olympiads (vi. 19, 13)[230:1]. Thus the antiquarian traveller, who revelled in the venerable in history and the archaic in Greek art, could find no dated votive offerings older than the 33rd Ol., and these he specially notes as of extraordinary antiquity, decayed and illegible with age. We may feel quite certain that he omitted no really important extant relic of old times in his survey.
Such then were the materials from which Hippias proceeded, not before the year 400 B.C., and probably a generation later, to compile the full register of the Olympiads. There may have been some old inscriptions which Pausanias failed to see, or which had become illegible, or had disappeared under the soil with time. Doubtless there were many old traditions at Elis, which the Eleian sophist would gather and utilise. There were also throughout Greece, in the various cities he visited, traditions and inscriptions relating to victors who had been natives of these cities. But that these formed an unbroken chain from Coroebus down to Hippias' day is quite incredible.