Next to the Olympic festival in importance was the _Pythia_, in honor of Apollo, celebrated near the famous shrine of the god at Delphi, a few miles north of the Corinthian Gulf. It was quadrennial, like its greater rival, falling in the third year of each Olympiad. In the case of the two remaining national festivals the contests took place at intervals of only two years. The _Nemea_, in honor of Zeus, was held in Argolis, in a valley near Cleonæ where there was a grove containing a temple of the god. The _Isthmia_ was celebrated on the isthmus of Corinth, in a grove of pines sacred to Poseidon. They fell in the second and fourth years of the Olympiad, one occurring in the summer and the other in the following spring. A general truce of the gods was observed during the progress of all three of these festivals. Unlike the Olympia, they added musical and literary competitions to the usual gymnastic contests and chariot races. The victor’s reward, at first substantial, was afterwards reduced to a wreath of sacred laurel at the Pythia, and to one of wild celery (“parsley”) at the Nemea and the Isthmia, replaced at the latter by one of pine in later times. BIBLIOGRAPHY. General works in English which will be found of value are J. B. Bury’s “History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great,” E. A. Gardner’s “Handbook of Greek Sculpture,” T. G. Tucker’s “Life in Ancient Athens,” and K. J. Freeman’s “Schools of Hellas,” all four published in London by Macmillan & Co. Freeman’s chapter on Physical Education is the least satisfactory in his book, largely because of failure to distinguish between conditions at different periods, and taken alone would prove quite misleading. The following special works are indispensable, and contain ample references to the older literature: E. N. Gardiner’s “Greek Athletic Sports and Festivals” (London, Macmillan & Co., 1910), and Julius Jüthner’s “Philostratos über Gymnastik” (Leipzig and Berlin, B. G. Teubner, 1909) and “Über antike Turngeräthe” (Vienna, Alfred Holder, 1896). FOOTNOTES: [1] For details regarding each of these exercises the reader is referred to Part II of E. N. Gardiner’s “Greek Athletic Sports and Festivals,” and Julius Jüthner’s “Über antike Turngeräthe.” [2] For English translations see Ernest Myers, “The Extant Odes of Pindar” (London, Macmillan & Co.), or Sir John Sandys, “The Odes of Pindar,” in the Loeb Classical Library (New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons); and Sir Richard C. Jebb’s “Bacchylides” (Cambridge, England, The University Press). Pindar’s forty-four “Odes of Victory” include fourteen in honor of Olympian winners, twelve Pythian, eleven Nemean, and seven Isthmian. Of the thirteen odes of Bacchylides four are Olympian, two are Pythian, three Isthmian, three Nemean, and one relates to a Thessalian festival. CHAPTER II. THE ROMANS.