The Julii claimed admission to the festivals of Greece as the descendants and heirs of the gods who presided over those festivals. At Olympia their claim was recognized by the re-dedication to their service of the little temple of the Mother of the Gods, in which were placed the statues of Augustus and his successors. Under their patronage the festival recovered much of its ancient glory. The horse-races, which had been discontinued, were revived shortly before our era, when members of the imperial family, emulating the triumphs of the princes of Sicily and Macedon, entered as competitors for the Olympic crown. Inscriptions record the victory of the youthful Tiberius in the chariot-race, and a few years later of Germanicus Caesar in the same event. The building of the arched entrance into the stadium and other improvements possibly belong to the reign of Augustus. The remarkable continuity of Olympic administration is shown by a series of inscriptions recording the names of the various officials connected with the sanctuary.[240] These lists begin in 30 B.C. and continue down to A.D. 265. They include every variety of official, from the seers and heralds of the sacred truce down to the cook and baker who provided the sacrificial feasts, and perhaps catered for the higher officials and for distinguished visitors. One important officer bore the title of official guide or exegetes; his duty doubtless was to explain to the crowds of visitors the historical monuments of the Altis. In the second century, owing to the increasing numbers of visitors a second guide was appointed. It was from these guides that Pausanias derived much of the information contained in his books on Elis. The higher offices seem to have formed a regular scale of honours, a _cursus honorum_, hereditary in the families of the Elean nobility, most of whom bear Roman names. It is curious to find one bearing the name of Flavius Heracleitus, who had the charge of the statue of Zeus, calling himself a descendant of Pheidias. The activity of the administration is shown by the revival of the practice of dedicating honorary statues of athletes and others: perhaps it is to this revival that we may ascribe the rule recorded by Pliny that portrait statues were only allowed in the case of athletes who had won three Olympic victories.[241] It is in the inscriptions of these honorary statues that after a long interval we find mention of the council who seem to have held supreme authority over the sanctuary and whose sanction was necessary for the erection of statues in the Altis.[242] The revival of ancient forms of administration is characteristic of Roman conservatism and love of order.