Somewhat similar was the character of the Olympic and Pythian festivals
which we find in Rome, Athens, Ephesus, and a number of other places.
The right to bestow these titles must originally have rested with the
authorities at Olympia and Delphi, but seems later to have been
exercised by the emperors.[244] Each new festival founded was the
beginning of a new series of Olympiads. At Rome the great Capitolia,
founded by Domitian in A.D. 86, bore the title Olympia, and Flavius
Archibius, an Olympic victor in Ols. 220, 221, is also described as
victor at Rome in the 3rd and following Olympiads. The judges at these
festivals were sometimes called Hellanodicae,[245] and doubtless many
other features of the original festivals were reproduced. Perhaps the
most interesting of all these games are those held at Daphne near
Antioch. Founded originally by Antiochus Epiphanes, they obtained from
the Eleans the title of Olympia in A.D. 44. Their interest lies in the
fact that the model of Olympia was followed in every particular, not
only in the programme and administration, but in the relations existing
between Daphne and Antioch, which corresponded entirely to these between
Olympia and Elis. In the fourth century a fierce dispute arose between a
popular party, which wished to transfer the important part of the
festival from Daphne to Antioch, and the conservative party headed by
Libanius, who characterized the proposed change as sacrilege and a
violation of the true Olympia. We have frequent references to the
festival in the writings of St. Chrysostom, for a long time presbyter at
Antioch; and it continued to be celebrated as late as the reign of
Justinus in the sixth century.[246]
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