a register of Pythian victors, being assisted in the task by his nephew Callistratus. A copy of this register was placed in the temple of Apollo.[336] In 290 B.C. during the war between Demetrius Poliorketes and Pyrrhus, the roads leading to Delphi were in possession of the Aetolians, and Demetrius therefore ordered the Pythia to be celebrated at Athens, there being, he said, no more fitting place for the worship of Apollo than Athens, where he was regarded as the father of the race. The intimate relations between Athens and Delphi at this period are proved by the splendid deputations the Pythaids, as they were called, sent to Delphi from time to time.[337] The splendour of the Pythaids reached its height in the second century. Their arrival at Delphi was celebrated by equestrian, musical and dramatic displays and competitions; but these deputations did not necessarily coincide with the Pythian festival, and after the capture of Athens by Sulla in 87 B.C. they practically ceased. We know little of the Pythian games under the Empire: we have the names of a few victors, many of them in musical or dramatic competitions, others professional periodonikai. Nero won the Pythian crown, and in return for it carried off hundreds of works of art from Delphi to Rome. At a later period Herodes Atticus rebuilt the stadium in the form in which it exists to-day. The Pythian games still existed in the time of the Emperor Julian, and were probably abolished finally at the end of the fourth century when the Olympic games were abolished. The festival must have lasted several days, but the precise duration is unknown. The musical competitions appear to have come first, then the athletic events, and lastly the chariot and horse races. The boys’ events were not, as at Olympia, grouped together; but each boys’ competition preceded the corresponding competition for men.[338] The prize was a wreath of bay leaves plucked in the vale of Tempe by a boy whose parents were both living. It is represented on one of the coins in Fig. 27, while the other coin shows the prize table and on it a crow, five apples, a vase and a laurel wreath. As at Olympia, the victors had the privilege of erecting their statues in or near the precinct. The chief religious ceremony of the festival must have been the official procession along the sacred way to the temple of Apollo. [Illustration: Fig. 28. Imperial coin of Corinth, in British Museum (enlarged).] (2) The Isthmia