The venality of athletics at the Isthmia under the Empire is evident from the story already quoted of a disappointed athlete, who actually took proceedings to recover the amount of a bribe, and published his own shame before all the assembled crowds.[354] Such an incident implies a degraded public opinion and the absence of all true love of sport. Indeed, it is evident from Dion Chrysostom that the Corinthians and Athenians had already acquired from the Romans a taste for the more exciting and more brutal exhibitions of the amphitheatre.[355] The festival seems to have survived down to the time of the Emperor Julian; but there was no longer any interest in athletic or musical competitions. The vast sums spent by the Corinthians on their games were spent, the emperor tells us, in the purchase of bears and leopards to be hunted in the arena.[356] The sanctuary of Poseidon where the Isthmian games were held has been excavated, but the excavations throw little light on the history of the games themselves. It consisted of a small acropolis surrounded by a wall, the north side of which was formed by the great military wall that guarded the Isthmus. The sacred way, according to Pausanias, was lined on one side by a row of pine trees, on the other by statues of athletes who had won victories at the festival. Traces have been found of the temples of Poseidon and Palaemon, of the sacred way, of the theatre, and of the stadium, but all are of late date. The stadium lay in a ravine, formed by a stream which must have been diverted from its course, but has now returned to it. It was about 650 feet long. It was seated with marble; and some traces of the seats survive. An inscription in honour of Publius Licinius Priscus, a Roman citizen of Corinth who lived in the second century A.D., records that he built a stoa adjoining the stadium with vaulted rooms opening into it.[357] The same benefactor provided, at his own expense, buildings for the accommodation of the athletes, who came to the Isthmia from “all the inhabited world,” and repaired various buildings which had suffered from the ravages of time and earthquakes including the “judging-rooms” (ἐγκριτηρίονς οἴκους), by which phrase, apparently, are meant the rooms where competitors were examined and classified. No traces of these buildings have been found, nor has the site of the hippodrome been discovered. [Illustration: Fig. 29. Silver Vase. Bibliothèque Nationale. Imperial period.]