Lastly, the regatta which took place on the last day of the festival was
also a competition between tribes. According to the inscription two
prizes were offered: the winning tribe received 200 drachmae for a feast
besides some other object, possibly three oxen, valued at 300 drachmae.
The prize for the second place is also broken off in the inscription,
but its value was 200 drachmae. Of the details of the regatta we know
nothing. Perhaps we may connect with the Panathenaea a relief found at
Athens representing torch-race, wrestling, and boat-race (Fig. 36). It
forms part of an ephebic inscription of Roman times in the archonship of
C. Helvidius.[416]
The prizes in the athletic and equestrian events consisted, as we have
seen, in certain quantities of oil. This oil, which was obtained from
the sacred olive-trees scattered over Attica, belonged to the state, and
none might sell or export it except the victors in the games. The
olive-trees were under the care of the Areopagus, and were every year
inspected by its officials, and the oil itself was collected by the
archon, who handed it over to the treasurers of the festival. In later
time this system was abolished and the land was assessed at a certain
number of olive-trees, each proprietor being required to supply a
certain quota of oil to the state.[417]
[Illustration: Fig. 36. Relief on Stele. Athens, National Museum, 3300.
Imperial period.]
Besides this the victor received as a memento “a richly painted
amphora.”[418] In view of the care with which these amphorae were
preserved it seems unlikely that the victor received more than one such
amphora. A large number of them are still in existence. They date from
the middle of the sixth to the close of the fourth century. They are
painted in black on a red ground or panel. On one side is an athletic
scene, typical of the event for which the amphora was given; on the
other, the figure of Athene clothed in her aegis, and brandishing her
shield and spear. She stands usually between two Doric pillars
surmounted by some emblem, a cock, sphinx, siren, panther, or vase, or
in later times by the figure of Victory or Triptolemus. Along the
left-hand pillar runs an inscription: “One of the prizes from Athens,”
ΤΟΝΑΘΕΝΕΘΕΝ.Α.ΘΥΟΝ: to which is added on the Burgon amphora[419] the
word ΕΜΙ, “I am.” On the early amphorae the letters are parallel, on the
later at right angles to the column. To the inscription is sometimes
added the name of the archon. The earliest of these dated vases belongs
to the archonship of Polyzelus in 367 B.C., the latest to that of
Polemon in 312 B.C.[420] Two fragmentary inscriptions suggest that
sometimes the name of the Kosmetes, or Agonothetes, was substituted for
that of the archon.[421] The dates of the archon do not always coincide
with the years in which the great Panathenaea took place; and Michaelis
therefore assigns such vases to the lesser Panathenaea. It seems more
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