Many of the illustrations have been prepared expressly for this book, and for these I am indebted to the careful and excellent work of Mr. Emery Walker. A large number are reproduced from articles by myself and others which have appeared in the _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, and in expressing my thanks to the Council of the Hellenic Society for permission to reproduce them I should like to render testimony to the value of the Library of that Society to any one who, like myself, does not live in the vicinity of any great Library. But for the generous facilities which this Society affords for borrowing books, any work which I have been able to do would have been almost impossible. In spelling, consistency appears to be unattainable, and I have in the main adopted the compromise recommended in the _Journal of Hellenic Studies_. In the case of proper nouns, names of places, people, buildings, festivals, the Latin spelling has been adopted, in the case of other Greek words the Greek spelling, except where the Latin form is so familiar that any other form would be pedantic. Names of months are treated as purely Greek words. With regard to ει, _ei_ has been kept where it occurs in the stem of a word, _e_ is employed _usually_ in terminations. It is impossible to mention here the many authors whose works I have laid under contribution. Many of my debts are acknowledged in the notes. But I cannot omit to mention three—Dr. J. H. Krause, of whose work I have already spoken; Dr. Ernst Curtius, the writer of the chapter on the history of Olympia in the great work which he edited with Dr. Adler; and Dr. Julius Jüthner, whose _Antike Turngeräthe_ and edition of Philostratus’ _Gymnastike_ published only last year are indispensable to any student of the subject. To Dr. Jüthner I must also express my thanks for his generous permission to make use of the illustrations in his work. Among the many friends who have helped me I should like especially to thank Professor E. A. Gardner, Mr. G. F. Hill, and Mr. H. B. Walters for their constant readiness to advise me and to give me the benefit of their special knowledge of Greek sculpture, coins and vases. Many of the illustrations of sculpture are taken from Professor E. A. Gardner’s _Handbook of Greek Sculpture_, and the coins have been especially selected for me by Mr. G. F. Hill. Nor must I omit to mention Louis Dyer, whose death occurred while I was working on the early history of Olympia. He had himself projected a work on Olympia, to which I hoped to refer in confirmation of my views. His minute and accurate knowledge, his readiness to impart his knowledge, his enthusiastic and unselfish sympathy made his death an irreparable loss to me. Many corrections are due to the conscientious care of another of my friends, Herbert Awdry, who was engaged in reading my proofs almost up to the day of his death.