of a sixth-century vase manufactured at Naucratis (Fig. 140).[34] The
games depicted on these monuments are very similar to those described in
Homer. The prizes are generally tripods and bowls which stand between
the combatants or at the finish of the course. The contests were not
confined to athletics and chariot-races. Hesiod tells us that he was
present at Chalcis at the games held in honour of Amphidamas by his
sons, and himself won a tripod as a prize for a “hymn.”[35] At Delphi,
too, the only contests previous to the sixth century were musical.
Of periodical games in memory of the dead the earliest example, apart
from the great festivals, is furnished by the games of Azan in Arcadia,
where, according to Pausanias, the chariot-race was the oldest
event.[36] At Rhodes the festival of the Heliea seems to have originated
in the funeral games of Tlepolemus.[37] In more historical times we
frequently find the memory of generals and statesmen kept alive by games
founded in their honour by their countrymen, or those whom they had
benefited. Miltiades was honoured by games in the Chersonese, Leonidas
and Pausanias at Sparta, Brasidas at Amphipolis, Timoleon at Syracuse,
Mausolus at Halicarnassus. Kings and tyrants followed the example:
Alexander instituted games in honour of his friend Hephaestion. Those,
too, who had fallen in war were often commemorated by their states with
athletic festivals. The Pythia were reorganized by the Amphictions as a
funeral contest in honour of those who fell in the first Sacred war, in
memory of which the victors received crowns of bay cut in the Vale of
Tempe, and the Eleutheria at Plataea were established by the victorious
Greeks to commemorate those who had died in battle against the Persians.
At Athens, too, a festival was held in the Academy under the direction
of the polemarch in memory of those citizens who had died for their
country.[38]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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