Yet, despite the growth of the festival and the development of athletics, there was little change in the appearance of the Altis or the organization of the games. Some of the wooden pillars of the Heraeum were perhaps replaced by stone, but no fresh building appeared till the treasuries, the earliest of which date from the close of the seventh century. The games still took place near the altar, where a course could be easily measured and marked out before each meeting. The new events added were merely variations of those which we find in Homer. Popularity and competition had no doubt improved the standard of performance, but athletic training did not yet exist. In the towns, indeed, gymnasia and palaestrae were already springing up; but these were educational rather than athletic, intended to train and discipline the young as useful soldiers rather than to produce champion athletes. The bulk of the population living an open-air country life in which war, hunting, and games played a considerable part, had no need of training. Thus, though athletics had become popular, they still maintained the spontaneity and joy of the Homeric age: they were still pure recreation. Footnote 27: Frazer, _Pausanias_, i. 44, 8; Rouse, _Greek Votive Offerings_, pp. 4, 10; Körte, “Die Entstehung der Olympionikenliste,” _Hermes_, xxxix., 1904, pp. 224 ff.; Krause, _Die Pythien, Nemeen, und Isthmien_, pp. 9, 112, 171. Footnote 28: Dennis, _Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_, 2nd Ed. i. 374; ii. 323, 330. Footnote 29: Frazer, _loc. cit._ Footnote 30: P. W. Joyce, _Social History of Ireland_, ii. pp. 435 ff. Footnote 31: _C.I.G._ 1969, ἀγὼν ἐπιτάφιος θεματικός. Footnote 32: _Berl. Vas._ 1665. _Mon. d. I._ X. Pl. iv., v. Footnote 33: _Arch. Zeit._, 1885, Pl. viii. The vase is now at Copenhagen. The silver cup referred to below is in the Uffizi Palace, and is reproduced in Schreiber’s _Atlas_, xiii. 6, and Inghirami, _Mon. Etr._ iii. 19, 20. Footnote 34: _B.M. Vases_, B. 124. Footnote 35: Hesiod, _Op._ 654. Footnote 36: Paus. viii. 4, 5. Footnote 37: Pindar, _Ol._ vii. 77-80. Footnote 38: Frazer, _Paus._ i. 29, 30. Footnote 39: Plut. _Quaest. Symp._ v. 2. Footnote 40: Unless we accept Mr. Myers’ translation of Pindar, _Ol._ i. 94, “And from afar off he beholdeth the glory of the Olympian games in the courses called of Pelops.” Most modern editors translate κλέος τηλόθεν δέδορκε, “his glory shineth from afar,” which, in view of the words which follow, ἐν δρόμοις Πέλοπος, seems decidedly preferable to making Pelops the subject. Footnote 41: