The remodelled festival was a trieteris, held in the spring of the
second and fourth years of each Olympiad. The programme was a varied
one, including, besides athletics and horse-races, musical competitions,
and possibly a regatta. The presidency of the festival belonged to the
Corinthians. Whether its establishment as a Panhellenic festival was due
to the tyrant Periander or expressed the joy of the people at their
liberation from his rule, the evidence does not allow us to determine.
The latter seems to me more probable. The great tyrant, laid by his
victory in the chariot-race at Olympia, and by costly offerings to
Olympia and Delphi, tried to win the support of the authorities at these
places, and it may well be that the founding of a rival festival marked
the popular reaction against his policy. Be this as it may, the
establishment of the Isthmia is another sign of the great national
movement towards unity. Tyrants recognized and tried to utilize the
movement for their own advantage. But Panhellenism was independent of
tyrants; it was a spontaneous movement of the people, and it need cause
no surprise that one Panhellenic festival should owe its origin to a
tyrant, another to the people.
A similar doubt attaches to the last of the Greek festivals, the Nemea.
The cypress grove of Nemea, where stood the temple of the Nemean Zeus,
lay in a secluded valley among the hills, half-way between Phlius and
Cleonae. Here under the presidency of the latter state local games had
long been celebrated. They were said to have been founded by Adrastus as
funeral games in honour of the child Opheltes, who, having been left by
his nurse in the grove, had been devoured by a serpent. According to
another story, they were founded by Heracles after his slaying of the
Nemean lion, and by him dedicated to Zeus. They were reorganized in the
year 573 B.C. as a trieteris, and took place like the Isthmia in the
second and fourth year of each Olympiad, probably at the very beginning
of the Olympic year in July. The prize was a wreath of fresh celery, but
was said to have been originally a wreath of olive. As at Olympia, the
managers of the games bore the title of Hellanodicae. As at Olympia, the
contests were until later times purely athletic and equestrian. The
striking resemblances to Olympia are clearly due to Dorian influence,
and may perhaps help us to understand how it was that, within a few
years of the founding of the Isthmia, a second Panhellenic festival was
established in its immediate neighbourhood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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