each riding in a chariot drawn by a pair of white horses. Sometimes, it seems, a breach in the city walls was made for the victor’s entry. It is in Italy that we first hear of the worship of the athlete as a hero. Philippus of Croton, an Olympic victor, renowned as the handsomest man in Greece, was worshipped as a hero after his death.[90] Euthymus of Locri Epizephyrii, who won three Olympic victories in boxing in Ols. 74, 76, 77, was even said to have been so worshipped during his lifetime. It was perhaps a righteous retribution for such impiety that his statues at Locri and Olympia were, according to the story, struck by lightning on the same day.[91] Theagenes of Thasos and Polydamas of Scotussa were also worshipped as heroes, and the statue of Theagenes was credited with the power of healing fevers.[92] But these extravagances, if true, belong to a later period, and must have been repugnant to the religious feeling and sound sense of the Peloponnese before the Persian wars. Of all these honours the most significant are the hymn of victory and the statue. It was not merely that the greatest artists and poets were employed to immortalise the victor, and that they demanded a high price for their services. The statue and the hymn were honours confined originally to gods and heroes, and, bestowed on mortal athletes, did literally lift these “lords of earth to the gods.” “Not even the mighty Polydeuces nor the iron son of Alcmene could hold up their hands against him.” So wrote Simonides of Ceos, the earliest writer of epinikia, of the famous boxer Glaucus of Carystus, language which, as the late Sir Richard Jebb remarks, would have sounded very like an impiety to Alcman. The words are significant of the changed attitude towards athletics, and the hero-worship founded by the artist and the poet was perhaps largely responsible for the extravagances of a later age. But the influence of athletics on art and literature, and that of art and literature on athletics, are subjects that belong chiefly to the fifth century, and will be dealt with in the next chapter.