But however this may be, and we know too little of Phidon to be dogmatic, it is a certain fact that the Olympic games were reorganized by the managers at Elis some time in the early part of the sixth century B.C. The festival, which had been for one day only, was now enlarged and the chief competitions became races for chariots and single horses, these taking the place of importance given formerly to the simple running and wrestling matches of which alone the Spartans approved. Chariot races, except in so far as they improve the breed of horses, have no military value, and they also require a considerable expenditure of money, time and trouble, things of which Sparta thought better use might be made; but they exactly suited the merchant princes of the West, and after 550 B.C. we find the Greeks of Italy and Sicily playing always a very prominent part at Olympia. Of the ten treasure-houses there that have been identified five belonged to them, and possessing those material resources which the home-staying Greeks so painfully lacked they were able both very frequently to win the chariot race and also to commission Pindar to celebrate their victories. Among other places that were especially successful in the athletic contests we find the great African colony of Cyrene, the island of Rhodes, whence came the famous athlete Dorieus, and, curiously enough, the little State of Ægina for whose citizens Pindar wrote no fewer than eleven of the forty-four epinikian odes we now possess. Athens was occasionally represented, Sparta never. At the beginning of the fifth century the four great games were all firmly established. The Olympic took place in the first year of each Olympiad; the Nemean and the Isthmian came in the second year, the Pythian in the third, and the Nemean and the Isthmian again in the fourth. Every year therefore the Greek athlete had one competition open to him and in alternate years two. Of the four, the Nemean games were the most purely athletic, as befitted a festival where the old Peloponnesian traditions still maintained some of their vitality. The Pythians gave rather more importance to literary and musical competitions than did the others; one of the chief events was a recital of the ‘Hymn to Apollo’ and there were also contests in flute playing. The Isthmians, which were the most frequented by the Athenians, catered especially for sightseers and there was a large number of side shows of every kind. But the Olympic festival, the first of the four to be established, always maintained its premier place, having furthermore the distinct advantage of a site especially designed and reserved for this one great occasion. The games were to the ruling families of Elis what the oracle was to the ruling families of Delphi, a source of honour, profit and wealth, and every effort was made to glorify and embellish the precinct of Olympian Zeus.