The Olympic and Pythian games continued always to be the most venerated solemnities in Greece: yet the Nemea and Isthmia acquired a celebrity not much inferior; the Olympic prize counting for the highest of all.[122] Both the Nemea and the Isthmia were distinguished from the other two festivals by occurring, not once in four years, but once in two years; the former in the second and fourth years of each Olympiad, the latter in the first and third years. To both is assigned, according to Greek custom, an origin connected with the interesting persons and circumstances of Grecian antiquity: but our historical knowledge of both begins with the sixth century B. C. The first historical Nemead is presented as belonging to Olympiad 52 or 53 (572-568 B. C.), a few years subsequent to the Sacred War above mentioned and to the origin of the Pythia. The festival was celebrated in honor of the Nemean Zeus, in the valley of Nemea, between Phlius and Kleônæ,—and originally by the Kleônæans themselves, until, at some period after 460 B. C., the Argeians deprived them of that honor and assumed the honors of administration to themselves.[123] The Nemean games had their Hellanodikæ[124] to superintend, to keep order, and to distribute the prizes, as well as the Olympic. Respecting the Isthmian festival, our first historical information is a little earlier, for it has already been stated that Solon conferred a premium upon every Athenian citizen who gained a prize at that festival as well as at the Olympian,—in or after 594 B. C. It was celebrated by the Corinthians at their isthmus, in honor of Poseidôn; and if we may draw any inference from the legends respecting its foundation, which is ascribed sometimes to Theseus, the Athenians appear to have identified it with the antiquities of their own state.[125] [122] Pindar, Nem. x, 28-33. [123] Strabo, viii, p. 377; Plutarch, Arat. c. 28; Mannert. Geogr. Gr. Röm. pt. viii, p. 650. Compare the second chapter in Krause, Die Pythien, Nemeen und Isthmien, vol. ii. p. 108, _seq._