and equality of persons at these great games, is a feature not less remarkable than the exact adherence to predetermined rule, and the self-imposed submission of the immense crowd to a handful of servants armed with sticks,[141] who executed the orders of the Eleian Hellanodikæ. The ground upon which the ceremony took place, and even the territory of the administering state, was protected by a “Truce of God,” during the month of the festival, the commencement of which was formally announced by heralds sent round to the different states. Treaties of peace between different cities were often formally commemorated by pillars there erected, and the general impression of the scene suggested nothing but ideas of peace and brotherhood among Greeks.[142] And I may remark that the impression of the games as belonging to all Greeks, and to none but Greeks, was stronger and clearer during the interval between 600-300 B. C., than it came to be afterwards. For the Macedonian conquests had the effect of diluting and corrupting Hellenism, by spreading an exterior varnish of Hellenic tastes and manners over a wide area of incongruous foreigners, who were incapable of the real elevation of the Hellenic character; so that although in later times the games continued undiminished, both in attraction and in number of visitors, the spirit of Pan-Hellenic communion, which had once animated the scene, was gone forever. [136] The orator Lysias, in a fragment of his lost Panegyrical Oration preserved by Dionysius of Halikarnassus (vol. v. p. 520 R.), describes the influence of the games with great force and simplicity. Hêraklês, the founder of them, ἀγῶνα μὲν σωμάτων ἐποίησε, φιλοτιμίαν δὲ πλούτῳ, γνώμης δ᾽ ἐπίδειξιν ἐν τῷ καλλίστῳ τῆς Ἑλλάδος· ἵνα τούτων ἁπάντων ἕνεκα ἐς τὸ αὐτὸ ἔλθωμεν, τὰ μὲν ὀψόμενοι, τὰ δὲ ἀκουσόμενοι. Ἡγήσατο γὰρ τὸν ἐνθάδε σύλλογον ~ἀρχὴν γενέσθαι τοῖς Ἕλλησι τῆς πρὸς ἀλλήλους φιλίας~. [137] Cicero, Tusc. Quæst. v, 3. “_Mercatum_ eum, qui haberetur maximo ludorum apparatu totius Græciæ celebritate: nam ut illic alii corporibus exercitatis gloriam et nobilitatem coronæ peterent, alii emendi aut vendendi quæstu et lucro ducerentur,” etc. Both Velleius Paterculus also (i, 8) and Justin (xiii, 5), call the Olympic festival by the name _mercatus_. There were booths all round the Altis, or sacred precinct of Zeus (Schol. Pindar. Olymp. xi, 55), during the time of the games. Strabo observes with justice, respecting the multitudinous festivals generally—Ἡ πανήγυρις, ἐμπορικόν τι πρᾶγμα (x, p. 486), especially in reference to Delos: see Cicero pro Lege Maniliâ, c. 18: compare Pausanias, x, 32, 9, about the Panegyris and fair at Tithorea in Phokis, and Becker, Chariklês, vol. i, p. 283.