Its measurements, however, are known to us from a Greek metrological parchment manuscript in the old Seraglio, Constantinople, which dates from the eleventh century A. D.[1814] According to it the length of the course, _i. e._, from the starting-point to turning-post and return, was about 8 stades (1538 meters, 16 centimeters) or nearly 1 mile. One of the two sides—which Pausanias says were of unequal length[1815]—was 3 stades and 1 plethron long. The breadth of the course at the starting-point was 1 stade and 4 plethra. We are told, however, that only a portion of the entire course, six stades, or about two-thirds of a mile, was traversed in the various races. The oldest literary account of a Greek chariot-race is found in Homer in the description of the games of Patroklos—the longest and finest episode there described.[1816] But the first trace of such a contest goes back to mythology, to the story of Pelops and Oinomaos contending for the hand of the latter’s daughter Hippodameia.[1817] This mythical race began at the village of Pisa in Elis and ended at the altar of Poseidon on the Isthmus of Corinth.[1818] The chariot-race was the chief if not the only event at the oldest funeral games in Greece, those mentioned by Pausanias as held in honor of Azan, the son of Arkas, in Arkadia.[1819] It figured largely in mythology[1820] and was represented in many works of art.[1821] At Olympia it was one of the earliest, and perhaps the earliest, of the events. Pausanias says that the four-horse chariot-race was introduced there in Ol. 25 (= 680 B. C.),[1822] but this may merely mean, as Gardiner points out, the date of exchanging the older prehistoric two-horse chariot for the one drawn by four horses. In any case the antiquity of the race at Olympia is shown by the great number of early votive offerings in the form of models of chariots and horses, which have been found there in a stratum extending below the foundations of the Heraion. PROGRAMME OF HIPPODROME EVENTS. By the middle of the third century B. C. the fully developed programme of equestrian events at Olympia and elsewhere consisted of six races, three for full-grown horses (τέλειοι), and three for colts (πῶλοι); for each of these two classes there were a four-horse chariot-race (ἅρμα, τέθριππον), a two-horse chariot-race (συνωρίς), and a horse-race (κέλης), thus: ἅρματι τελείῳ, συνωρίδι τελείᾳ, κέλητι τελείῳ. ἅρματι πωλικῷ, συνωρίδι πωλικῇ, κέλητι πωλικῷ.