Games in honor of the dead tended to become periodic. The tomb of the honored warriors became a rallying-point for neighboring people, who would convene to see the games. While some of these games were destined never to transcend local importance, others developed into the Panhellenic festivals. As the worship of ancestors became metamorphosed into that of heroes, the games became part of hero cults, which antedated those of the Olympian gods. But as the gods gradually superseded the heroes in the popular religion, they usurped the sanctuaries and the games held there, which had long been a part of the earlier worship. We are not here concerned, however, with the difficult question of the origin of funeral games. They may have taken the place of earlier human sacrifices, which would explain the armed fight at the games of Patroklos and its appearance on archaic vases and sarcophagi; or they may have commemorated early contests of succession, which would explain many mythical contests like the chariot-race between Pelops and Oinomaos for Hippodameia, or the wrestling match between Zeus and Kronos. In any case such games would never have attained the importance which they did attain in Greece, if it had not been for the athletic spirit and love of competition so characteristic of the Hellenic race. Whatever their origin, therefore, there is little doubt that out of them developed the great games of historic Greece. The constant relationship between Greek religion and Greek athletics can be explained in no other way.[76] EARLY HISTORY OF THE FOUR NATIONAL GAMES.