In regard to the Olympian Games those who are in possession of the most ancient archives of the people of Elis say that Cronos was the first king of Heaven, and that he had a temple built to him at Olympia by the mortals who then lived, who were called the golden age: and that, when Zeus was born, Rhea entrusted the charge of the boy to the Idæan Dactyli, who were otherwise called the Curetes: who afterwards came to Elis from Ida in Crete, and their names were Hercules, and Epimedes, and Pæonæus, and Iasius, and Idas. And Hercules the eldest of them challenged his brothers in play to run a race together, and they would crown the victor with a branch of the wild olive: and there was such abundance of wild olive trees that they strewed under them the leaves while they were still green as beds to sleep on. And they say that the wild olive was introduced to the Greeks by Hercules from the country of the Hyperboreans, who dwelt north of the wind Boreas. Olen the Lycian first mentioned in a hymn to Achæia, that she came to Delos from these Hyperboreans, and when Melanopus of Cumæ composed an ode to Opis and Hecaerges, he mentioned that they too came from the Hyperboreans to Delos before Achæia. And Aristæus of Proconnesus, who has also mentioned the Hyperboreans, may perhaps have heard more of them from the Issedones, to whom in his poems he says they went. At any rate to Idæan Hercules belongs the glory that he first instituted and gave their name to the Olympian contests. He appointed them to be held every fifth year because he and his brothers were five in number. And some say that it was there that Zeus contended with Cronos about the sovereignty of Heaven, others say he appointed these games after his success over Cronos. Other gods are said to have been victorious, as Apollo who outran Hermes, who challenged him to the contest, and outboxed Ares. And this is the reason they say why the Pythian flute-playing was introduced in the leaping contest at the pentathlum, because the flute was sacred to Apollo, and Apollo was on several occasions the victor at Olympia. CHAPTER VIII.