Athletic contests were always held conjointly with festivals, so that we must separate two phases in the greatest and most complex enjoyment of Greek society. In fact, the Greeks always combined religion with sport. The greatest of these meetings was undoubtedly that held at Olympia every five years, and at which the victors were recorded since 776 B. C. It was gradually thrown open to all Peloponnesians, then to all European Greeks, and finally to all the colonies, in 620 B. C. This extension was followed by the founding in rapid succession of the public contests at Delphi (586), the Isthmos of Corinth (582), and Nemea (576 B. C.). They were celebrated in honor of the peculiar god honored at the place—Apollo at Delphi, Poseidon at the Isthmus, Zeus at Nemea and Olympia. There was a solemn truce declared throughout Greece during the Olympic games, and all the world flocked thither to enjoy the sports, meet their friends, transact mercantile or even political business, and publish or advertise new works and new inventions. At Delphi musical and poetical contests predominated, but at the others the athletic elements. In addition to athletic games, many musical and poetical contests were encouraged at the festivals, as, for example, at the Pythian games, held at Delphi, and at the Dionysia, held at Athens. So much did these competitions come into fashion, that the best advertisement and publication of a new poem, or of a novelty in music, was its production on one of these occasions. The great tragedies handed down to us were all composed in this way, and brought out at Athens in honor of the god Dionysus. For a fee of two obols, granted him by the state, every citizen and his wife, at some contests even resident strangers, could go and sit at the theater, and hear four plays of Æschylus pitted against four plays of Sophocles, and four of Euripides. The endurance of an audience not given to reading, and not fond of staying at home, is of course much greater than that of our modern play-going people. FESTIVALS.