"Their prayers performed, the chiefs the rite pursue, The barley sprinkled, and the victim slew. The limbs they sever from the inclosing hide, The thighs, selected to the gods, divide. On these, in double cauls involved with art, The choicest morsels lie from every part. From the cleft wood the crackling flames aspire, While the fat victims feed the sacred fire. The thighs thus sacrificed, and entrails dress'd, The assistants part, transfix, and roast the rest; Then spread the tables, the repast prepare, Each takes his seat and each receives his share." While the priests offered up the victims on the altar in front of the temple, the people chanted hymns in honour of their goddess, while they moved round the altar with slow, rhythmic steps. Immediately after the sacrifice of the burnt-offerings, the awards to the victors in the athletic games took place; the victors themselves and their immediate friends were alone admitted into the temple, where sat the judges, the priests, and the chief officers of state; the populace stood outside. There were no money prizes. The honour was the one thing they had striven for, and the crowns of fresh leaves of oak or parsley, olive or bay, were deemed an all-sufficient reward. "'Tis but a crown of fading leaves That the conqueror's hand receives." But the prize esteemed before all others was a jar filled with the oil made from the fruit of the olive-tree which grew within the precincts of another and more ancient temple to Athéné on the Acropolis. This tree was very old, and was firmly believed by her worshippers to have been the same that Athéné had herself created, the first one known on Attic soil, from which all the fertile olive-woods had sprung that covered the plains. So highly did the victors in the games treasure these vases that they never parted with them during their lifetime, and when they died they were placed in their graves. From this custom of burying treasured objects, many curious relics have come down to us, and from it do we derive much of our knowledge of antiquity. The sketch given against our initial-letter is from a vase found in the tomb of a Greek colonist at Cyrene, on the north coast of Africa. Our colonist, who laid his bones on the parched and sandy soil of Africa, had evidently, in his youth, been the proud victor in one of the chariot-races in Athens, for we see depicted on one side of the vase a chariot-race, while a figure of Athéné, as the "warrior maid," appears on the other; the jar itself is inscribed with the words (in Greek), "I am one of the prizes from Athens," of such a year, giving the date. There are many of these interesting prize-vases from various parts of the Greek world now to be seen in the Vase Room in the British Museum--links with the dead past.