The first day of the festival was given up to sacrifices and processions. The different states always sent official representatives to the Games, and these would make public entrance in their chariots, richly arrayed and bearing costly gifts to place in the treasury of the temple. The next three days were devoted to the actual contests. Long before the dawn on the first of these three days, every seat in the stadium was occupied. It was situated at the foot of a hill, and every available spot on the slope of this hill was used by the spectators. Should anyone leave his place, even for an instant, it would be lost, and there the spectators sat the whole day through, until the sun went down. What refreshments they needed, they brought with them. The sun beat down on their bare heads, for the Games were in honour of Zeus and he was looked upon as present, and no one might enter the presence of the Father of Gods and Men with covered head. {67} Not until the setting sun gave the signal for the end of the day's contests, did they hurriedly rush off to their tents and snatch an hour or two of sleep before the coming of the dawn warned them to rise and secure their seats for the next day's spectacle. The contests probably took place in the following order: First, there were the foot races: there were several of these varying in length from two hundred yards to three miles. The shortest race of two hundred yards was for a long time the race which brought greatest honour to the winner. Then followed the pentathlon which consisted of five contests: throwing the discus, throwing the spear, running, jumping and wrestling, and the winner was required to have won three out of the five. In the pentathlon, in particular, great importance was attached to the gracefulness of every movement, and the jumping, discus and spear throwing were generally accompanied by the music of the flute. Then came what was later regarded as the greatest and most exciting race of all, the four-horse chariot race. This was a race that poets loved to describe. Homer tells us how the charioteers all together lifted the lash above their steeds, and smote them with the reins and called on them eagerly with words: and they forthwith sped swiftly over the plain; and beneath their breasts stood the rising dust like a cloud or whirlwind, and their manes waved on the blowing wind. And the chariots ran sometimes on the bounteous earth, and other whiles would bound into the air. And the drivers stood in the cars, and the heart of every man beat in desire of victory, and they called {68} every man to his horses, that flew amid their dust across the plain.[6] The boxing and wrestling matches came last, and these were the roughest and fiercest of all the contests.