CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



Delphi, which was built round one of the open- 

 ings of a deep cavern in the side of Mount Par- 

 nassus. An intoxicating vapour arose from this 

 chasm, over which the priestess, called Pythia, 

 sat on a tripod when the oracle was consulted. 

 The words she uttered, after inhaling the vapour, 

 were believed to be the revelations of Apollo, and 

 were communicated in hexameter verse by the 

 attending priests to the inquirers. 



THE OLYMPIC AND OTHER GAMES. 



Intimately connected with the worship of the 

 gods were the celebrated games called the Olym- 

 pic, the Pythian, the Nemean, and the Isthmian, 

 which, in their origin, were religious festivals; for 

 the gods gave their sanction to recreation, and 

 there was the closest connection between common 

 worship and common amusement. The habit of 

 neighbouring tribes or villages joining in sacrifice 

 at each other's festivals, was one of the earliest 

 usages of Greece ; and to partake of the recrea- 

 tions which followed the religious observances, 

 was a matter of course. As Greece emerged from 

 the turbulence of the heroic age, the village 

 festivals became city festivals ; and thus the once 

 humble gatherings at Elis and Delphi swelled 

 into the pomp and confluence of the Olympic and 

 Pythian games. 



The most ancient as well as famous of these 

 festivals was that celebrated in the plain of 

 Olympia, near an ancient temple of the Olympian 

 Jove. It was celebrated every four years, which 

 interval was called an Olympiad ; and the first 

 register of a victor's name, which occurs in 776 

 B.c. supplies the earliest- historic record of Greece 

 that from which the dates of later historians 

 were calculated. At first, the amusements lasted 

 but a single day, and consisted only of foot-races 

 in the stadium ; but various trials of strength and 

 skill as wrestling, boxing, throwing, and chariot- 

 racing were afterwards introduced, and the time 

 was prolonged. The only prize given to the victor 

 was a garland of wild olive; but it was reward 

 enough that his name was proclaimed before 

 assembled Hellas that his statue was erected in 

 the sacred grove of Jupiter at Olympia. He 

 returned to his home in triumphal procession, and 

 was rewarded by his fellow-citizens always with 

 distinguished honours sometimes with substantial 

 benefits. 



The Pythian games, second only to the Olym- 

 pic, were celebrated in the third year of each 

 Olympiad, on the plain of Cirrha. The Nemean 

 were held every two years, in honour of the 

 Nemean Jove,, and in the valley of the same name 

 between Phlius and Cleonae; the Isthmian, by 

 the Corinthians, on their own isthmus, in honour 

 of Neptune. In the Pythian, Nemean, and 

 Isthmian games, contests in music and poetry 

 were added to gymnastics and races. 



AMPHICTYONIC COUNCIL. 



An Amphictyony was a confederation of neigh- 

 bouring tribes for the protection of a common 

 sanctuary, at which they assembled to celebrate 

 religious rites and games, and to transact busi- 

 ness. There were many such associations in 

 Greece ; but the, one, consisting of twelve tribes, 

 that had the protection of the great oracle at 



86 



Delphi, became of national importance, and was 

 called the Amphictyonic league, by way of emi- 

 nence. The delegates or council of this league 

 took a leading part in the politics of Hellas 

 generally. 



HEROIC LEGENDS. 



Having briefly noticed the principal gods of 

 Greece, and some of the usages connected with 

 their worship, we come to the genealogies that 

 connect them with historical men. 



In the retrospective faith of a Greek, the idea 

 of worship was closely connected with that of 

 ancestry; every association of men traced its 

 union to some common progenitor, and that pro- 

 genitor was either the god they worshipped in 

 common, or some semi-divine being closely allied 

 to him. Every Greek loved to boast a genealogy 

 filled not only with the names, but the splendid 

 adventures of those who were little removed from 

 the divine. These genealogies constitute the 

 supposed primitive history of Hellas. 



The wickedness of the earth provoked Jupiter 

 to send an unremitting and terrible rain, which 

 laid the whole of Greece under water, except the 

 highest mountain-tops, on which a few stragglers 

 found refuge. Deucalion, the son of Prometheus, 

 was saved, with his wife Pyrrha, in an ark which 

 his father had forewarned him to construct ; and 

 after floating on the water for nine days, he 

 settled on the summit of Mount Parnassus. He 

 now prayed that companions might be sent to> 

 them ; and, accordingly, Jupiter directed them to> 

 throw stones over their heads, when those cast by 

 Pyrrha became women, and those by Deucalion 

 men, over whom he reigned as king in Thessaly. 

 One of the sons of this pair was Hellen, the great 

 progenitor of the Hellenes. Hellen had three 

 sons by a nymph Dorus, Xuthus, and ^Eolus. 

 ./Eolus inherited the dominion in Thessaly, but 

 his descendants occupied a great part of Central 

 Greece, and became widely diffused, especially on 

 the coasts. Dorus and his descendants occupied 

 the country on the northern side of the Corinthian 

 Gulf. Xuthus received Peloponnesus, and had 

 two sons, Achaeus and Ion, the progenitors of the 

 Achasans and lonians. Thus the four great 

 branches of the Hellenic race became masters of 

 Greece, the previous Pelasgic inhabitants either 

 disappearing before them, or being incorporated 

 with them. The Dorians and lonians became, 

 in historical times, the two leading races, repre- 

 sented by the Spartans and Athenians respec- 

 tively ; but in the heroic ages, the Achaeans were 

 the most distinguished, as being the most warlike 

 of the races. 



The first few generations of the family thus 

 established in Greece are called the Heroic race, 

 and the period in which they lived, the Heroic 

 age. Two of the heroes, Hercules and Theseus, 

 we must notice, on account of their connection 

 with subsequent history. 



Hercules, the greatest of all the Grecian heroes, 

 was the son of Jupiter by Alcmene, the wife of 

 Amphitryon, king of Thebes, in Boeotia, who 

 adopted him as his own son. By a stratagem of 

 Juno, Hercules was deprived of the empire which 

 Jove had designed for him as the descendant of 

 Perseus, and it became the inheritance of Eurys- 

 theus, another grandson of Perseus. She likewise 



