THE OLYMPIC H0R8E-KACES. 29 



fouglit on the side of the Persian. It is somewhat remarkable 

 that, at this very period, the horse was in the highest favor and 

 repute with all the Greeks ; that no imaginable pains or expense 

 were spared to improve his breed, to arrive at perfection in 

 speed, endurance and condition ; and that chariot-i-acing stood 

 the highest, in point of honor, of all the contests of the Olympic 

 games. For it is so early as the 25th Olympiad, equivalent to 

 the year 680 before the Christian era, that chariot-races were 

 introduced among the Olympian contests, which had then been 

 established ninety-six years, whereas the battle of Platsea was 

 not fought until the second year of the seventy-fifth Olympiad, 

 corresponding to 478 B. C, or nearly two centuries after the 

 introduction of horse-racing, among the Greeks. 



To such an extent, moreover, was this display of horse- 

 racing — for of those days it hardly can be termed a sport — 

 prosecuted, that Alcibiades, the Athenian, who lived at the very 

 date of which we are treating, sent at one time no less than 

 seven four-horse chariots to the Olympic games, three of which 

 obtained prizes ; and that the satirical comedian, Aristophanes, 

 speaks of the horse-breeding mania among the noble youths of 

 Athens, who, like the Koman equites in later days, took rank 

 in consequence of their serving on horseback at their own 

 charges, as a constant cause of impoverishment and ruin* — 

 precisely as we moderns speak of the ruinous expenses and 

 results of Epsom and Newmarket. 



The nature of the country, it is true, both in the Pelopon- 

 nesus and in all Upper Greece, southward of the great open 

 plains of Thessaly, being mountainous, with gorges and ravines, 

 rather than valleys, intervening, is unsuited generally to the 

 horse ; and, in confirmation of this view of the subject, it may 

 be observed that the Bceotians, who possessed more level land 



* In a fine chorus of the iirirus, addressed to Neptune. — See Mitchell's Tr. 

 Lord of the waters, King of might, 

 Whose eyes and ears take stern deUght 

 In neighing steeds and stormy fight 



And galleys swift pursuing ; 

 And starting car and chariot gay, 

 And contests on that festive day, 

 When Athens' sprightly youth display 

 Their pride and their undoing. 



