EARLY HISTORY OF THE FOUR NATIONAL GAMES. 17 
held every eight years,! was changed in 586 B. C., in consequence of the 
Sacred War,’ into a Panhellenic festival celebrated thereafter every 
four years (pentaeteris). It was under the presidency of the Amphik- 
tyonic League, which introduced athletic and equestrian events copied 
from those at Olympia® and replaced the older money prizes with the 
simple bay wreath. About the same time the Nemean and Isthmian 
games were instituted. The local games at Nemea, said to have been 
founded by Adrastos in honor of a child, were reorganized some time 
before 573 B.C., the first Nemead.* Thereafter they were celebrated 
every two years, in the second and fourth of the corresponding Olym- 
piads.” They were administered in honor of Zeus by the small town 
of Kleonai under Argive influence. The games were transferred to 
Argos some time between 460 B.C. and the close of the third century 
8.C. Centuries later, Hadrian revived the prestige of the games at 
Argos. ‘The games held on the Isthmus also originated as an old local 
festival, which was revived in 586 or 582 B.C. Weare not sure whether 
they were refounded in Poseidon’s honor by Periandros or after the 
death of Psammetichos in commemoration of the ending of the tyranny 
at Corinth. The geographical location of Corinth, the meeting-place of 
East and West, involved it in many wars, and therefore the Isthmian 
games never attained the prestige of the other national festivals; they 
were held every two years in the spring of the second and fourth years 
of the corresponding Olympiads and were administered by Corinth.® 
Besides the four national games, many Greek cities had purely local 
ones, some of which originated in prehistoric days in honor of hero 
cults, while others were founded at historical dates. Athens was 
particularly favored in having many such local festivals. The most 
important of these were the Panathenaic games in honor of Athena, 
which developed from earlier annual Athenaia or Panathenaia. ‘The 
festival was remodeled, or perhaps founded, just before Peisistratos 
seized the tyranny (561-560 B.C.), possibly by Solon, who died 560-559 
B.C. The name certainly points to the unity of Athens promoted by 
1Schol. on Pindar, Pyth., Argum., Boeckh, p. 298. 
2On the Sacred or Krisaian War (590 B. C.), see Bury, History of Greece, 1913, pp. 158-9. The 
first Pythiad was reckoned from 586 (not from 582 as Bury and others state): see Frazer, V, 
p. 244; Boeckh, Explic. ad Pind., Ol., XII, pp. 206 f. 
3See Strabo, IX, 3.10, (C. 421); P., X, 7.4-5; schol. on Pind., Pyth., Argum., Boeckh, p. 298. 
Ovid’s idea (Met., I, 445) that boxing, running, and chariot-racing existed from the first, is 
wrong. On the Pythian games, see Gardiner, pp. 208 f. 
40On the Nemean games, see Gardiner, pp. 223-6. As no proper excavations have been made on 
the site, our knowledge of the games is confined almost entirely to literary evidence. 
5P., II, 15.3, and VI, 16.4, mentions a winter celebration. The scholiast on Pindar’s Nem., 
-Argum., Boeckh, pp. 424-5, says that it was a 7pterns held on the 12th of the month Panemos, 
and so it was a summer and not a winter celebration. On theories of two celebrations, see 
Frazer, II, pp. 92-3. 
SThey were not held in midsummer as some have maintained: see Thukyd., VIII, 9-10; Unger, 
Philologus, XX XVII, 1877, 1-42; Nissen, Rhein. Mus., XLII, 1887, pp. 46 f. ens the Isthmian 
games, see Gardiner, pp. 214 f. 
® 
