18 EARLY GREEK GAMES AND PRIZES. 
Solon, if not to the earlier unification of the village communities of 
Attika ascribed to Theseus. In any case, under Peisistratos it became 
something more than a local festival, as the recitation of Homer 
became a feature of it. Following the games at Delphi and Olympia, 
the Great Panathenaia were held every four years (the third year of 
each Olympiad) in the month of Hekatombaion (July), while the more 
ancient annual festival continued yearly under the name of the Little 
Panathenaia. ‘Vhere were musical, literary, and athletic contests. 
The central feature of the festival was the procession which ascended 
from the lower city to the Parthenon on the Akropolis to offer the 
goddess a robe woven by noble Athenian maidens and matrons.! This 
procession is known to us in detail from the great Parthenon frieze. 
The Theseia exemplify a festival whose origin can be definitely dated. 
Kimon, the son of the hero of Marathon, in 469 B.C., discovered the 
supposed bones of the national hero Theseus on the island of Skyros. 
The Delphic oracle counseled the Athenians to place them in an hon- 
orable resting-place. Perhaps there was a legend that the hero was 
buried on Skyros; in any case a grave was found there which con- 
tained the corpse of a warrior of great size, and this was brought back 
to Athens as the actual remains of Theseus. ‘Vhereafter an annual fes- 
tival was celebrated by the Athenian epheboi, comprising military con- 
tests and athletic events—stade, dolichos, and diaulos running races, 
wrestling, boxing, pankration, hoplite running, etc. It began on the 
sixth of Pyanepsion (October), and was followed by the Epitaphia, a 
funeral festival in honor of national heroes and youths who had fallen 
fighting for Athens.? Athletic games were held at the Herakleia in 
honor of Herakles at Marathon in the month of Metageitnion, and had 
attained great popularity by the time of Pindar.* The Eleusinia, in 
honor of Demeter, took place annually in Athens in the month of 
Boédromion, when horse-races and musical and other contests were 
held. This Attic festival claimed a greater antiquity even than 
Olympia. The great national festivals encouraged these smaller 
local ones, so that they attracted competitors from the whole Greek 
ou 
EARLY PRIZES FOR ATHLETES: Ar 
The prizes which were offered at the early games in Greece were 
uniformly articles of value. Their value, however, was regarded not 
so much in the light of rewards to the victors as proofs of the generous 
1For the nine-day celebration of the Great Panathenaia, see A. Mommsen, Feste der Stadt Athen, 
1898, p. 153; cf. Gardiner, pp. 229 f. 
2See Mommeen, op. cit., pp. 278 f., and Heortologie, 1864, pp. 269 f. In recent years victor lists 
of the Theseia have been found: C. I. G., IT, 444-450, esp. 447; for two other fragments, see 4. M., 
XXX, 1905, pp. 213 f, and Beilag, a and b (C=C. J.G., above). For other lists of victors of local 
games, see 4. M., XXVIII, 1903, pp. 338 f. (Oropos, Samos, Larisa). For vase-paintings of the 
athletic exploits of Theseus, see Harrison, Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens, 1890, pp. 
xcvill f. 8See Ol., IX, 89; XIII, 110; Pyzth., VIII, 79. 
