DEDICATION OF STATUES AT OLYMPIA AND ELSEWHERE. 25 
they scarcely equalled the Nemeaorthe/sthmia. Fromthe earliest days 
music was the chief competition at Delphi; the oldest and most import- 
ant event in the musical programme there all through Greek history was 
the Hymn to Apollo, sung with the accompaniment of the lyre, in-which 
_was celebrated the victory of the god overthe Python. By 582 B.C. sing- 
ing-tothe flute (av\wdia) was also added, but was almost immediately 
‘discontinued. In the-same-year a flute~solo was also inaugurated.'! 
In 558 B.C. lyre-playing was introduced. Under the-Roman.Empire 
poetic and dramatic _competitions.were prominent, but. the date of 
ee introduction i is not known. Pliny mentions contests in paint- 
ing.” After music the €questrian contests were the most important, 
even rivalling those of 0 pa 586.B.C., as we have seen, athletic 
events were inaugurated \E e athletic importance of the games on 
the Isthmus was inferior to that of Olympia and its religious character 
to that of Delphi, though-these-games were the most-frequented of all 
the great national ones, because of the accessibility-of the place and 
its nearness to Corinth.’ ‘The inferiority of the athletics here may be 
judged by the fact that Solon assigned only 100 drachme to an Isth- 
mian victor, while 500 were given to one from Olympia.‘ We have 
little knowledge of these games through the great period of Greek 
history, only a reference here and there to a victor.» We know much 
more of them under the Romans, when the prosperity of Corinth was 
revived; at that time, however, there was little true interest in athletics. 
Corinth then spent great sums in procuring wild animals for the arena.® 
Excavations have added little to our knowledge of these games.’ ‘The 
interest at Nemea in athletics was second only to that of Olympia.® 
While music was the most important feature at Delphi, and the Isth- 
mian games were attended chiefly for the attractions of the neighboring 
Corinth, there was nothing but the games themselves to attract people 
to the retired valley of Nemea. Athletic contests were the only 
feature here until late times and great attention was paid to those of 
boys.’ The records of the victors at these games are very scanty.’° 
1Pindar’s Pyth. XII celebrates the victory of Midas of Akragas in flute-playing; he won in 
Pyth. 24 and 25 (=490 and 486 B. C.) 2H. N., XX XV, 58; both at Corinth and Delphi. 
8Strabo, VIII, 6. 20 (C. 378); Aristeid., Zsthm., 45; Livy, XXXIII, 32. Dio Chrysostom 
has graphically described the crowds of spectators who still frequented the Jsthmia in the first 
century A. D.: Orat., VII (Avoyévns 3} rept aperiis); VIII (Acoyerns 7) "loOucxds); cf. Gardiner, p. 173. 
4Plutatch, Solon, 23; Diog. Laert., 1, 55: etc. 
5For a list of victors, see Krause, Die Pythien, Nemeen und Isthmien, pp. 209 f. 
6See Julian, Epist., XX XV. 
7See Monceaux on the excavation of the temple of Poseidon, Gaz. arch., LX, 1884, pp. 358 f. 
8Lucian, Nero, 2, says Olympia was the “most athletic” of all; Bacchylides, XII, emphasizes 
the athletic character of Nemea. 
*The boys’ pentathlon was introduced in the fifty-third Nemead (=467 B. C.) and the pan- 
kration for boys earlier: cf. Pindar, Nem., V (in honor of the boy pancratiast Pytheas of Aegina; 
cf. Bacchylides, XIII); VII (in honor of the boy pentathlete Sogenes of Aegina, who won in 
Nem. 54); IV and VI (in honor of two Aeginetan boy wrestlers). The horse-race for boys 1s 
mentioned by P., VI, 16.4. Races in armor were also important: Ph., 7. 
10See Gardiner, pp. 223 f.; list of victors in Krause, op. cit., pp. 147 f. 
