HONORS PAID TO VICTORS BY THEIR NATIVE CITIES. 35 

In the cities of Magna Grecia and Sicily such adulation of Olympic 
victors became at times very extravagant. Thus Exainetos of Akragas, 
who won the stade-race in Ols. 91 and 92 (=416-412 B.C.), was brought 
into the city in a four-horse chariot drawn by his fellow-citizens, and 
was escorted by 300 men in two-horse chariots drawn by white horses.! 
It is also in the West that we first hear of victors being worshipped as 
heroes or gods, though the custom soon took root in Greece. It was 
but natural to account for the great strength of famous athletes by 
assigning to them divine origin and by worshipping them after death.” 
Philippos of Kroton, who won in an unknown contest about Ol. 65 
(=520 B.C.), had a heroén erected in his honor by the people of Egesta 
in Sicily on account of his beauty, in which he surpassed all his con- 
temporaries, and he was worshipped after his death as a hero.? The 
famous boxer Euthymos of Lokroi Epizephyrioi, who won in Ols. 74, 
76, 77 (=484, 476, 472 B.C.), was worshipped even before his death 
and was looked upon as the son of no earthly father, but of the river- 
god Kaikinos.4— Fabulous feats were ascribed to him, e. g., the expul- 
sion of the Black Spirit from Temessa.> During and after his lifetime 
sacrifices were offered in his honor.’ ‘The equally famed boxer and 
pancratiast [heagenes of Thasos, the opponent of Euthymos, who 
won in Ols. 75 and 76(=480 and 476 B.C.), was heroized after his death.” 
The Thasians maintained that his father was Herakles.’ The boxer 
Kleomedes of Astypalaia, who won in Ol. 71 (=496 B.C.), was honored 
as a hero after death.? Having killed Ikkos, his opponent, he became 
crazed with grief. Pausanias recounts his curious death.!®° The wor- 
ship of such athletes was supposed to bestow physical strength on their 
adorers and consequently statues were erected to them in many places 
and were thought to be able to cure illnesses." e life of a successful 

1Diod., XIII, 82; Foerster, 271 and 276. Suetonius says that Nero, on arriving in Naples 
. after his tour of Greece, made his entrance in a chariot drawn by white horses through a breach 
in the city wall “‘according to the practice of victors at the Greek games,” and that he entered 
Rome in the triumphal chariot of Augustus dressed in a purple tunic and a gold-embroidered 
cloak through a breach in the wall of the Circus Maximus: Nero, 25. Though Plutarch says that 
victors could tear down part of the city walls (Quaest. conviv., II, 5.2), such extravagances seem to 
have been introduced late and not to have belonged to the great days of Greek athletics. 
2Cf. Waldstein, J. H. S., 1, 1880, pp. 198-9. 
3Hdt., V, 47; cf. Eustath. on Hom., Iliad, III, p. 383, 43; Foerster, 138. 
4P., VI, 6.4 f.; Afr.; Hyde, 56; Foerster, 185, 195, 207. 
5P., VI, 6.7-11; Strabo, VI, 1.5 (C. 255); Ael., Var. Hist., VIII, 18. 
®6So Kallimachos apud Plin., H. N., VII, 152 (=S. Q., 494); he also states that two of his stat- 
ues, one at Lokroi, the other at Olympia, were struck by lightning on the same day. 
7P., VI, 11.8-9; Oxy. Pap.; Hyde, 104; Foerster, 191, 196. Bova bees 
*P., VI, 9.8; cf. Suidas, s. 0. KAeounéns; Foerster, 162; cf. Hyde, 90a (though there was no 
statue at Olympia). 10VT, 9.6-8. 
“Thus P., VI, 11.9, says that statues of Theagenes were erected within and beyond Greece 
and could heal sickness. Lucian says that in his day the statues of both Theagenes on Thasos 
and of Polydamas of Skotoussa at Olympia cured fevers: Deorum Concilium, 12. Polydamas 
won the pankration in Ol. 93 (=408 B. C.): Afr.; his statue by Lysippos was set up later: P., 
VI, 5.1; Hyde, 47; Foerster, 279. Gardiner has recently called attention to the fact that the 
evidence for the canonization of the five victors mentioned is mostly late, and he therefore 
doubts if it had anything to do with their victories at Olympia: B.S.4., XXII, 1916-18, pp. 96, 97. 
