Athenian nobles had won distinction at Olympia in the seventh century. Four Athenian victories are chronicled in the stade-race. Cylon, as already mentioned, won a victory in the diaulos in Ol. 35 (640 B.C.), a victory which perhaps cost him dear. Having consulted the Delphic oracle as to the success of his plot to make himself master of Athens, he was advised to carry out his plan at the greatest festival of Zeus. The former Olympic victor naturally concluded that the oracle meant the Olympia, and not the Athenian Diasia, and this mistake is said to have led to his failure and his death. Another prominent Athenian victor was Phrynon, who in the Olympiad after Cylon’s victory won the pankration, an event in which the Athenians seem to have excelled. He was general in the Athenian expedition to Sigeum, where he fell in single combat against Pittacus of Mitylene, who, according to later tradition, arraying himself as a fisherman, entangled Phrynon in his net and then ran him through with his trident in true gladiatorial style. Early in the sixth century we find Hippocrates, the father of Peisistratus, present as one of the Athenian envoys to Olympia. It was on this occasion, says Herodotus,[81] that he had a dream respecting the birth of Peisistratus, which dream was explained to him by the Spartan Ephor Chilon. Chilon, who was reckoned among the seven wise men of Greece, is said to have died some years later at Olympia from joy at the victory of his son Damagetus in boxing.[82] During the sixth century we have no record of Athenian successes in athletic contests, but many of the rival nobles won victories in the chariot-race. Peisistratus himself was proclaimed victor under strange circumstances. Cimon, the half-brother of Miltiades, the tyrant of the Chersonnese, himself a victor, had been banished from Athens by Peisistratus. This Cimon had a remarkable record. He won the chariot-race with the same team of mares at three successive Olympiads. At the second he agreed with Peisistratus that if he proclaimed the tyrant winner, he should be recalled from exile.[83] In spite of this he was put to death by the thankless sons of Peisistratus shortly after his last victory. Curtius ascribes to Peisistratus an inscription on the altar of the twelve gods at Athens recording the distance from Athens to Olympia.[84]
The value of athletics and their political importance had been realised by Solon. Besides making rules for the conduct of gymnasia he offered a public reward of 500 drachmae to each Olympian victor, 100 to each Isthmian victor, and so on to the victors in other games. This measure is sometimes misrepresented as an attempt on the part of Solon to check the extravagant rewards lavished on athletes. Such a view is utterly false. There is no evidence that athletes did receive extravagant rewards in Solon’s time: and 500 drachmae, though perhaps a trivial sum to the professional athletes of a later and degenerate age, was then a considerable amount.[85] Rather we may see in this measure an attempt to encourage athletics among the people, and perhaps to counteract the growing love of chariot-racing among the aristocracy.
It is tempting to ascribe to Solon’s influence and policy the founding of the Panathenaea, or rather the remodelling of the old Athenaea, under this name. This event is assigned to the year 566 B.C., about the time when Athens, by the efforts of Solon and Peisistratus, finally made herself mistress of Salamis, and thus, by securing the control of the bay of Eleusis, was at last enabled to develop, unchecked, her maritime and commercial policy. The founding of the Panathenaea is attributed to Peisistratus, who certainly encouraged athletics and developed the festival; but, if the date 566 B.C. is correct, the festival was founded six years before he became tyrant, and while he was still the trusted friend of Solon, and, owing to his success in war, the hero of the people. The name Panathenaea seems significant, both of that unity of the Athenian people, which Solon tried with somewhat chequered success to promote, and also of that dream of expansion which Athens, freed from the rivalry of Megara, was now beginning to cherish. At the same time we can see in the name why the Panathenaea could never become truly Panhellenic. Olympia, Delphi, Nemea were fitted to become Panhellenic by virtue of the political insignificance of the states that controlled them; even the Isthmia, though held under the presidency of Corinth, was by its name dissociated from that power, and Corinth herself was in her own way a Panhellenic centre where politics were as yet subordinate to commerce. In such places the national desire for unity found a natural expression. But the Panathenaic festival was in the first place the festival of the union of Attica in the worship of Athene, and the only unity which it could offer to the rest of Greece was unity beneath the Aegis of Athene. Thus, while at the Panhellenic festivals all events were open to the whole of Greece, at Athens, besides such open events, we find others confined to her own citizens.
The Panathenaea were said to have been founded, or perhaps refounded, by Theseus, who, according to legend, united into one state the village communities of Attica. Certainly there existed an ancient yearly festival in honour of Athene, though we cannot say if it bore the name Panathenaea. This festival continued to be celebrated every year after the founding of the greater festival, and was called the Little Panathenaea.[86] The Great Panathenaea were a pentaëteris, and were held in the third year of each Olympiad in the month of Hekatombaion or about the end of July. The programme of the festival was even more varied than that of the Isthmia. The great event of the festival, the procession that bore the peplos to the temple of Athene on the Acropolis, afforded an opportunity for the display of all the forces of Athens. The competitions included, besides athletics and horse-races, musical contests, recitations, torch-races, Pyrrhic dances, a regatta, and even a competition for good looks. For most of the events the prizes consisted in jars of Attic oil. Olive-oil was the most valuable product of Attica: the olive trees were under the control of the state, and the export of olive-oil was a state monopoly. As many as 1300 amphorae of oil were distributed as prizes, the winner in the chariot-race receiving as many as 140 amphorae. As even at a later period an amphora of oil was worth 12 drachmae, it is clear that the prizes had a considerable commercial value. Some of the jars containing the oil were ornamented with scenes representing the various competitions. It is probable that only one such painted vase was given for each victory. The manufacture and painting of vases was already an important industry at Athens, and the prize vase full of oil represented, therefore, the chief natural product and the chief industry of early Attica. These prize vases must have been greatly cherished. Numbers of them have been found in Italian tombs and elsewhere, and the variety of the subjects depicted throws no little light on the events of the festival. But details must be reserved for another chapter.
The multiplication of athletic festivals and the valuable prizes offered at them must have been a source of no small profit to the successful athlete. The victor at the Panhellenic games, it is true, received no other reward from the authorities than the wreath of leaves;[87] but at the lesser festivals, where he would be a welcome and an honoured guest, he was sure of a rich harvest of prizes. Moreover, he received substantial rewards at the hands of his grateful fellow-citizens. For in these games the individual was regarded as the representative of his state: the herald who proclaimed his victory proclaimed, too, the name of his state, and in his success the whole state shared and rejoiced. Hence we can understand the righteous indignation of the people of Croton in Ol. 75, when their famous fellow-countryman, Astylus, who had already won the stade-race and the diaulos in two successive Olympiads, on the third occasion entered himself as a Syracusan in order to ingratiate himself with the tyrant Hieron. Such an act was felt to be almost a sacrilege, and the Crotoniats in their wrath destroyed the statue of Astylus, which they had erected in the precinct of Lacinian Hera, and converted his house, perhaps the house which they had given him, into a common prison.[88]
The representative character of the Panhellenic athlete and the connexion of the games with the national religion explain the honours paid to him by