Fig. 3. Amphiaraus Vase. Berlin, 1655.
Fig. 4. Dipylon Vase. Copenhagen.
In Greek lands there is everywhere evidence of the existence of funeral games at all periods, from the legendary games of Pelias to those celebrated at Thessalonica in the time of Valerian, or perhaps in his honour.[31] The games of Pelias and those celebrated by Acastus in honour of his father were represented respectively on the two most famous monuments of early decorative art—the chest of Cypselus dedicated in the Heraeum at Olympia, and the throne of Apollo at Amyclae. Both works are lost, and known to us only from the descriptions of Pausanias, but the manner in which the games of Pelias were represented can be judged from the similar scene on a sixth-century vase, the Amphiaraus vase in Berlin (Fig. 3).[32] A still earlier representation of funeral games occurs on a geometric cup from the Acropolis, possibly dating from the eighth century (Fig. 4).[33] On one side are two naked men, with one hand holding each other by the arm, and with the other preparing to stab one another with swords, a mimic fight perhaps rather than a real one, but one which, like the Pyrrhic dance depicted on the other side, may recall more sanguinary funeral contests. On the reverse stand two boxers in the centre between a group of warriors, and a group of dancers; an armed dancer leaping off the ground to the accompaniment of a four-stringed lyre, and two others holding possibly castanets. A similar scene occurs on a silver vase from Etruria, said by Furtwängler to be of Cyprian origin; while the wide distribution of funeral games is further shown by the Clazomenae sarcophagus already described, and by a fragment of a sixth-century vase manufactured at Naucratis (Fig. 140).[34] The games depicted on these monuments are very similar to those described in Homer. The prizes are generally tripods and bowls which stand between the combatants or at the finish of the course. The contests were not confined to athletics and chariot-races. Hesiod tells us that he was present at Chalcis at the games held in honour of Amphidamas by his sons, and himself won a tripod as a prize for a “hymn.”[35] At Delphi, too, the only contests previous to the sixth century were musical.
Of periodical games in memory of the dead the earliest example, apart from the great festivals, is furnished by the games of Azan in Arcadia, where, according to Pausanias, the chariot-race was the oldest event.[36] At Rhodes the festival of the Heliea seems to have originated in the funeral games of Tlepolemus.[37] In more historical times we frequently find the memory of generals and statesmen kept alive by games founded in their honour by their countrymen, or those whom they had benefited. Miltiades was honoured by games in the Chersonese, Leonidas and Pausanias at Sparta, Brasidas at Amphipolis, Timoleon at Syracuse, Mausolus at Halicarnassus. Kings and tyrants followed the example: Alexander instituted games in honour of his friend Hephaestion. Those, too, who had fallen in war were often commemorated by their states with athletic festivals. The Pythia were reorganized by the Amphictions as a funeral contest in honour of those who fell in the first Sacred war, in memory of which the victors received crowns of bay cut in the Vale of Tempe, and the Eleutheria at Plataea were established by the victorious Greeks to commemorate those who had died in battle against the Persians. At Athens, too, a festival was held in the Academy under the direction of the polemarch in memory of those citizens who had died for their country.[38]
The origin of funeral games is too difficult a question to be discussed here. Many explanations have been offered. Roman critics held the Etruscan combats, from which their own gladiatorial games were borrowed, to have been originally a substitute for human sacrifice; and this explanation has been suggested above in connexion with the armed fight in the games of Patroclus. This view receives some support from the occurrence of the armed fight, whether real or mimic, and of the armed Pyrrhic dance, which was certainly a mimicry of battle, on some of the monuments representing funeral games, perhaps, too, from the prominence in these games of boxing, which may be regarded as a further modification of the more brutal combats. Plutarch suggests apologetically that in early days such fights took place even at Olympia,[39] and the lads of the Peloponnese, we are told, every year lashed themselves upon the grave of Pelops till the blood ran down. But the significance of the latter rite is doubtful. Another view connects these contests with those fights for succession with which Dr. Frazer’s Golden Bough has made us familiar. In support of this we may cite the famous chariot-race between Pelops and Oenomaus for the hand of Hippodameia, or such later myths as the wrestling match by which Zeus won from Cronus the sovereignty of heaven. Connected with the idea of succession is the credit and popularity accruing to the heirs from the magnificence of the games with which they celebrated their dead predecessor. The costly prizes offered must assuredly have caused no less pleasure to the living than to the dead. Comparatively late is the idea that the dead man somehow assisted as spectator and enjoyed the games held in his honour.[40] In all these views there is probably some truth, the amount of which varied in different places; but whatever truth there is in any or all of them as applied to the Greeks, they afford no adequate explanation of the variety and importance of Greek funeral games unless full account be taken also of the intense love of competition and the strong athletic spirit of the race. But whatever the origin of funeral games, there can be no doubt that they adequately account for the close connexion between athletics and religion; nor is this view discredited by doubts as to the particular funeral legends which later invention attached to particular festivals.
The athletic festival required for its growth fairly settled conditions of life, and during the troubled period which intervened between the time of Nestor and the first Olympiad no progress was possible. Long before the Homeric poems were composed, love of adventure, quickened perhaps by pressure from the North, had driven the Achaeans and other kindred tribes forth from the mainland of Greece to find fresh homes in the islands and on the eastern shores of the Aegean. Other tribes, Aeolians, Ionians, Dorians, followed, and for centuries the stream of colonization flowed eastwards, carrying Greek civilization to every part of the Aegean. This civilization gathered fresh life from contact with the East. There, while Greece itself was paralyzed by wars and migrations, great cities grew and flourished, cities great not only in material prosperity but in art and literature and science. Of the history of these cities unfortunately we know nothing; we can only judge of their greatness by the results which we find in the seventh and sixth centuries when the rise of the Lydian and Persian empires first brought them into conflict with these powers. But of one thing we may be sure—the Greek settlers brought with them their love of sport. This must be a truism to all who hold that the 23rd Iliad was composed in the Eastern Aegean; it is confirmed by the many victories gained in later days at Olympia by athletes from the cities and islands of the East, and by the numerous athletic festivals existing in those parts in historical times.
Under the settled and luxurious conditions of Eastern life it is probable that the athletic festival developed at an early date,[41] though owing to the same conditions athletics never attained in the East to the position which they occupied in the Peloponnese, and the athletic business was often secondary to the other business of the festivals. This at least is suggested by the history of the Delian festival. The antiquity of this festival is vouched for by the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. At a time when Olympia was still little more than a local gathering,