The Press., 1912-10-23
The Famous Contests In the
 Days of Ancient Greece.
MORE IMPORTANT THAN WAR.

Battles Might Be Forgotten, but Time Was Reckoned and Events Dated
 From the Years of the OIympiads According to tradition, the oldest of all Olympian games were established
 by Zeus in honor of his success over Chronos in his struggle for the sov- ereignty of heaven. The more general
 belief among Greek writers, though.
 was that these famous games were instituted by the Idaean Hercules, the eldest of the five brothers to whom Rhea confided Zeus after his birth. These games were held every fifth year, because, according to this story, the brothers were five in number. The games were therefore four years apart.
 The first of the games, according to this tradition, was simply a foot race, in which Hercules and his four broth CTS were the only contestants. This straightaway foot race continued to be the only Olympic game till the fourteenth Olympiad, when a second contest, the double course, was intro duced-i e., to the end of the course and back again. In the eighteenth Olympiad they added wrestling and the pentathlon. Twenty five years later boxing was made a part of the exer- else. and four horse races, the pancrat- ium and riding races were introduced.
 The pentathlon was a fivefold con- test in leaping, throwing the discus or quoit, wrestling and hurling the jave- lin. All contestants were admitted first to the leaping contest. and those who crossed q certain space were al- lowed to hurl the javelin. The four most successful in this took part in a foot race. The last man in the race dropped out, and the best three threw the quoit. Again the least successful retired, and the better wrestler of the remaining two won the prize.
 The pancratium was a rough and tumble fight. Almost any method of throttling an opponent and compelling him to acknowledge himself vanquish- ed was permitted. Wrestling, boxing, hugging. choking and even the delib- crate breaking of bones were allowed.
 The prizes in the Olympian contests were merely wreaths from the wild olive trees abundant in the locality. and the games all took place on one day until the twenty-seventh Olym- greater honor to the gods for their de feat of the Persians, extended the games to fill five days.
 All Greece regarded the month dur ing which the games were held as holiday. Business of every kind was at standstill, and even hostile armies disbanded and attended the games as games may be gathered from the fact that the Greeks reckoned their time according to the games, just as all peo- pie have reckoned 1t from the events which seemed to them the most i'm portant.
 The Christians refer all time to the beginning of the Christian era, so the Mohammedans to the flight of their prophet and Romans to the year of the founding of their city. But the Greek historians used to speak like this: '"This battle was fought in the fourth year of that Olympiad in which Euryb- otus, the Athenian, won the prize in the course" While war might be for gotten. an Olympiad would never be.
 Those who were victors were ac- corded the most extravagant honors. Their enthusiastic countrymen would escort them home with unbounded de light, and they were given the highest seats of honor at every public festiv- ity. Poets of the highest merit sang their praises. The cities in which they resided erected statues to their honor.
 It is not surprising that. when victo- ry meant so much, dishonorable means were sometimes employed to secure it. Every attempt, however. was made to prevent foul play. and as unfairness was regarded as sacrilege, the games being religious ceremonies. the guilty ones were not only con- demned by all those whose praise they sought. but they were subjected be- sides to heavy penalties in money and often scourged as well.
 It does not seem. however, that de liberate wounding of an adversary in a contest was much deprecated. since Pausanias mentions one man who. though an inferior wrestler. won sev- eral contests by breaking the fingers of his antagonist. but he who killed his opponent lost the prize. and the dead body was crowned victor.
 The cause of the decay of the game was that the glory and the substantial which followed victory final ly became too great At last there became classes of men who did npth- ing else but prepare for the games, and became profession. Kings and nobles then withdrew. and their example was followed by the better class of Greek youth. with the result that the games were finally neglected until. when they were prohibited by an edict by the Emperor Theodosius, in A. D. S94. few people objected to their InS0 -t...t
 Long before this the games had be- come notorious by their brutality, and foreigners were allowed to compete. Bribery. was frequent, and the Roman Emperor Nero on one occasion was per mitted to take every prize ohered.-st. Louis Globe DemocfAt