On the western side of the Peloponnesus, the Alpheus, the chief river of the peninsula, issues from the central highlands of Arcadia. Increased by the tributary streams of the Ladon and the Erymanthus, it then flows, in a broad bed, between hills which gradually subside, until it enters on the sandy levels of the coast, and reaches the sea between two long lagoons. The district traversed by its lower course is that which was anciently called Pisatis, extending from the mouth of the Alpheus to the Erymanthus, between Elis on the north and Triphylia on the south. The alpine character of Arcadia has here entirely disappeared. There are few steep cliffs or rocks; the banks of the river are generally covered with alluvial earth; and rich vegetation prevails, with abundance of evergreen trees and bushes. Cornfields, vines, and currants are plentiful; even the sandy tracts, coated with a rich mud, prove fertile. Cattle-breeding prospers on the higher ground of Mount Pholoe; and the lagoons yield fish. The stay-at-home character of the inhabitants which the historian Polybius notices was a natural result of their environment. While the region was ill-suited to the secure development of a strong state, it was eminently favourable to a life of quiet industry, and was open on every side to peaceful intercourse with the neighbouring country. The ancient landing-place was at the mouth of the Alpheus,— about 3000 metres above the present mouth. The site of the modern town of Pyrgos—then much nearer the sea— may be that of the ancient Dyspontium. The only modern landing-place is at Catâcolo, where a mole has been constructed by French engineers. It is visited by coasting steamers, being one of the export-stations of the currant-trade. In the valley of the Alpheus, a few miles east of the point at which it enters on the flat seaboard, there existed a primitive shrine of the Pelasgian Zeus. As in other places associated with his worship, the low range bounding the Alpheus on the north was called Olympus, while the name of Ossa was given to the hill-boundary of the valley on the south. When the worship of the Hellenic Zeus had been established on this spot, the place acquired the name of Olympia.

Olympia is on the right or north bank of the Alpheus (now the Ruphia), about 16 kilometres east in a straight line from the modem Pyrgos. The course of the river is here from east to west, and the average breadth of the valley is about 1000 metres. At this point a small stream, the ancient Cladeus, flows from the north into the Alpheus. The area known as Olympia is bounded on the west by the Cladeus, on the south by the Alpheus, on the north by the low heights which shut in the Alpheus valley, and on the east by the ancient race-courses. One group of these heights terminates in a conical hill, about 122 metres high, which is cut off from the rest by a deep cleft, and descends abruptly on Olympia. This hill is the famous Cronion (lApôvtov), sacred to Cronus, the father of Zeus.

The natural situation of Olympia is, in one sense, of great beauty. When Lysias, in his Olympiacus (spoken here), calls it “the fairest spot of Greece,” he was doubtless thinking also—or perhaps chiefly—of the masterpieces which art, in all its forms, had contributed to the embellishment of this national sanctuary. But even now the praise seems hardly excessive to a visitor who, looking eastward up the valley of Olympia, sees the snow-crowned chains of Erymanthus and Cyllene rising in the distance. The valley, at once spacious and definite, is a natural temenos. Nowhere could the Greek Zeus be more fitly honoured by the display of human gifts, physical or mental; nowhere could the divided communities of Hellas find a more convenient or attractive place of peaceful re-union.

The importance of Olympia in the history of Greece has, in fact, this twofold character: it is at once religious and political. The religious associations of the place date from the prehistoric age, when, before the states of Elis and Pisa had been founded, predecessors—perhaps ancestors— of the Hellenes worshipped the “heaven-father” in this valley. The political associations may be said to date from the time when the Achaeans founded Pisa, and combined the Pelasgian worship of the god Zeus with a local cult of their own ancestor, the hero Pelops. It was then, and in honour of Pelops, that games were probably instituted for the first time at Olympia. The addition of Hera and of the mother of the gods to the specially honoured deities must have come early in the Hellenic period. Elis and Pisa were at first associated, as equal states, in the control of the Olympian festival. Sixteen women, representing eight towns of Elis and eight of Pisatis, wove the festal peplus for the Olympian Hera. Olympia thus became the centre of an aμφucτυovia,, or federal league under religious sanction, for the west coast of the Peloponnesus, as Delphi was for its neighbours in northern Greece. It suited the interests of Sparta to join this amphictyony; and, before the regular catalogue of Olympic victors begins in 776 b.c., Sparta had formed an alliance with Elis. Aristotle saw in the temple of Hera at Olympia a bronze disk, recording the traditional laws of the festival, on which the name of Lycurgus stood next to that of Iphitus, king of Elis. Whatever may have been the age of the disk itself, the relation which it indicates is well attested. Elis had from the first been stronger than Pisa. Elis and Sparta, making common cause, had no difficulty in excluding the Pisatans from their proper share in the management of the Olympian sanctuary. Pisa had, indeed, a brief moment of better fortune. The ascendency of Pheidon of Argos enabled him to reassert the old Achaean claim by celebrating the 28th Olympiad under the presidency of the Pisatans. This festival, from which the Eleans and Spartans were excluded, was afterwards struck out of the official register, as having no proper existence. At last, about 570 b.c., the destruction of Pisa by the combined forces of Sparta and Elis put an end to the long rivalry. Not only Pisatis, but also the district of Triphylia to the south of it, now became dependent on Elis. So far as the religious side of the festival was concerned, the Eleans had now an unquestioned supremacy. It was at Elis, in the gymnasium of the city, that candidates from all parts of Greece were tested, before they were admitted to the athletic competitions at Olympia. To have passed through the training (usually of ten months) at Elis was regarded as the most valuable preparation. Elean officials, who not only adjudged the prizes at Olympia, but decided who should be admitted to compete, marked the national aspect of their functions by assuming the title of Hellanodicae,.

Long before the overthrow of Pisa the list of contests at Olympia had been so enlarged and diversified as to invest the celebration with a Panhellenic character. Exercises of a Spartan type—testing endurance and strength with an especial view to war—had almost exclusively formed the earlier programme. But as early as the 25th Olympiad —i.e., several years before the interference of Pheidon on behalf of Pisa—the four-horse chariot-race was added. This was an invitation to wealthy competitors from every part of the Hellenic world, and was also the recognition of a popular or spectacular element, as distinct from the skill which had a merely athletic or military interest. Horse-races were added later. For such contests the hippodrome, was set apart. Meanwhile the list of contests on the old racecourse, the stadwn, had been enlarged. Besides the foot-race in which the course was traversed once only, there were now the diaulos or double course, and the “long” foot-race {dolichos). Wrestling and boxing were combined in the pancration. Leaping, quoitthrowing, javelin-throwing, running, and wrestling were combined in the pentathlon.

After the conquest of Messenia Spartan ambition had turned towards Arcadia. The aim of the Spartans was nothing less than the subjugation of the entire Peloponnesus. But the decided check which the aggressors experienced in their new attempt produced a change of design. It became evident that a policy of forcible annexation could be pushed no further. Yet Sparta might at least aspire to the hegemony of the peninsula. The other states of the Peloponnesus, while remaining independent, might be virtually under Spartan control. And for the establishment of such a hegemony what agency could be more suitable than that of Olympia? In the Olympian amphictyony, Sparta, closely allied with Elis, already held a commanding position. The rising popularity of the festival was constantly tending to make Olympia the religious and social centre of Peloponnesian life—indeed, in some sense, of the Hellenic world. As the Eleans, therefore, were now the religious supervisors of Olympia, so the Spartans aimed at constituting themselves its political protectors. Their military strength—greatly superior at the time to that of any single Hellenic state—readily enabled them to do this in the most effectual manner. Spartan arms could enforce the sanction which the Olympian Zeus gave to the oaths of the amphictyones, whose federal bond was symbolized by common worship at his shrine. Spartan arms could punish any violation of that “sacred truce” which was indispensable if Hellenes from all cities were to have peaceable access to the Olympian festival. And in the eyes of all Dorians the assured dignity thus added to Olympia would be enhanced by the fact that the protectors were the Spartan Heraclidae.

Thus, under the permanent guarantee of the strongest military power, and at the same time under auspices which, for a large part of the Greek world, were the most illustrious possible, Olympia entered on a new phase of brilliant and secure existence as a recognized Panhellenic institution. This phase may be considered as beginning after the destruction of Pisa, about 570 b.c. And so it continued to be to the last. While the details of the scene and of the festival were the subjects of endless modification or change, Olympia always remained a central expression of the Greek ideas that the body of man has a glory as well as his intellect and spirit, that body and mind should alike be disciplined, and that it is by the harmonious discipline of both that men best honour Zeus. The significance of Olympia was larger and higher than the political fortunes of the Greeks who met there, and it survived the overthrow of Greek independence. In the Macedonian and Roman ages the temples and contests of Olympia still interpreted the ideal at which free Greece had aimed. Philip of Macedon and Nero are, as we shall see, among those whose names have a record in the Altis. Such names are typical of long series of visitors who paid homage to Olympia. Even those who were least in sympathy with the old spirit of the festival could still feel that the place was representative and unique. According to Cedrenus, a Greek writer of the 11th century (∑υvoφιs' Ιστοριών,i. 326), the Olympian festival ceased to be held after 393 a.d., the first year of the 293d Olympiad. The list of Olympian victors, which begins in 776 b.c. with Coroebus of Elis, closes with the name of an Armenian, Varastad, who is said to have belonged to the race of the Arsacidae. In the 5th century the desolation of Olympia had set in. The chryselephantine statue of the Olympian Zeus, by Phidias, was carried to Constantinople, and perished in a great fire, 476 a.d. The Olympian temple of Zeus is said to have been destroyed, either by the Goths or by Christian zeal, in the reign of Theodosius II. (402-450 a.d.).

The German excavations at Olympia were begun in 1875. After six campaigns, of which the first five lasted from September to June, they were completed on the 20th of March 1881. The result of these six years’ labours was, first, to strip off a thick covering of earth from the Altis, the consecrated precinct of the Olympian Zeus. This covering had been formed, during some twelve centuries, partly by clay swept down from the Cronion, partly by deposit from the overflowings of the Cladeus. The task presented to the German explorers may be judged by the fact that the coating of earth over the Altis had an average depth of no less than five metres.

Their work could not, however, be restricted to the Altis. It was necessary to dig beyond it, especially on the west, the south, and the east, where several ancient buildings existed, not included within the sacred precinct itself. The complexity of the task was further increased by the fact that in many places early Greek work had later Greek on top of it, or late Greek work had been overlaid with Roman. In a concise survey of the results obtained, it will be best to begin with the remains external to the precinct of Zeus.

I.— Remains outside the Altis.

A. West Side.— The materials and the technical character of the wall bounding the Altis on the west are the same as those which belong to the western portion of the south Altis wall. Both belong to the earlier part of the Macedonian age, and to a time at which the Altis received its largest traceable extension to west, north-west, and south-west. In the west wall were two gates, one at its northern and the other at its southern extremity. Each gate was πp5στυλos, having before it on the west a colonnade consisting of a double row of four columns. A third and smaller gate, at about the middle point of the west wall, and nearly opposite the Pelopion in the Altis, was probably of a later age.

West of the west Altis wall, on the strip of ground between the AItis and the river Cladeus (of which the course is roughly parallel to the west Altis wall), the following buildings were traced. The order in which they are placed here is that in which they succeed each other from north to south.

1. Just outside the Altis at its north-west corner was a Gymnasium. A large open space, not regularly rectangular, was enclosed on two sides—possibly on three—by Doric colonnades. On the south it was bordered by a portico with a single row of columns in front; on the east by a longer portico, with a similar colonnade in front, and a second row, parallel to the first, traversing the interior of the portico itself. At the south-east corner of the gymnasium, in the angle between the south and the east portico, was a Corinthian doorway, which a double row of columns divided into three passages. Immediately to the east of this doorway was the gate giving access to the Altis at its north-west corner. The gymnasium was used for practice in the first four exercises of the pentathlon—leaping, quoit-throwing, javelin-throwing, running. The great length of the east portico is thus explained.

2. Immediately adjoining the gymnasium on the south was a Palaestra, the place of exercise for wrestlers and boxers. It was ants of Phidias” (Paus. v. 14) whose hereditary privilege it was to keep the statue of Zeus clean. The so-called “workshop of Phidias” (see α) evidently owed its preservation to the fact that it continued to be used for actual work, and the adjacent building would have been a convenient lodging for the artists.

4. South of the group described above occur the remains of a large building, dating from the late Hellenic or early Macedonian age. It is an oblong, of which the north and south sides measure about 80 metres, the east and west about 73. Its orientation differs from that of all the other buildings above mentioned, being not from north to south, but from west-south-west to east-north-east; and there are signs that it was built before the west Altis wall. Externally it is an Ionic peripteros, enclosing suites of rooms, large and small, grouped round a small interior Doric peristyle. In Roman times it was altered in such a way as to distribute the rooms into (apparently) four quarters, each having an atrium with six or four columns. The most probable conjecture is that it was used as a lodging for distinguished visitors during the games, such as the heads of the special missions from the various Greek cities (άρχιθέωροι), or Roman officials. Traces existing within the exterior porticos on north, west, and east indicate much carriage traffic.

B. South Side.— Although the limits of the Altis on the south (i.e., on the side towards the Alpheus) can be traced with approximate accuracy, the precise line of the south wall becomes doubtful after we have advanced a little more than one-third of the distance from the west to the east end of the south side. The middle and eastern portions of the south side were places at which architectural changes, large or small, were numerous down to the latest times, and where the older buildings met with scant mercy. The westernmost and best-defined part of the south-wall line is, as already stated, coeval with the west wall, belonging to the early Macedonian age.

1. The Council Hall (βoυλeυτf ∣ pιov, Paus. v. 23) was just outside the Altis, nearly at the middle of its south wall. It comprised two separate Doric buildings of identical form, viz., oblong, having a single row of columns dividing the length into two naves, and terminating to the east in a semicircular apse. The orientation of each was from west-south-west to east-north-east, one being south-south-east of the other. In the space between stood a small square building. In front, on the east, was a portico extending along the front of all three buildings; and east of this again a large trapeze-shaped vestibule or fore-hall, enclosed by a colonnade. This bouleuterion would have been available on all occasions when Olympia became the scene of conference or debate between the representatives of different states,—whether the subject was properly political, as concerning the amphictyonie treaties, or related more directly to the administration of the sanctuary and festival. Two smaller Hellenic buildings stood immediately west of the bouleuterion. The more northerly of the two opened on the Altis. Their purpose is uncertain.

2. Close to the bouleuterion on the south, and running parallel with it from south-west by west to north-east by east, was the South Portico, a late but handsome structure, closed on the north side, open on the south and at the east and west ends The external colonnade (on south, east, and west) was Doric; the interior row of columns Corinthian. It was used as a promenade, and as a place from which to view the festal processions as they passed towards the Altis.

3. East of the bouleuterion was a gateway of Boman age, with triple entrance, the central being the widest, opening on the Altis from the south. North of this gateway, but at a somewhat greater depth, traces of a pavement were found in the Altis. This was manifestly the gateway by which the sacred processions entered the Altis in Roman times. The older processional route, however, probably struck the south boundary of the Altis at a point somewhat to the west of the Roman gate, proceeding past the front of the bouleuterion and the eastern end of the south portico.

C. East Side.— The line of the east wall, running due north and south, can be traced from the north-east corner of the Altis down about three-fifths of the east side, when it breaks off at the remains known as “Nero’s house.” These are the first which claim attention on the east side.

1. Pausanias mentions a building called the Leonidaion, erected by the Elean Leonidas ‘ outside the Altis,...

Here she remained until 317, when, allying herself with Polysperchon, by whom her old enemy had been succeeded in 319, she took the field with an Epirote army; the opposing troops at once declared in her favour, and for a short period Olympias was mistress of Macedonia. Cassander, Antipater’s son, speedily, however, returned from the Peloponnesus, and, after an obstinate siege, compelled the surrender of Pydna, where she had taken refuge. One of the terms of the capitulation had been that her life should be spared; but this did not protect her against trial for numerous and cruel executions (including that of Nicanor, Cassander’s brother) of which she had been guilty during her short lease of power. Condemned without a hearing, she was put to death tumultuously by the friends of those whom she had slain, and Cassander is said to have denied her remains the rites of burial (316).