Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

82i OLYMPIA. OLYMPI A.
preserved by A. Lawson Esq., the owner of that ancient writers, however, attribute the institution:
place. of the games to I-eracles, the son of Amphiitryon
Another very remarkable use of these vessels of (Apollod. ii. 7. ~ 2; Diod. iv. 14; compare Strabo,
earthenware among the Greeks was to put infants viii. p. 355), while others represent Atreus as their
into them to be exposed (Apistoph. Ran. 1188; founder. (Vell. Pat. i. 8; *Hermann, Pal. Ant. ~
Schol. ad loc.; Moeris, s. v.'EyuvTrpiubs), or to 23. n. 10.)
be carried anywhere. (Aristoph. Tliessn. 512- Strabo (viii. pp. 354,355) rejects all theselegends,
516; Schol. ad loc.) Hence the exposure of chil- and says that the festival was first instituted after
dren was called?yXv rpi(peLv (HIesych. s. v.), and the return of the Heraclidae to the Peloponnesus
the miserable women who practised it eiyxurpi- by the Aetolians, who united themselves with the
~Tpta. (Suidas, s. v.) Eleans. It is impossible to say what credit is to be
In monumental inscriptions the term olla is fre- given to the ancient traditions respecting the inquently applied to the pots which were used to re- stitution of the festival; but they appear to show
ceive the ashes of the slaves or inferior members of that religious festivals had been celebrated at
a family, and which were either exposed to view Olympia from the earliest times, and it is difficult
in the niches of the columbarium, or immured to conceive that the Peloponnesians and the other
in such a manner as to show the lid only. Some Greeks would have attached such importance to
good specimens of cinerary ollae are preserved in this festival, unless Olympia had long been rethe British Museum in a small apartment so con- garded as a hallowed site. The first historical fact
structed as to exhibit accurately the manler of connected with the Olympian Games is their rearranging them. (See above, p. 561; and nume- vival by Iphitus, king of Elis, who is said to have
rous plates in Bartoli's Anticlhi Sepolcri.) accomplished it with the assistance of Lycurgus,
The lid of the olla was called e7riOl1ga and the Spartan lawgiver, and Cleosthenes of Pisa; and
ope-csiluan. It generally corresponded in the mra- the names of Iphitus and Lycurgus were inscribed
terial and the style of ornament with the olla itself. on a disc in commemoration of the event; which disc
(Herod. i. 48; Col. 1. c.) [J. Y.] Palsanias saw in the temple of Hera at Olympia.
OLY'MPIA (X/ujmA7rta), usually called the (Paus. v.4. ~ 4, v. 20. ~1; Plut. yec.1.23.) Itwoeuld
Olympic games, the greatest of the national fes- appear from this tradition, as Thirlwall (Hist. of
tivals of the Greeks. It was celebrated st Olym- Greece, ii. p. 386) has remarked, that Sparta conpia in Elis, the name given to a small plain to the curred with the two states most interested in the
west of Pisa, which was bounded on the north and establishment of the festival, and mainly contrinorth-east by the mountains Cronius and Olympus, buted to procure the consent of the other Peloponon the south by the river Alpheus, and on the nesians. The celebration of the festival may have
west by the Cladeus, which flows into the Alpheus. been discontinued in consequence of the troubles
Olympia does not appear to have been a town, but consequent upon the Dorian invasion, and we are
rather a collection of temples and public buildings, told that Iphitus was commanded by the Delphic
the description of which does not come within the oracle to revive it as a remedy for intestine complan of this work. motions and for pestilence, with which Greece was
The origin of the Olympic Gaines is buried in then afflicted. Iphitus thereupon induced the
obscurity. The legends of the Elean priests attri- Eleans to sacrifice to Heracles, whom they had
buted the institution of the festival to the Idaean formerly regarded as an enemy, and from this time
Heracles, and referred it to the time of Crones. Ac- the games were regularly celebrated. (Pais. 1. c.)
cording to their account, Rhea committed her new- Different dates are assigned to Iphitus by ancient
born Zeus to the Idaean Dactyli, also called Cure- writers, some placing his revival of the Olympiad
tes, of whom five brothers, Heracles, Paeonaeus, at B. C. 884, and others, as Callimachus, at B. c.
Epimedes, Iasius, and Idas, came from Ida in 828. (Clinton, Fast. Hell. p. 409. t.) The interval
Crete, to Olympia, where a temple had been erected of four years between each celebration of the
to Cronos by the men of the golden age; and festival was called can Olympiad; but the OlymHeracles the eldest conquered his brothers in a piads were not employed as a chronological aera
foot-race, and was crowned with the wild olive- till the victory of Coroebus in the foot-race B. C.
tree. Heracles hereupon established a contest, 776. [OLYvMPiAS.]
which was to be celebrated every five years, be- The most important point in the renewal of the
cause he and his brothers were five in number. festival by Iphitus was the establishment of the
(Paus. v. 7. ~ 4.) Fifty years after Deucalion's flood E'ceXeXpia, or sacred armistice, the formula for prothey said that Clymenus, the son of Cardis, a de- claiming which was inscribed in a circle on the
scendant of the Idaean Heracles, came firom Crete, disc mentioned above. The proclamation was
and celebrated the festival; but that Endymion, made by peace-heralds ((rrrov8orpdpoL), first in Elis
the son of Aethlius, deprived Clymenus of the and afterwards in the other parts of Greece; it put
sovereignty, and offered the kingdom as a prize to a stop to all warfare for the month in which the
his sons in the foot-race; that a generation after games were celebrated, and which was called
Endymion the festival was celebrated by Pelops to. IEpoelm'ia. The territory of Elis itself was conthe honour of the Olympian Zeus; that when the sidered especially sacred during its continuance,
sons of Pelops were scattered through Pelopon- and no armed force could enter it without incurnesus, Amythaon, the son of Cretheus and a rela- ring the guilt of sacrilege. When the Spartans on
tion of Endymion, celebrated it; that to him suc- one occasion sent forces against the fortress Phyrceeded Pelias and Neleus in conjunction, then cumn and Lepreum during the existence of the
Augreas, and at last Heracles, the son of Amphi- Olympic truce (E'v ra?'OA;Mu rit mcas o-roroas),
tryon, after the taking of Elis. Afterwards Oxy- they were fined by the Eleans, according to the
Ius is mentioned as presiding over the games, and Olympic lawv, 2000 minae, being two for eacls
then they are said to have been discontinued till Hoplite. (Thucyd. v. 49.) The Eleans, however,
their revival by Iphitus. (Paus. v. 8. ~ 1, 2.) Most pretended not only that thcir lands were inviolable