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The alleged Kingship of the Olympic Victor1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2013
Extract
Anthropology has been busy with the Olympic Games. The theories which I propose to discuss have now been before the public for some years and, though they have not met with any general acceptance, there has not been, as far as I know, any critical examination of the evidence on which they are based, and there is a danger that they may be taken on trust. This is the reason for the publication of the following pages. They were intended to form part of a work on Olympia on which I have long been engaged, the issue of which has been delayed by present circumstances. Forming as they do part of a continuous work, I may be allowed to state briefly certain conclusions which I hope to establish later, some of which, are assumed in the present article, though my argument is, in reality, independent of their correctness.
I. The history of Olympia and the North-west Peloponnese, as far as we can trace it, has always depended on the north and west and has been independent of the Aegean. Though the earliest inhabitants may possibly have been of the same stock as the Aegeans, they were always out of touch with the centre of that civilization and the land was, at a very early period, occupied by northern immigrants.
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- Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1918
References
page 85 note 2 Cook, A. B., ‘The European Sky God’, Folk-Lore, 1904Google Scholar; Cornford, F. M., in Miss Harrison's Themis, pp. 212 ff.Google Scholar; SirFrazer, James, Golden Bough 3, vol. iii. pp. 89 ff.Google Scholar
page 86 note 1 Greek Athletic Sports, pp. 27 ff., cf. Körte, in Hermes, 1904, pp. 224 ff.Google Scholar; Frazer, , Pausanias, i. 44, 8Google Scholar; Ridgeway, , J.H.S. 1911, p. xlvii.Google Scholar; Origin of Greek Tragedy, pp. 36, 38.
page 86 note 2 Loc. cit.
page 87 note 1 Op. cit. p. 103.
page 87 note 2 v. 1, 4.
page 88 note 1 Cornford, op. cit. p. 219.
page 88 note 2 F.H.G. p. 604; Cornford cites only Clement of Alexandria, Protrep. ii. 34, p. 29.
page 88 note 3 Ol. xi., where, like Lysias and most Greek writers, he ascribes the founding of the games to Herakles after his defeat of Augeias.
page 89 note 1 Quaest. Symp. v. 2, p. 675 c.
page 89 note 2 Paus. v. 7, 7.
page 89 note 3 Themis, p. 221.
page 90 note 1 Themis, p. 227. He proceeds to argue, from the statements of Cassidorus, Lydus, and Tertullian, that the Roman circus was associated with the heavenly bodies!
page 91 note 1 Ol. iii. 24.
page 91 note 2 vii.
page 91 note 3 Frazer, , ‘Adonis’, G.B. iv. p. 413.Google Scholar
page 92 note 1 The evidence is collected in Krause, , Olympis, p. 173Google Scholar, n. 39, and Casaubon on Suetonius, Nero, c. 25.
page 92 note 2 E.g. Pyth. ix. 124; Nem. iv. 21.
page 92 note 3 iv. 16, 6.
page 92 note 4 Arrian, vi. 13.
page 92 note 5 Hec. l. 574.
page 93 note 1 Quaest. Symp. viii. 4, 1, οὐ γὰρ ἀγκοεῖτε δήπουθεν ὄτι καὶ ῥόδοις καὶ λυχνίσιν ἔνιοι δὲ καὶ μηλοῖς καὶ ῥοιαῖς ἔβαλλον ὠς καλοῖς γεραίροντες ἁεὶ τοὺς νικηφόρους
page 93 note 2 v. 15, 8.
page 95 note 1 xiii. 82.
page 95 note 2 Suetonius, , Nero, c. 25.Google Scholar
page 96 note 1 Quaest. Symp. ii. 5, 2.
page 96 note 2 Hdt. v. 47.
page 96 note 3 Paus. vi. 9, 6.
page 97 note 1 Paus. vi. 11.
page 97 note 2 Deorum Concilium, c. 12.
page 97 note 3 Pliny, , H.N. vii. 47.Google Scholar
page 98 note 1 Ol. Ins. 2.
page 98 note 2 Paus. vi. 2, n. 1.
page 98 note 3 Ol. iii. 12.
page 98 note 4 Greek Athletic Sports, p. 46.
page 99 note 1 Klio, 1905.
page 99 note 2 Agis, 11; Golden Bough 3, iii. 58.
page 100 note 1 For the gradual growth of the power of the Ephors, v. Dickins, Guy, J. H. S. 1912, pp. 11 ff.Google Scholar
page 100 note 2 Minos, 319; Leg. 624 A, B; Homer, , Odyssey, xix. 178.Google Scholar
page 100 note 3 Schol. Homer, loc. cit.: οἰ μὲν διὰ ἐννέα ἐτῶν συνών Διὶ παρ᾿ αὐτοῦ ἐμάνθανεν ἄτινα εἴη δίκαια οἰ δὲ ὄτι ἐνναστὴς ὤν βασιλεύειν ἤρξατο Schol. Minos, loc. cit.: ἤγουν ἀπὸ ἐννέα ἐτῶν ἄρξας ἤ ἐννέα ἔτη βασιλεύων Note that the latter scholiast takes the word to mean ‘nine full years.’
page 100 note 4 The word is fully discussed by Merry, Od. x. 19. Cp. Od. x. 390, xi. 311; Il. xviii. 351.
page 100 note 5 Od. vii. 253. ἐννῆμαρ φερόμην δεκάτῃ δ᾿ ἐμε νυκτὶ κ.τ.λ.
page 101 note 1 Perhaps the most amazing of all Mr. Cornford's suggestions is that the feast of Tantalos reflects the ceremony performed on the hill of Kronos. There is not the least excuse for connecting Tantalos with Olympia. To do so is to disregard the universal tradition of the Greeks which regarded Pelops as an immigrant at Olympia. Mr. Cornford's only argument is that Pindar refers to this legend in his first Olympian Ode, which proves absolutely nothing, especially as Pindar refers to the legend merely to reject it.
page 101 note 2 This suggestion is derived from the Delphic oracle quoted by Phlegon to which I have already referred. Such oracles are of very uncertain date and value, and we cannot attach much importance to them. The apple belonged to Delphi, but there is no other evidence for connecting it with Olympia.
page 102 note 1 v. Curtius, in Olympia, i. p. 16, and Weniger, loc. cit. Curtius's reconstruction of the early history of Olympia appears to me entirely arbitrary and unsound. It was written, of course, before the excavations in Crete and at Sparta.
page 103 note 1 Fowler, Warde, Religious Experiences, p. 392Google Scholar; Farnell, , Greece and Babylon, p. 8.Google Scholar
page 105 note 1 v. Dyer, , J.H.S. xxviii, p. 268.Google Scholar