The Delphian oracle was at the height of its fame before the Persian War; in that crisis it did not take a bold or patriotic stand, and its reputation was sensibly impaired.
Ideas of the Future.—To the Greeks life was so bright and joyous a thing that they looked upon death as a great calamity. They therefore pictured life after death, except in the case of a favored few, as being hopeless and aimless.[1] The Elysian Fields, away in the land of sunset, were, indeed, filled with every delight; but these were the abode only of the great heroes and benefactors of the race. So long as the body remained unburied, the soul wandered restless in Hades; hence the sacredness of the rites of sepulture.
The Sacred Games.—The celebrated games of the Greeks had their origin in the belief of their Aryan ancestors that the souls of the dead were gratified by such spectacles as delighted them during their earthly life. During the Heroic Age these festivals were simply sacrifices or games performed at the tomb, or about the pyre of the dead. Gradually these grew into religious festivals observed by an entire city or community, and were celebrated near the oracle or shrine of the god in whose honor they were instituted; the idea now being that the gods were present at the festival, and took delight in the various contests and exercises. Among these festivals, four acquired a world-wide celebrity. These were the Olympian, celebrated in honor of Zeus, at Olympia, in the Peloponnesus; the Pythian, in honor of Apollo, near his shrine and oracle at Delphi; the Nemean, in honor of Zeus, at Nemea; and the Isthmian, held in honor of Poseidon, on the isthmus of Corinth.
The Olympian Games.—Of these four festivals the Olympian secured the greatest renown. In 776 B.C. Corœbus was victor in
- ↑ Homer makes the shade of the great Achilles in Hades to say:—
"I would be
A laborer on earth, and serve for hire
Some man of mean estate, who makes scant cheer,
Rather than reign o'er all who have gone down
To death."—Od. XI. 489–90 [Bryant's Trans.].
