United States or Canada ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Many various wonders may one see, or hear of, in Greece; but the Eleusinian mysteries and Olympian games seem to exhibit more than anything else the Divine purpose. And the sacred grove of Zeus they have from old time called Altis, slightly changing the Greek word for grove; it is, indeed, called Altis also by Pindar, in the ode he composed for a victor at Olympia.
Greece, represented by her best and bravest, carried the youth to his grave, and his statue is to be placed in the Altis by those of Milo of Crotona and Praxidamas of AEgina". At length the heralds proclaimed the sentence of the judges: 'To Sparta be awarded a victor's wreath for the dead, for the noble Lysander hath been vanquished, not by Milo, but by Death, and he who could go forth unconquered from a two hours' struggle with the strongest of all Greeks, hath well deserved the olive-branch."
Horses desire connection with this image not only in spring, but every day throughout the year, for, breaking their bridles or running away from their drivers, they rush into Altis and attack the horse in a manner much more furious than if it was the most beautiful mare, and one they were acquainted with.
Then the mighty son of Zeus having gathered together all his host at Pisa, and all the booty, measured a sacred grove for his sovereign Father; and having fenced round the Altis he marked the bounds thereof in a clear space, and the plain encompassing it he ordained for rest and feasting, and paid honour to the river Alpheos together with the twelve greatest gods.
When the young noblemen who belonged to the school of Timagetes filed past him, he took such delight in the beauty of their heads, the wonderful symmetry of their limbs strengthened by athletic games, and the supple grace of most of them, that he felt as if some magic spell had carried him back to the golden age of Greece and the days of the Olympian games in the Altis.
The naked beauty of the boy David and the mailed manhood of S. George are raised to a spiritual region by the type of feature and the pose of body selected to interpret their animating impulse. These are no mere portraits of wrestlers, such, as peopled the groves of Altis at Olympia, no ideals of physical strength translated into brass and marble, like the "Hercules" of Naples or the Vatican.
Dost thou remember in the last Olympiad that when Themistocles, the only rival now to me in glory, appeared on the Altis, assembled Greece rose to greet and do him honour? And if I, deposed, dismissed, appeared at the next Olympiad, how would assembled Greece receive me? Couldst thou not see the pointed finger and hear the muttered taunt That is Pausanias, whom the Ionians banished from Byzantium.
Word Of The Day