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Updated: June 6, 2025
The games of Greece, Isthmian, Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, exercises of a society which produced everything by its slaves; the life of the Spartans and the ancient Cretans, their models; the gymnasiums, playgrounds, horse-races, and disorders of the market-place among the Athenians; the occupations which Plato assigns to the warriors in his Republic, and which but represent the tastes of his century; finally, in our feudal society, the tilts and tourneys, all these inventions, as well as many others which I pass in silence, from the game of chess, invented, it is said, at the siege of Troy by Palamedes, to the cards illustrated for Charles VI. by Gringonneur, are examples of what labor becomes as soon as the serious motive of utility is separated from it.
Now claim I, father Zeus, to have well sung this excellent deed by aid of the Charites, and beyond many to do honour to this victory by my words, for the javelin that I throw falleth nearest to the Muses' mark. This ode, like the last, is improperly called Nemean. It commemorates a victory won at the feast of the Hekatombaia at Argos. The date is unknown.
Besides these were deities who performed special services to the greater gods, like the Horæ; and monsters, offspring of gods, like the gorgons, chimera, the dragon of the Hesperides, the Lernæan hydra, the Nemean lion, Scylla and Charybdis, the centaurs, the sphinx, and others. It was these powers and attributes which were worshiped—superhuman and adorable.
We are told that at the Nemean games, a little after this victory, Philopoemen being then General the second time, and at leisure on the occasion of the solemnity, first showed the Greeks his army drawn up in full array as if they were to fight, and executed with it all the maneuvers of a battle with wonderful order, strength, and celerity.
Some time afterwards he and a party of his young soldiers entered the theatre during the Nemean games, just as the actor was speaking the opening words of the play called "The Persians:" "Under his conduct Greece was glorious and was free." The whole audience at once turned towards Philopoemen, and clapped their hands with delight.
For in the first place those great gymnastic contests in which all Hellas took part, and which gave the tone to their whole athletic life, were primarily religious festivals. The Olympic and Nemean Games were held in honour of Zeus, the Pythian, of Apollo, the Isthmean, of Poseidon.
The four sacred games were the Olympic, Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean; and to these should be added the Panathenaea, or festival of Minerva. The five exercises before mentioned, together with music, in its classic sense, formed the programme.
The first Olympiad is generally considered as corresponding with the year 776 B.C. The Pythian games were celebrated in the vicinity of Delphi, the Isthmian on the Corinthian isthmus, the Nemean at Nemea, a city of Argolis. The exercises in these games were of five sorts: running, leaping, wrestling, throwing the quoit, and hurling the javelin, or boxing.
When this is done, Hercules shall be numbered among the immortal gods. Hereupon Hercules fell into deep trouble. To serve a man of less importance than himself hurt his dignity and self-esteem; but Jupiter would not listen to his complaints. The first labor that Eurystheus assigned to Hercules was to bring him the skin of the Nemean lion.
The Nemean and Isthmian games occurred more frequently than the Olympic and Pythian. As in the Pythian festival, contests in music and in poetry, as well as gymnastics and chariot-races, formed part of these games.
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