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Vast numbers of spectators flocked to them from every part of Greece, and from Asia, Africa, and Sicily. They were repeated every fifth year in mid-summer, and continued five days. They gave rise to the custom of reckoning time and dating events by Olympiads.
Now, it was the custom in those days to reckon by Olympiads, which were periods of four years, the series commencing with a great victory at a foot-race in Greece, won by a man named Coroebus, from which event originated the Olympian games, which were afterward celebrated every four years, and which in subsequent ages became so renowned.
I am not about to report the orator's speech. Stealing another's thunder is an offence punishable condignly ever since the days of Salmoneus. Perhaps, too, he may wish to use the same eloquent bits in the present Olympiad; for American life is measured by Olympiads, signalized by nobler contests than the petty States of Greece ever knew.
Before the era of the Olympiads, the Rhodians applied themselves to maritime affairs: for many years they seem to have been masters of the Mediterranean Sea; and their code of maritime laws became the standard with all the maritime nations of antiquity, by which all controversies regarding maritime affairs were regulated.
In this manner they computed eleven thousand three hundred and forty years from Menes's reign to that of Sethon. The Greeks before they counted by Olympiads followed the method of the Egyptians, and even gave a little more extent to generations, making each to consist of forty years. Now, here, both the Egyptians and the Greeks made an erroneous computation.
Through the whole epoch of her prosperity, through the long Olympiads of her decay, through centuries after her fall, Athens looked back on the day of Marathon as the brightest of her national existence. By a natural blending of patriotic pride with grateful piety, the very spirits of the Athenians who fell at Marathon were deified by their countrymen.
"Rightly guessed, Phanes!" cried the bringer of this joyful news, "The first prize has been carried off by an Athenian; and not only so, your own cousin Cimon, the son of Kypselos, the brother of that Miltiades, who, nine Olympiads ago, earned us the same honor, is the man who has conquered this year; and with the same steeds that gained him the prize at the last games.
The crime was as much more atrocious than any ordinary fratricide, as Remus had been nearer to Romulus than any ordinary brother. Discussion in respect to ancient dates. Difficulties. Nature of tradition. Extreme youth of Romulus. Varro's astrological calculation. Ingenuity of it. Olympiads. The race of Coroebus. The result of Varro's computation.
What with the Greek Olympiads, the Roman lustres, the Mahometan hegira, and Chinese moonshine, there is nothing but perplexity and confusion." "It is possible, however," said Becker, "to accommodate all these systems with each other.
It was viewed with so much interest, that the Greeks measured time itself by them. It was Olympiads, and not years, by which the date of all events was determined. The Romans reckoned their years from the foundation of their city; modern Christian nations, by the birth of Christ; Mohammedans, by the flight of the prophet to Medina; and the Greeks, from the first recorded Olympiad, B.C. 776.
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