in the colony,—their 10 schools, as far back as 1860, being attended by 1273 scholars. It was not till 1869 that, even at Bathurst, a Government school was established; but there are now several schools in connexion with the Episcopal church. The Roman Catholics began the erection of a large schoolhouse in 1873.

The Gambia was visited by the Carthaginian explorer Hanno, and it became early known to the Portuguese discoverers; but it was not till 1618 that English traders began to turn their attention to this quarter. In that year a company was formed for the exploration of the river. Richard Thompson was sent out in the "Catherine," and succeeded in reaching Kassan, a Portuguese trading town, but he never returned, and his fate is not known. Two years afterwards, Richard Jobson advanced beyond the falls of Barraconda; and he was followed, about 40 years later, by Vermuyden, a Dutch merchant. In 1723 Captain Stibbs was sent out by the African Company to verify Vermuyden's reports of gold; he proceeded 60 miles above the falls. The treaty of Versailles in 1783 assigned the right of trade in the Gambia to Britain, reserving the single port of Albreda for the French; while at the same time it assigned the Senegal to France, and reserved the port of Portendic for the British. By the treaty of Paris in 1851 this arrangement was re-established, and it remained in force till 1857, when an exchange of possessions was effected, and the Gambia became a purely British river. In 1870 there was a proposal to transfer the colony to the French; but it led to nothing more than a voluminous diplomatic correspondence.

See Astley's Collection, vol. ii.; R. R. Madden's Report to the Government in 1841; T. E. Poole, Life in Sierra Leone and the Gambia, 1850; L. Borel, Voyage à la Gambie, 1865; and the Parliamentary Papers relating to Her Majesty's Colonial Possessions.

GAMBIER, GAMBIR, or PALE CATECHU. See CATECHU. GAMBIER, JAMES, BARON (1756-1833), English admiral, was born on the 13th October 1756, at the Bahamas, of which his father, John Gambier, was at that time lieutenant-governor. He entered the navy in 1767 as a midshipman on board the “ Yarmouth," under the command of his uncle; and, his family interest obtaining for him rapid promotion, he was raised in 1778 to the rank of postcaptain, and appointed to the "Raleigh," a fine 32-gun frigate. At the peace of 1783 he was placed on half-pay; but, on the outbreak of the war of the French Revolution, he was appointed to the command of the 74-gun ship "Defence," under Lord Howe; and in her he had an honourable share in the action off Ushant, on the 1st June 1794. In recognition of his services on this occasion, Captain Gambier received the gold medal, and was made a colonel of marines; the following year he was advanced to the rank of rear-admiral, and appointed one of the lords of the Admiralty. In this office he continued for six years, till, in February 1801, he, a vice-admiral of 1799, hoisted his flag on board the "Neptune," of 98 guns, as third in command of, the Channel Fleet under Admiral Cornwallis, where, however, he remained for but a year, when he was appointed governor of Newfoundland and commander-in-chief of the ships on that station. In May 1804 he returned to the Admiralty, and, with a short intermission in 1806, continued there during the naval administration of Lord Melville, of his uncle, Lord Barham, and of Lord Mulgrave. In November 1805 he was raised to the rank of admiral; and in the summer of 1807, whilst still a lord of the Admiralty, he was appointed to the command of the fleet ordered to the Baltic, which, in concert with the army under Lord Cathcart, reduced Copenhagen, and enforced the surrender of the Danish navy, consisting of nineteen ships of the line, besides frigates, sloops, gunboats, and naval stores. This service was considered by the Government as worthy of special acknowledgment; the naval and military commanders, officers, seamen, and soldiers received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament, and Admiral Gambier was rewarded with a peerage.

In the spring of the following year he gave up his seat at the Admiralty on being appointed to the command of the Channel Fleet; and in that capacity he witnessed the partial, and prevented the total, destruction of the French fleet in Basque Roads, on the 12th April 1809. It is in

connexion with this event, which might have been as memorable in the history of the British navy as it is in the life of Lord Dundonald (see DUNDONALD), that Lord Gambier's name is now best known. A court-martial, assembled by order of a friendly Admiralty, and presided over by a warm partisan, "most honourably acquitted" him on the charge "that, on the 12th April, the enemy's ships being then on fire, and the signal having been made that they could be destroyed, he did, for a considerable time, neglect or delay taking effectual measures for destroying them;" but this decision was in reality nothing more than a party statement of the fact that a commander-in-chief, a supporter of the Government, is not to be condemned or broken for not being a person of brilliant genius or dauntless resolution. No one now doubts that the French fleet should have been reduced to ashes, and might have been, had Lord Gambier had the talents, the energy, or the experience of many of his juniors. He continued to hold the command of the Channel Fleet for the full period of three years, at the end of which time-in 1811-he was superseded. In 1814 he acted in a civil capacity as chief commissioner for negotiating a treaty of peace with the United States; for his exertions in which business, he was honoured with the Grand Cross of the Bath. In 1830 he was raised to the high rank of admiral of the fleet, and he died 19th April 1833.

Although he had the good fortune to attain the very highest service rank, Lord Gambier is assuredly not one of those admirals whose memory the British navy treasures or idolizes. His predilection was for a life on shore; and during the great war he so utilized his family interest that he remained for nearly half the time a member of the Admiralty. And whether afloat or ashore, he had neither the genius nor the strength of mind fitted for high command or high office. Personally he was a man of earnest, almost morbid, religious principle, and of undoubted courage; but the administration of the Admiralty has seldom given rise to such flagrant scandals as during the time when Lord Gambier was a member of it; and through the whole war, the self-esteem of the navy suffered no such wound as during Lord Gambier's command in the Bay of Biscay.

The so-called Memorials, Personal and Historical, of Admiral Lord Gambier, by Lady Chatterton (1861), has no historical value. The life of Lord Gambier is to be read in Marshall's Royal Naval Biography, in Ralfe's Naval Biography, in Lord Dundonald's Autobiography of a Seaman, in the Minutes of the Courts-Martial, and in the general history of the period.

GAMBOGE, the drug Cambogia, a gum-resin procured from Garcinia Morella, Desrous., var. pedicellata, a diœcious tree with leathery, laurel-like leaves, small yellow flowers, and usually square-shaped and four-seeded fruit (see R. Jamie, Pharm. Journ., 3d ser., vol. iv. p. 802), a member of the natural order Guttifera, and indigenous to Camboja (see CAMBODIA, vol. iv. p. 725), and parts of Siam and of the south of Cochin China, formerly comprised in Cambojan territory. The juice, which when hardened constitutes gamboge, is contained in the bark of the tree, chiefly in numerous ducts in its middle layer, and from this it is procured by making incisions, bamboo joints being placed to receive it as it exudes. Gamboge occurs in commerce in cylindrical pieces, known as pipe or roll gamboge, and also, usually of inferior quality, in cakes or amorphous masses. It is of a dirty orange exter nally; is hard and brittle, breaks with a conchoidal and reddish-yellow, glistening fracture, and affords a brilliant yellow powder; is odourless, and has a taste at first slight, but subsequently acrid; forms with water an emulsion; and consists of from 20 to 25 per cent. of gum soluble in water, and from 70 to 75 per cent. of a resin, gambogic acid, soluble in alcohol and ether, and, according to Johnston,

bustards," and the same definition is found in the Night Poaching Act. A close time is fixed for certain birds of game: for partridges from 1st February to 1st September; pheasants, 1st February to 1st October; black game, 10th December to 20th August; grouse, 10th December to 12th August; bustard, 1st March to 1st September; and the possession of such game after 10 days in dealers, and 40 days in other persons, from the expiration of the season is made illegal. The Act makes no difference in the effect of a game certificate (now "game licence"); that is to say, the licence authorizes the holder to kill game, subject to the law of trespass as modified by this Act. A temporary section reversed, as to all existing leases, the presumption of law that the game, unless specially reserved, belongs to the tenant; but the presumption remains as to all future leases. But when the game has been reserved to the landlord, or any assignee of his, then the occupier shall be punished for killing it, or for authorizing any other person to do so. This section no doubt was rendered necessary by the fact that the law of trespass, which is the pivot of the Game Act, could not be made to include the case of a farmer shooting game on his own ground; but it is open to the remark that in effect it converts a mere breach of contract into a crime. Persons holding game certificates (licences) may sell game to persons licensed to deal therein. Various sections of the Act define the penalties to which persons killing or selling game without a licence shall be subject, and it should be noticed that it is a punishable offence even to buy game except from a licensed dealer.

The section relating to trespass (§ 30 of the Game Act) enacts that, "if any person whatsoever shall commit any trespass by entering or being in the day time upon any land in search or pursuit of game, or woodcocks, snipes, quails, landrails, or conies,1 such person shall, on conviction thereof before a justice of the peace, forfeit and pay such sum of money, not exceeding two pounds, as to the justice shall seem meet, together with the costs of the conviction;" and that if any persons, to the number of five or more together, shall commit any trespass by entering or being in the day time upon any land in search of or pursuit of game or woodcocks, &c, " each shall, on conviction, forfeit a sum not exceeding five pounds. The leave of the occupier shall be no defence when the game belongs to the landlord or other persons; and by § 31, trespassers in pursuit of game, &c., may be required to leave the land, to tell their names and abodes, and if they refuse may be arrested. The owner of the right of shooting may take from them any game found in their possession. The sections against trespassers, however, do not include any person hunting or coursing upon any land with hounds or greyhounds." This act applies only to England.

The Poaching Acts are still more severe. The Night Poaching Act enacts that, "if any person shall, after the passing of this Act, by night unlawfully take or destroy any game or rabbits in any land, whether open or enclosed, or shall by night unlawfully enter or be on any land, whether open or enclosed, with any gun, net, engine, or other instrument for the purpose of destroying game, such offender shall, upon conviction thereof before two justices of the peace, be committed for the first offence to the common gaol or house of correction for any period not exceeding three calendar months, there to be kept to hard labour, and at the expiration of such period shall find sureties" for his not so offending again. For a second offence the punishment is six months with hard labour, &c., with one year's further imprisonment in default of sureties; a third offence is a misdemeanour, and the punishment is penal servitude for 1 These animals, although not included in the statutory definition of game, are by this section partially admittel to the benefit of the Act.

| not more than seven years, or imprisonment for not more than two years. A later Act, 7 & 8 Vict. c. 29, §1, applies the penalties to the unlawful taking or destroying game on a highway by night. "Night "is declared to commence at the expiration of the first hour after sunset and to conclude at the beginning of the last hour before sunrise. Finally, the Poaching Prevention Act (25 & 26 Vict. c. 114) gives power to a constable, "on any highway, street, or public place, to search any person whom he may have good cause to suspect of coming from any land where he shall have been unlawfully in search or pursuit of game, or any persons aiding or abetting such person, and having in his possession any game unlawfully obtained, or any gun, part of gun, or nets or engines used for the killing or taking game; and also to stop and search any cart or other conveyance in or upon which such constable or peace officer shall have good cause to suspect that any such game, or any such article or thing, is being carried by any such person.' If any such thing be found the constable is to detain it, and apply for a summons against the offender, summoning him to appear before two justices, where, on conviction, he may be fined not more than £5, and shall forfeit the game, guns, &c., found in his possession. This Act is available by night as well as day. It should be noted in all cases where the unlawful taking or destroying of game is mentioned, that such taking is made unlawful only by the provisions of the Acts relating to certificates, or by the law relating to trespass. A person provided with a certificate can still kill game where he pleases, unless he commits a trespass-the only exception being that of the tenant whose landlord has reserved the game in his lands. Thus it may be inferred that a poacher provided with a certificate could not be brought within the limits of the Act relating to poaching on highways.

Game certificates are now regulated by 23 & 24 Vict. c. 90. Section 4 enacts that "any person, before he shall in Great Britain take, kill, or pursue, or aid or assist in any manner in the taking, killing, or pursuing, by any means whatever, or use any dog, gun, net, or other engine for the purpose of taking, killing, or pursuing any game, or any woodcock, snipe, quail, landrail, or any coney, or any deer, shall take out a proper licence to kill game under this Act "—subject to a penalty of £20. There are, however, certain exceptions and exemptions. As to licences to deal in game, any person who shall have obtained a licence to deal in game from the justices of the peace under the provisions of I & 2 Will. IV. c. 32, and 2 & 3 Vict. c. 35, shall annually and during the continuance of such licence, and before he shall be empowered to deal in game under such licence, obtain a further licence to deal in game under this Act, and only those who have obtained licence from the justices shall be licensed under the Act, ie., by the Inland Revenue. By 11 & 12 Vict. c. 29 any occupier or owner having the right of killing game may, by himself or by any person authorized by him in writing, kill hares without paying duty or taking out licence.

Most of the Acts cited above apply to Scotland as well as England, and when they do not there are special enactments for Scotland having substantially the same effect. The more important statutes specially affecting Scotland are the 13 Geo. III. c. 54, which fixes a close time for killing, selling, buying, &c., muirfowl, heathfowl, partridge, and pheasant; the 2 & 3 Will. IV. c. 68 (the Trespase Act); the 11 & 12 Vict. c. 30 (Hares Killing Act); and the 40 & 41 Vict. c. 28. The last is to some extent a departure from the general policy of the game laws, being an attempt to provide compensation to tenants for damage caused by game. In effect it will be found to belong to the class of " permissive" statutes. The important section is the 4th :

Greek

"Where, under any lease made subsequently to the commencement of this Act, or where, by presumption of common law, upon any land occupied under a lease made subsequently to the commencement of this Act, the lessor shall reserve or retain the sole right of hunting, killing, or taking rabbits, hares, or other game, or any of them, the lessee shall be entitled to compensation for the damage done to his crops in each year by the rabbits and hares, or other game, to which the lessor may have reserved or retained the whole right, in excess of such sum as may have been set forth in the lease as the amount of annual damage for which it is agreed no compensation shall be due; and if no such sum shall be set forth, then in excess of the sum of forty shillings."

Scotch law, differing in this respect from English law, infers that, when the lease contains no stipulations as to game, the landlord reserves the right of killing game to himself. The Act contains provisions for settling claims of damage either by arbitration or by action at law. Leases made before the Act are not to be affected thereby. The old Act of 1621, "anent hunting and haulking, "is cited in the schedule of the last-mentioned Act; it "ordaines that no man hunt nor haulk at any time hereafter who hath not a plough of land in heritage, under the pain of £100.” It is, of course, practically obsolete.

(E. R.) GAMES. The public games of Greece and Rome were athletic contests and spectacles of various kinds, generally connected with and forming part of a religious observance. Probably no institution exercised a greater influence in moulding the national character, and producing that unique type of physical and intellectual beauty which we see reflected in Greek art and literature, than the public contests of Greece. Fo them each youth was trained in the gymnasium, they were the central mart whither poet, artist, and merchant each brought his wares, and the common ground of union for every member of the Hellenic race. It is to Greece then that we must look for the earliest form and the fullest development of ancient games, and we propose in the present article to treat principally of the Greek ¿ywves. The shows of the Roman circus and amphitheatre were at best a shadow, and in the later days of the empire a travesty, of the Olympia and Pythia, and require only a cursory notice. "Corruptio optimi fit pessima." From the noblest spectacle in the world, the Greek Olympia, the downward course of public games can be traced, till we reach the ignoblest, the Roman amphitheatre, of whose horrors we may still form a faint picture from its last survival, the Spanish bull-fight.

The earliest games of which we have any record are those games. at the funeral of Patroclus, which form the subject of the twenty-third Iliad. They are noticeable both as showing that the belief that the dead would be appeased or gratified by the same exhibitions which pleased them in life was a common heritage of Greeks and Romans from their Aryan progenitors, and as already including all the distinctive competitions which we find in historical times,-the chariotrace, archery, boxing, wrestling, and putting the weight. Each of the great Grecian games was held near some shrine or consecrated spot, and is connected by myth or legend with some hero, demigod, or local deity.

The Olympian games were the earliest, and to the last they remained the most celebrated of the four national festivals. Olympia was a naturally enclosed spot in the rich plain of Elis, bounded on the N. by the rocky heights of Kronos, and on the S. and W. by the Alpheus and its tributary the Kladeus. There was the grove of Altis, in which were ranged the statues of the victorious athletes, and the temple of Olympian Zeus with the chryselephantine statue of the god, the masterpiece of Phidias. There Hercules (so ran the legend which Pindar has introduced in one of his finest odes), when he had conquered Elis and slain its king Augeas, consecrated a temenos and instituted games in honour of his victory. A later legend, which probably embodies historical fact, tells how, when Greece was torn by dissensions and

ravaged by pestilence, Iphitus inquired of the oracle for help, and was bidden restore the games which had fallen into desuetude; and there was in the time of Pausanias, suspended in the temple of Hera at Olympia, a bronze disk whereon were inscribed, with the regulations of the games, the names of Iphitus and Lycurgus. From this we may safely infer that the games were a primitive observance of the Eleians and Pisans, and first acquired their celebrity from the powerful concurrence of Sparta. In 776 B.C. the Eleians engraved the name of their countryman Corcbus as victor in the foot race, and thenceforward we have an almost unbroken list of the victors in each succeeding Olympiad or fourth recurrent year. For the next fifty years no names occur but those of Eleians or their next neighbours. After 720 B.C. we find Corinthians and Megareans, and later still Athenians and extra-Peloponnesians. Thus what at first was nothing more than a village bout became a bond of union for all the branches of the Doric race, and grew in time to be the high feast to which every Greek gathered, from the mountain fastnesses of Thessaly to the remotest colonies of Cyrene and Marseilles. It survived even the extinction of Greek liberty, and had nearly completed twelve centuries when it was abolished by the decree of the Christian emperor Theodosius, in the tenth year of his reign. The last Olympian victor was a Romanized Armenian named Varastad.

Let us attempt to call up the scene which Olympia in its palmy days must have presented as the great festival approached. Heralds had proclaimed throughout Greece the truce of God, which put a stop to all warfare, and ensured to all a safe conduct during the sacred month. So religiously was this observed that the Spartans chose to risk the liberties of Greece, when the Persians were at the gates of Pyle, rather than march during the holy days. Those white tents which stand out against the sombre grey of the olive groves belong to the Hellanodicæ, or ten judges of the games, chosen one for each tribe of the Eleians. They have been here already ten months, receiving instruction in their duties. All, too, or most of the athletes must have arrived, for they have been undergoing the indispensable training in the gymnasium of the Altis. But along the "holy road" from the town of Elis there are crowding a motley throng. Conspicuous in the long train of pleasureseekers are the Oewpoί or sacred deputies, clad in their robes of office, and bearing with them in their carriages of state offerings to the shrine of the god. Nor is there any lack of distinguished visitors. It may be Alcibiades, who, they say, has entered no less than seven chariots; or Gorgias, who has written a famous érídegis for the occasion; or the sophist Hippias, who boasts that all he bears about him, from the sandals on his feet to the dithyrambs he carries in his hand, are his own manufacture; or Aetion, who will exhibit his picture of the Marriage of Alexander and Roxana-the picture which gained him no less a prize than the daughter of the Hellanodices Praxonides; or, in an earlier age, the poet-laureate of the Olympians, Pindar himself. Lastly, as at the medieval tournament, there are "store of ladies whose bright eyes rain influence;" matrons, indeed, are excluded on pain of death, but maidens, in accordance with Spartan manners, are admitted to the show.

At daybreak the athletes presented themselves in the Bouleuterion, where the presidents were sitting, and proved by witnesses that they were of pure Hellenic descent, and had no stain, religious or civil, on their character. Laying their hands on the bleeding victim, they swore that they had duly qualified themselves by ten months' continuous training in the gymnasium, and that they would use no fraud or guile in the sacred contests. Thence they proceeded to the stadium, where they stripped to the skin and

anointed themselves. A herald proclaimed-"Let the runners put their feet to the line," and called on the spectators to challenge any disqualified by blood or character. If no objection was made, they were started by the note of the trumpet, running in heats of four, ranged in the places assigned them by lot. The presidents seated near the goal adjudged the victory. The footrace was only one of twenty-four Olympian contests which Pausanias enumerates, though we must not suppose that these were all exhibited at any one festival. Till the 77th Olympiad all was concluded in one day, but afterwards the feast was extended to five. The order of the games is for the most part a matter of conjecture, but, roughly speaking, the historical order of their institution was followed. We will now describe in this order the most important.

(1.) The foot-race. For the first 13 Olympiads the Spóuos, or single lap of the stadium, which was 200 yards long, was the only contest. The Síavlos, in which the course was traversed twice, was added in the 14th Olympiad, and in the 15th the Sólyos, or long race, of 7, 12, or, according to the highest computation, 24 laps, over 3 miles in length. We are told that the Spartan Ladas, after winning this race, dropped down dead at the goal. There was also, for a short time, a race in heavy armour, which Plato highly commends as a preparation for active service. (2.) Wrestling was introduced in the 18th Olympiad. The importance attached to this exercise is shown by the very word palestra, and Plutarch calls it the most artistic and cunning of athletic games. The practice differed little from that of modern times, save that the wrestler's limbs were anointed with oil and sprinkled with sand. The third throw, which decided the victory, passed into a proverb, and struggling on the ground, such as we see in the famous statue at Florence, was not allowed, at least at the Olympia. (3.) In the same year was introduced the Tévralλov, a combination of the five games enumerated in the well-known pentameter ascribed to Simonides :

ἅλμα, ποδωκείην, δίσκον, ἄκοντα, πάλην. Only the first of these calls for any comment. The only leap practised seems to have been the long jump. The leapers increased their momentum by means of aλrêpes or dumb-bells, which they swung in the act of leaping. By the help of them, and of the spring-board, enormous distances were covered, though the leap of 55 feet with which Phayllus is credited is simply incredible. It is disputed whether a victory in all five contests, or in three at least, was required to win the Tévνта0λov. (4.) Boxing was added in the 23d Olympiad. The rules were much the same as those of the modern ring, except that the boxer's fists and wrists were armed with straps of leather. The force of the blow was thereby increased; but no arm so terrible as the cestus of the Romans can ever have been admitted in Greek contests, seeing that the death of an antagonist not only disqualified a combatant, but was severely punished. In the pancratium, a combination of wrestling and boxing, the use of these straps, and even of the clenched fist, was disallowed. (5.) The chariot-race had its origin in the 23d Olympiad. It was held in the hippodrome, a race-course 1200 feet long by 400 broad, laid out on the left side of the hill of Kronos. The whole circuit had to be traversed twelve times. In the centre near the further end was the pillar or goal (the spina of the Romans), round which the chariots had to turn. "To shun the goal with rapid wheels" has been well selected by Milton as the most graphic feature of the Olympian games. So dangerous indeed was the manoeuvre that, according to Pausanias, a mysterious horror attached to the spot, and horseshen they passed it would start in terror without visible cause, upsetting the chariot and wounding the driver.

The number of chariots that might appear on the course at once is uncertain. Pindar (Pyth., v. 46) praises Arcesilaus of Cyrene for having brought off his chariot uninjured in a contest where no fewer than forty took part. The large outlay involved excluded all but rich competitors, and even kings and tyrants eagerly contested the palm. Thus in the list of victors we find the names of Cylon, the would-be tyrant of Athens, Pausanias the Spartan king, Archelaus of Macedon, Gelon and Hiero of Syracuse, and Theron of Agrigentum. Chariot-races with mules, with mares, with two horses in place of four, were successively introduced, but none of these present any special interest. Races on horseback date from the 33d Olympiad. As the course was the same, success must have depended on skill as much as on swiftness. Lastly, there were athletic contests of the same description for boys, and a competition of heralds and trumpeters, introduced in the 93d Olympiad. The prizes were at first, as in the Homeric times, of some intrinsic value, but after the 6th Olympiad the only prize for each contest was a garland of wild olive, which was cut with a golden sickle from the kallistephanos, the sacred tree brought by Hercules "from the dark fountains of Ister in the land of the Hyperboreans, to be a shelter common to all men and a crown of noble deeds" (Pindar, Ol., iii. 18). Greek writers from Herodotus to Plutarch dwell with complacency on the magnanimity of a race who cared for nothing but honour and were content to struggle for a corrup tible crown. But though the Greek games present in this respect a favourable contrast to the greed and gambling of the modern race-course, yet to represent men like Milon and Damoxenus as actuated by pure love of glory is a pleasing fiction of the moralists. The successful athlete received in addition to the immediate honours very substantial rewards. A herald proclaimed his name, his parentage, and his country; the Hellanodica took from a table of ivory and gold the olive crown and placed it on his head, and in his hand a branch of palm; as he marched in the sacred revel to the temple of Zeus, his friends and admirers showered in his path flowers and costly gifts, singing the old song of Archilochus, τήνελλα καλλίνικε, and his name was canonized in the Greek calendar. Fresh honours and rewards awaited him on his return home. If he was an Athenian he received, according to the law of Solon, 500 drachmæ, and free rations for life in the Prytaneum; if a Spartan, he had as his prerogative the post of honour in battle. Poets like Pindar, Simonides, and Euripides sung his praises, and sculptors like Phidias and Praxiteles were engaged by the state to carve his statue. We even read of a breach in the town walls being made to admit him, as if the common road were not good enough for such a hero; and there are wellattested instances of altars being built and sacrifices offered to a successful athlete. No wonder then that an Olympian prize was regarded as the crown of human happiness. Cicero, with a Roman's contempt for Greek frivolity, observes with a sneer that an Olympian victor receives more honours than a triumphant general at Rome, and tells the story of the Rhodian Diagoras, who, having himself won the prize at Olympia, and seen his two sons crowned on the same day, was addressed by a Laconian in these words :"Die, Diagoras, for thou hast nothing short of divinity to desire." Alcibiades, when setting forth his services to the state, puts first his victory at Olympia, and the prestige he had won for Athens by his magnificent display. But perhaps the most remarkable evidence of the exaggerated value which the Greeks attached to athletic prowess is a casual expression which Thucydides employs when describing the enthusiastic reception of Brasidas at Scione. Government, he says, voted him a crown of gold, and the multitude flocked round him and decked him with garlands, as though he were an athlete.

The