Note 125 — Chapter XXVIII · PAN-HELLENIC FESTIVALS — OLYMPIC, PYTHIAN, NEMEAN, AND ISTHMIAN.

K. F. Hermann, in his Lehrbuch der Griechischen Staatsalterthümer (ch. 32, not. 7. and ch. 65, not. 3), and again in his more recent work (Lehrbuch der gottesdienstlichen Alterthümer der Griechen, part iii, ch. 49, also not. 6), both highly valuable publications, maintains,—1. That the exaltation of the Isthmian and Nemean games into Pan-Hellenic importance arose directly after and out of the fall of the despots of Corinth and Sikyon. 2. That it was brought about by the paramount influence of the Dorians, especially by Sparta. 3. That the Spartans put down the despots of both these two cities.

The last of these three propositions appears to me untrue in respect to Sikyon,—improbable in respect to Corinth: my reasons for thinking so have been given in a former chapter. And if this be so, the reason for presuming Spartan intervention as to the Isthmian and Nemean games falls to the ground; for there is no other proof of it, nor does Sparta appear to have interested herself in any of the four national festivals except the Olympic, with which she was from an early period peculiarly connected.

Nor can I think that the first of Hermann’s three propositions is at all tenable. No connection whatever can be shown between Sikyon and the Nemean games; and it is the more improbable in this case that the Sikyonians should have been active, inasmuch as they had under Kleisthenês a little before contributed to nationalize the Pythian games: a second interference for a similar purpose ought not to be presumed without some evidence. To prove his point about the Isthmia, Hermann cites only a passage of Solinus (vii, 14), “Hoc spectaculum, per Cypselum tyrannum intermissum, Corinthii Olymp. 49 solemnitati pristinæ reddiderunt.” To render this passage at all credible, we must read Cypselidas instead of Cypselum, which deducts from the value of a witness whose testimony can never under any circumstances be rated high. But granting the alteration, there are two reasons against the assertion of Solinus. One, a positive reason, that Solon offered a large reward to Athenian victors at the Isthmian games: his legislation falls in 594 B. C., ten years before the time when the Isthmia are said by Solinus to have been renewed after a long intermission. The other reason (negative, though to my mind also powerful) is the silence of Herodotus in that long invective which he puts into the mouth of Sosiklês against the Kypselids (v, 92). If Kypselus had really been guilty of so great an insult to the feelings of the people as to suppress their most solemn festival, the fact would hardly have been omitted in the indictment which Sosiklês is made to urge against him. Aristotle, indeed, representing Kypselus as a mild and popular despot, introduces a contrary view of his character, which, if we admitted it, would of itself suffice to negative the supposition that he had suppressed the Isthmia.