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84 ANCIENT GREECE. [CHAP. vn.the mother country, and was esteemed inalienableand invaluable. Even princes were proud of the privilege,forwhich the Persian king himself would have sued in vain, ofsending their chariots to the races of Olympia. Every onehas learned from the hymns of Pindar, that, beside theOlympic contests, the Pythian games at Delphi,the Nemeanat Argos, and the Isthmian at Corinth, belong to thesame class. As to the origin of these games,Homer doesnot make mention of them, which he would hardly haveneglected to do, if they had existed or been famous in hisday. Yet the foundation of them was laid in so remote aperiod of antiquity, that it is attributed to gods and heroes.Uncertain as are these . traditions, it is remarkable, that adifferent originis attributed to each one of them. Those ofOlympia were instituted by Hercules, on his victorious return, and were designed as contests in bodily strength ;those of Delphi were in their origin nothing but musicalexercises ; although other3 were afterwards added to them.Those of Nemea were originally funeral games ; respectingthe occasion of instituting those of the Isthmus, there aredifferent accounts. 1But whatever may have been the origin of the games,they became national ones. This did not certainly takeplace at once ;and we should err, if we should apply theaccounts given us of the Olympic games in the flourishingperiodsof Greece, to the earlier ages.On the contrary,from the accurate registerswhich were kept by the judges,we learn most distinctly, with respect to these games, thatthey gained their importance and character by degrees. 2They have not forgotten to mention, when the differentkinds of contests (for at first there were none but in racing)were permitted and adopted. But still these games gainedimportance, although it was only by degrees and the time;came, when they merited to be celebrated by a Pindar.In this manner, therefore, these festivals, and the gamesconnected with them, received a national character.Theywere peculiar to the Grecians ;and on that account also1All the passages on the origin and the arrangements of the games, maybe found "collected in Schmidtii Prolegomenis adPindarum jPotter's Archaeologiaand Corsini Dissertationes j agonisticae jand others,2 See Pausanias in Eliacis, 1. v, 9.