Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

VII] The Victor as King 221
and, like his Italian parallel, defended his office against all comers,
until he was finally defeated and superseded by the successful
combatant.
The Olympic victor, he points out, was treated with honours
both regal and divine ; feasted in the prytaneum ;
crowned with
a spray of olive like the wreath of Zeus himself; pelted, like
a tree-spirit or Jack-in-the-Green, with leaves 1 . As such he is
represented in the vase-painting in Fig. 57 2 .
Finally, on his return to his native city, the victor was dressed
in royal purple and drawn by white horses through a breach in
the walls. In many cases he was worshipped after death, as a
hero ;
not because he was a successful athlete, but because he had
once been an incarnate god.
Fig. 57.
This hypothesis of Mr Cook's we believe to be fundamentally
correct. Plutarch in his Symposiac Questions 3 , after remarking
that the foot-race was the sole original contest at Olympia, all the
other competitions having been added later, proceeds :
1 Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 15, says that Pythagoras advised men to compete, but
not to win, at Olympia, avpfiaivei yap ko.1 &\\ws mtj5' eua7e(s elvai tovs piku>vto.s ko.1