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CHAPTER THREE.
New splendor of the Olympic Games. Held every four years. Names of prize givers and victors immortalized. Hence the chronology based on the Olympic Games, although it is flawed.
§ I.
The Olympic Games of Iphitus received a new splendor after the time of COROEBUS. Although he was only a cook from Elis, as Athenaeus and others say (Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, book 9), he won the footrace (P. Faber, Agonistica, book 3, chapter 12) and collected the prize offered (Paschalis, On the crowns, book 7, chapter 6): and that with more right than the cooks who were crowned by the gluttonous Sybarites for having prepared table dishes in the most delicious manner (Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, book 12). However, the new splendor of the games did not consist in this, but in the fact that they were now, it seems, fixed to be celebrated without interruption every four years, and not every year and therefore not at all the markets that were held annually, for that would be too costly. This number of four years stands for the renowned OLYMPIADS, that is, four-year Olympic periods (Petavius, The doctrine of time calculation, book 2, chapter 5). Each of these periods had elapsed only after four full years, because the games were not held during the fourth year, but after its complete completion, and thus at the beginning of the fifth year (Suidas in the keyword). They were called four-yearly because they comprised a period of four full years (Hofmann, Universal lexicon, in the keyword Olympias). But because they began
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at the beginning of every fifth year, they were also called five-yearly (Scaliger, Correction of time, book 2, p. 83 & book 5, p. 381 & p. 405), just as their defined period was called the quinquennium. For this reason, it also happens that some Latin writers, either deliberately for the sake of amusing imitation or out of misunderstanding, have called their LUSTRUM, which was a period of five full years, an OLYMPIAS (Petavius, The doctrine of time calculation, book 2, chapter 5). However, the LUSTRUM as well, namely the Julian, has become four-yearly, ending with the leap year, which occurs every four years according to that measure of time. And therefore the later writers, Ausonius and Hieronymus, with more right, wanted to call that latter LUSTRUM an OLYMPIAS. However, it is not our intention to deal with this more extensively here. Anyone who wants to know more can consult the authors noted and many others.
§ II.
The other aspect that made these Olympic Games of Iphitus henceforth splendid is that from now on the names of both the prize givers and especially the crowned victors were noted, indeed even recorded and preserved in erected statues and their inscriptions, as well as in written books. They were subsequently established as a general standard for chronology and history. For as many names of victors as one counted, so many game periods, and thus so many four-year periods one had to count. Thus the timeline was now clearly established (Marsham, Chronological handbook, page 489), and the mythical time changed into a historical time, and there was an end to the invention of new gods and heroes and a thousand follies. Therefore, for this reason too, the four-year count of the Olympic Games must be considered worthy and valuable. Not without reason does knight Marsham say: 'Finally, chronology was happily found in Altis; and in the exercise house, from the names of the Olympic victors, the most reliable standard for Greek times was compiled' (Marsham, Chronological handbook, page 485).
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§ III.
The standard for Greek times from now on was indeed certain, but still not absolutely certain, for two reasons (Marsham, page 486). 1. Because in the beginning it was not thought that those game periods would serve as a timeline (for every landscape and people were accustomed to using their own, specific chronology, which ran from a first famous prince through his successors to the present time: for example, the Athenians through kings and archons, the Lacedaemonians through kings and ephors; in this way, the Eleans and Pisans also undoubtedly led the reckoning of their times through their kings), from the beginning the names of the victors were not carved onto columns and trophies with the addition of the time at which they had won the prize, nor were they inscribed in the register or book with the intention of using them as a timeline. For Syncellus tells this about the time before COROEBUS: 'and no name of a victor was engraved, because they themselves neglected to do so; but on the twenty-eighth Olympic four-year period is...' and so on (Syncellus, page 196). 2. Because it was only very late, when, it seems, with the passage of time, several monuments and book entries had been lost due to old age and various calamities, that the decision was made, because no more stable measure of time could be found, to search for the remaining pieces and ruins, that is, names, from all quarters and from all corners, to arrange them in the most probable order, and thus to establish this timeline, for better or worse.
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§ IV.
Thus the name of COROEBUS was not taken from a statue, inscription, or book in OLYMPIA, but from his tomb. Pausanias says: 'This is fully evident from the fact that as far as human memory can trace back the successive Olympiads, the footrace is noted as the first contest, in which the Elean Coroebus won. And yet there is no trophy of Coroebus in Olympia; his tomb is located on the borders of Elis.' (Pausanias, book 5). Elsewhere he says: 'For when Iphitus renewed the long neglected Olympic Games and had established only the contest of the footrace, in the first games (however, not the first after IPHITUS, but those which were usually counted as the first after him, although they were actually the twenty-eighth. See above) Coroebus won. This is shown by the inscription on his tomb, namely that he was the first victor.' and so on (Pausanias, book 8, page 580). On the tomb, however, there was something more, namely his image, on which he killed the monster POENA, and other scenes that depicted the history, or rather the fable, of PSAMATHE and COROEBUS, and thus vividly preserved his heroic deeds, performed after the Olympic victory (Pausanias, book 1, page 99). The story of Syncellus must also be understood in this way when he says: 'But on the twenty-eighth Olympic four-year period, Coroebus, the Elean victor of the footrace, is inscribed; and his Olympic four-year period is established as the first, from which the Greeks have chosen to reckon their times most accurately.' (Syncellus, at the cited place). For he does not mean to say that that inscription was made on a trophy or memorial column erected in his honor, but on his tomb. Just as the name of COROEBUS was now taken from the tomb, so the names of others were taken from elsewhere, that is, from other remnants of ancient sources and rumors, wherever they could be found, even if they were
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without proof of the time in which they had lived and won. Indeed, it is to be suspected that, as the number of games increased and thus yielded more than one victor on a single occasion, perhaps two simultaneous victors were noted as if they were from different times (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, book 1). And for this reason, it happens that before the seventh victor after COROEBUS is placed, and commanded to link the list of Olympic periods firmly together, one DAICLES (Phlegon of Tralles, in Fragments), and one PHEIDON, the tyrant of the Argives, before the eighth (Pausanias, book 6): while they had, however, lived long before COROEBUS, and had been crowned by IPHITUS himself, at least one of them (Herodotus, book 6).
§ V.
It was also only very late that people began to collect and organize the names. And it is certain that this must have significantly increased the uncertainty of the Olympic chronology (although the most certain and best in comparison with all others), since the later generations were ignorant of many old matters. Who, however, first undertook this, and at what time, is also uncertain. This is evident from the remarkable story of Marsham, which we present to the reader in translation in place of our own (Marsham, Chronological handbook, p. 486).
“Euanoridas, who was once a victor in boys' wrestling (Pausanias, Eliaca, p. 358), when he had become a game master (Pausanias, ibid.), wrote down the names of the victors in Olympia (Plutarch, in Numa). When he lived is uncertain, but before the fiftieth Olympiad there were truly no game masters. Others, most of them, say that Hippias the Elean would have given the list of Olympic victors very late and without firm evidence. Two things are to be noted here: that the
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record is late, and uncertain. Let's assume that this HIPPIAS is the same one who is fabled to have had the famous conversations with SOCRATES (Plato, in Hippias or On lying); the one who says that he used to travel around after the Olympic Games and there at the temple would answer every questioner about everything he wanted to have proven. Still, he must be considered late, since Socrates died during the 95th games counted from COROEBUS.
Aristotle (who died in the year 1261 according to the Attic reckoning) (Diogenes Laertius, in Life of Aristotle) did write a separate book about the Olympic victors; Steficlides, Philochorus, and others also wrote (Idem, in Xenophon; Suidas, in keyword). But of these later historians, whose works have now been lost for two centuries, no trace of this matter can be found.
Finally, in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, the very learned TIMAEUS appeared, a man who, as Cicero says, was 'very diligent and very learned' (Cicero, On the orator, book 2), who applied the greatest diligence to an accurate recording of the times and was knowledgeable about all kinds of things (Suidas, in Timaeus). He wrote a chronological collection of the Olympic victors (Polybius, Extracts of Valesius, p. 50). 'For this is the one who compares the ephors from the first institution with the kings of Sparta; and reconciles the Athenian archons and the priestesses of Argos with the Olympic victors.' Where TIMAEUS began, I do not find; nor whether he was still alive after the 129th Olympic period, to which he
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extended his history, and from where Polybius replaces him up to the 158th.
TIMAEUS then (as far as I see) is the first to have made the Olympic periods into a historical system. Everything that is counted as an Olympic period before the time of TIMAEUS seems to have been done by way of comparison. After TIMAEUS, ERATOSTHENES (under Ptolemy Euergetes) established time rules, which have been approved by many; and from that time on, the Olympic periods were finally considered as annals for all of Greece.”
From the sources listed by Marsham and similar ones, Phlegon of Tralles, a freed slave of Emperor HADRIANUS, later wrote a book about the Olympic periods (Fragments of Phlegon of Tralles); but only a part of it has been able to escape the biting teeth of time, and that barely, with the help of Joannes Meursius, who published it.
§ VI.
From all this it is therefore clear that the chronologies based on the Olympic Games must necessarily have their flaws. But nevertheless, the games have become very famous and glorified because of it, since they, in comparison with other Greek chronologies, were, as mentioned, still the best and have become the most common, and without knowledge of them it is difficult to find one's way in profane history. To put it almost in the words of Strauchius (Aegidius Strauchius, The Olympiads from the beginning).