Pausanias Analysis

From the very beginning, it seems, the sanctuary at Delphi has been the target of numerous human attacks. This Euboean pirate was among them; afterward, the tribe of the Phlegyae, and later Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, also attempted it. Similarly, part of Xerxes' army tried to seize it, as did the Phocian leaders, who went the furthest and for the longest period in plundering the god's property. The Galatian army also made such an attempt. Nor, it seems, was even Nero, who was contemptuous of all things, going to remain ignorant of this impulse; indeed, he carried away from Apollo five hundred bronze statues of gods and mortals alike.

They record that the most ancient contest held, and that upon which prizes were first bestowed, was the singing of a hymn to the god. The first victor who sang and prevailed was Chrysothemis from Crete, whose father, Carmanor, is said to have purified Apollo. After Chrysothemis, Philammon is mentioned as victorious in song, and following him Thamyris, son of Philammon. But Orpheus, because of the solemn nature of his rites and his greater loftiness of mind, and Musaeus, owing to his close imitation of all Orpheus' practices, declined, it is said, to subject themselves to musical competition.

They say also that Eleuther won a victory in the Pythian games because his voice was powerful and sweet, although he did not sing a composition of his own. It is also said that Hesiod was excluded from the contest since he had not learned to accompany his singing with the lyre. Homer too came to Delphi to inquire about certain matters he desired to know, and though he had been taught the lyre as well, this training was destined to prove useless to him because of the affliction of his blindness.

In the third year of the forty-eighth Olympiad, in which Glaukias of Kroton won, the Amphictyons established contests, continuing as before for singing to the kithara, but also adding competitions for singing with the aulos and for playing the aulos itself. Melampus from Kephallenia was proclaimed victor in kithara-singing, Echembrotos the Arcadian in singing to the aulos, and Sakadas of Argos in playing the aulos. This Sakadas won also the two following successive Pythian contests.

Then for the first time they also established contests for athletes, including the same events held at Olympia, except for the four-horse chariot race; and they themselves added a long-distance race (dolichos) as well as a double-length stadium race (diaulos) for boys. But at the second Pythiad they no longer called upon competitors to compete for prizes, but instead established the contest thenceforth as one for crowns of victory. They also abolished the flute-song (auloidia), judging that its sound was not well-suited for sacred festivity. For flute-singing involved the most mournful tunes of the flute, as well as elegiac verses sung as laments accompanied by flutes.

The dedication of Echembrotus also bears witness to my statement, a bronze tripod dedicated to Heracles in Thebes. The tripod bore this epigram: "Echembrotus the Arcadian dedicated this offering to Heracles upon his victory in the contests of the Amphictyons, singing melodies and elegies for the Greeks." At this time, the contest in flute-playing was discontinued; and a horse-race was added, in which Cleisthenes, the tyrant of Sicyon, was proclaimed victor with his chariot.

In the eighth Pythian festival they added a musical contest for lyre-players who performed instrumental music without voice, and Agelaus of Tegea won the crown. At the third Pythiad after the twentieth, they introduced the race in arms; the laurel in this competition was won by Timainetos of Phlius, five Olympiads after Damaretos of Heraea was victorious at Olympia. At the forty-eighth Pythiad, they established a race for two-horse chariots, and the pair belonging to Exaikestides of Phocis were the victors. In the fifth Pythiad following this, they yoked foals to a chariot, and the chariot of Orphondas of Thebes outran the others.

The Eleans admitted the boys' pancratium and later, by many years, the race for two-horse chariots of colts and the riding-race for colts—the first of these contests at the sixty-first Pythian festival, when Iolaïdas of Thebes won. After an interval of one festival from this, they set up a riding-race for colts, and at the sixty-ninth festival the chariot-race for a pair of colts. In the riding-match for colts, Lyformas of Larissa was proclaimed victor, and Ptolemy the Macedonian in the pair of colt-chariots; for the Macedonian kings in Egypt, as they were then called, had a passion for such victories, since indeed they were actual Macedonians. As for why the crown at the Pythian games is of laurel, in my opinion there is no other reason except the tradition that Apollo fell in love with the daughter of Ladon.