A few days before the full moon the whole multitude that has been gathering into Elis sets out for the march to Olympia. The sacred way leads down from Elis to the coast, and then follows the valley of the Alpheus, and the journey takes two days. First come the Judges, the Hellanodicæ, as they are called, and the other officials of the games; then the athletes and trainers, the horses and chariots, with the owners, jockeys, and charioteers; last comes a motley crowd of spectators from all parts of the Greek world. Glittering tyrants from the great Greek colonies of Sicily rub shoulders with peasants from Arcadia or fishermen from the coast. Poets with their latest odes ready for recitation, philosophers eager to dispute with rival teachers, merchants on the outlook for fresh business, and swindlers seeking for fools to cheat, all ranks and classes of the Greek world from Marseilles to Trebizond and from Thrace to North Africa are represented. Each state has its own official embassy, and each embassy strives to outdo its rivals in splendour. How the vast and motley crowd was housed it is difficult to see, for at Olympia there were no houses save the temples of the gods and the treasuries, or official residences, of the various states. Probably most slept in tents, or in the open air, for the five days of the festival—a pleasant enough experience in a Greek summer.

On the first day of the festival, there are no competitions; but all the judges, the competitors, their trainers, and everyone else connected with the sports, gather in the great Council Chamber. There stands a statue of Zeus the Hearer of Oaths, a thunder-bolt in his hand to remind evildoers of judgment. Before this statue a pig is sacrificed, and, over the offering, they all swear in turn to give just decisions, and to use no unworthy means to secure victory in the sports. For the rest of the day we are at liberty to do as we choose. We can stroll about through the Altis, and watch the athletes offering sacrifices at the altars of the various gods or heroes whom they specially fancy, and praying for success in the games, or we can take a look into the sculptor's workshop where Pheidias is hard at work on the great ivory and gold statue of Zeus that is to sit in Libon's temple. If your tastes are literary, here is a new sensation for you—Herodotus, the historian, from Halikarnassus, is reciting that part of his history that tells of the Persian Wars, and the crowds around him are wild with delight as they listen to the story of the great deeds of their forefathers. Herodotus is a great man; but standing there in the crowd is a young fellow, Thucydides, son of Olorus, the Athenian, who is destined to be greater still. To-day as he stands there, he is drinking in the inspiration that will set him also writing when the time comes—a history that the world will never let die. All the news of the world is being passed from group to group, and friends long separated from one another are renewing old acquaintance, and telling the story of their fortunes in the colonies. So the busy, bustling scene goes on till the night falls, and the full moon casts its pale light over the vast gathering.

Next day the sports begin early in the morning. The boxing and wrestling take place in the Festal Square before the Altar of Zeus; the foot-races, the throwing of the diskos and the spear, and the long jump, in the Stadium; the chariot-races in the Hippodrome. Huge crowds of spectators are gathered on every point of vantage to view the contests. There isn't much in the way of comfort; you have to sit or stand where and how you can, on the banks of the Stadium or the Hippodrome, or on the rows of steps beneath the treasuries, where the embassies of the states are housed; and there is nothing to shelter you from the sun and the dust. But nobody seems to care much about discomfort; we are all too eager to watch our own special champions, and the great crowds grow wild with excitement, leap from their seats, wave their arms frantically, and shout till they are hoarse, as the runners flash up the Stadium in the sprint, or as a famous wrestler flings his opponent clean over his shoulder with the trick that we call "the flying mare."

Perhaps the quaintest of all the contests, as it is one of the most popular, is the hoplites' race, run by men in full armour. It is only a race up the Stadium, round the turning-pillar, and back again, 400 yards or so; but it is no joke to run even 400 yards at top speed under a blazing sun, and clad in a heavy bronze helmet and greaves, with a big clumsy shield on your left arm. Here are the runners, twenty of them, crouching on their marks, ready for the blast of the trumpet. The starting-line runs almost from side to side of the Stadium. It is a stone sill, made of slabs about eighteen inches wide, sunk into the ground level with the rest of the course. From end to end of the sill run two parallel grooves, about seven inches apart, and the runners toe these grooves, left foot foremost, crouching a little forward, with the right arm stretched out to keep balance. They are separated from one another by pillars set in sockets four feet apart, so that there can be no jostling at the start, whatever may be the case at the turn.

Now the starters have got all the twenty safely settled on their marks, and, at the sharp blast of the trumpet they are off, clattering away up the Stadium in a cloud of dust. The best place to see the fun is near the turning-post, for while the other foot-racers have each a special post, marked out by a particular colour, to run round, the poor hoplites have only one post for the whole twenty, and as the field comes thundering up to the turn there is plenty of jostling and elbowing and confusion. One runner trips over his neighbour's greave, and comes down in the dust with a resounding clash, another drops his shield, and has to stop to pick it up again, the catch of another man's greave bursts, and he falls out in great disgust. Now all who have kept their feet, and stuck to their equipment, are round the post, and they stream away down the Stadium towards the winning-post. Well to the front is a big black-bearded fellow, with a slim clean-shaven lad hard at his heels. It is only a few yards to the line now, and black-beard, as he runs, snatches off the heavy helmet and carries it in his hand, looking round with a glance of triumph at his rival. He had better have waited till he had passed the line, for the change of action has checked his speed for a moment. The youngster draws up to his shoulder, flashes past him, and crosses the line in front of the judges—first by inches. A great roar of laughter goes up all round the Stadium as black-beard flings down his helmet and shield in disgust. The trumpeter blows a ringing blast, the herald steps forward and announces that the hoplites' race has been won by Callisthenes, son of Aristides, of the city of Athens; and, amidst thunders of applause, one of the judges places the crown of wild olive on the head of the successful runner, whose father comes forward beaming with joy, and leads his son off the course.

Now, if you care, we may take a look at the men who are contesting the long jump, which is part of the competition which the Greeks called the "Pentathlon," or "Five Contest," because it included five different events, of which the victor had to win at least three. The five were the foot-race, the long-jump, throwing the diskos, throwing the javelin, and wrestling, so that the winner of the pentathlon had to be a good all-round athlete. In fact, with the possible exception of the chariot-race, there is no contest more popular than the pentathlon, and no higher honour in the games than to win it.

Long jumping is rather wearisome to watch for long, so we shall only look on for a minute or two. The Greek jumper comes up to his mark with a short run, and as he leaps he helps his spring by the skilful swinging of the jumping-weights which he carries in his hands—things rather like light dumb-bells. The ground on which he lands is carefully dug up with a pick, so that he may have a soft landing. But the story goes that Phaÿllus, the most famous of Greek jumpers, once broke his leg by leaping 5 feet beyond the prepared ground. That means that his leap measured 55 feet; but I am afraid something must have been wrong with the measuring-tape that day. No doubt there were fine jumpers among a race who practised jumping so much, but half the length of Phaÿllus's jump would be a fine performance even for the best leaper.

Strangest of all the games, to our minds, is that called the "Pankration," which is a sort of mixture of boxing, wrestling, throttling, pummelling, kicking, and every other means which a fighter can adopt to force his opponent to give in. Biting and gouging are almost the only tricks that are forbidden; apart from these, you may use almost any device you like to get your opponent down and keep him down, till he holds up his hand as a sign that he has had enough. It sounds very brutal to us, and indeed it is brutal—the only Greek game that is almost as savage and as cruel as were all the Roman sports. One of the famous legends of the games tells how a pankratiast named Arrhichion was being strangled by an opponent who had forced him to the ground, and was choking the life out of him. The dying athlete caught his enemy's foot, and twisted it out of the socket with such force as to oblige him to yield; then he fell back and died, victorious even in death. No doubt the game tried the endurance and pluck of the competitors to the utmost; but at best it must have been an ugly business.

One feature of the games is very noticeable. Our athletes of to-day often wear little enough in the way of clothing; but no Greek athlete ever wore any clothing at all. Runners, wrestlers, boxers, diskos-throwers—all were stripped to the bronzed and well oiled skin. For the Greek prided himself on the beauty of the well-trained body, and delighted to expose it to the sunshine and the air. To him the only shame about the body was that it should be weak, deformed, or out of condition, and he scorned the Persian for his flabby muscles, and his white skin always muffled in flowing robes. A gathering of Greek athletes showed the human frame in its highest and most perfect development—an assemblage of living statues.

So, day after day, for five days, the sports went on, varied in the evenings by great banquets and festal processions under the light of the full moon. On the last evening the victors were all entertained at a great public banquet by the officials of the festival. The next morning they set out on their homeward journey, to be welcomed, on their return to their native cities, with honours and dignities greater than any king could claim. The great gathering melted away to all the ends of the Greek world, and Olympia was left silent and deserted, till four years later the next Olympiad drew fresh multitudes to the holy place again.