ENOPIA, one of the ancient names of the island | as Alponus, the first Locrian town (7, 216). On Egina. (Ovid, Met., 7, 473.) ČENOPION, a son of Bacchus and Ariadne, and king of Chios. His name is connected with the legend of Orion. (Vid. Orion.) CENOTRI, the inhabitants of Enotria. NOTRIA, a name derived from the ancient race of the Enotri, and in early use among the Greeks to designate a portion of the southeastern coast of Italy. The name is derived by some from olvoç, "wine," and they maintain that the early Greeks called the country Enotria, or the wine-land, from the number of vines they found growing there when they first became acquainted with the region. (Mannert, Geogr., vol. 9, pt. 1, p. 542.) With the poets of a later age it is a general appellation for all Italy. The Enotri, as they were called, appear to have been spread over a large portion of Southern Italy, and may be regarded, not as a very early branch of the primitive Italian stock, but rather as the last scion propagated in a southerly direction. (Cramer's Anc. Italy, vol. 2, p. 336.) CENOTRIDES, Small islands, two in number, off the coast of Lucania, and a little above the promontory of Palinurus. They lay in front of the city of Velia, where the river Heles empties into the sea. (Plin., 7, 7.) ENŌTRUS, a son of Lycaon. He was fabled to have passed with a body of followers from Arcadia into Southern Italy, and to have given the name of Enotria to that part of the country where he settled. (But consult remarks under the article Enotria, where a more probable etymology is given for the name of the country.) ENUSE OF ENUSSE, I. small islands in the Ægean Sea, between Chios and the mainland, now Spermadori, or (as the modern Greeks more commonly term them) Egonuses. (Herod., 1, 165.- Thucyd., 8, 24.-Plin., 5, 31.-Bischoff und Möller, Wörterb. der Geogr., p. 800.)-II. Small islands off the coast of Messenia, and nearly facing the city of Methone. They are two in number, and are now called Sapienza and Cabrera. (Pausan., 4, 34.—Plin., 4, 11.) CENUS, I. a town of Laconia, supposed to have been situated on the river of the same name flowing near Sellasia. (Polyb., 2, 65.—Liv., 34, 28.) The modern name is Tchelesina. Sir W. Gell describes the river as a large stream, which falls into the Eurotas a little north of Sparta. (Itin, of the Morea, p. 223.) -II. or Ænus, a river of Germany, separating Noricum from Vindelicia, and falling into the Danube at Boiodurum or Passau. It is now the Inn. (Tacit., Hist., 3, 5.-Id., Germ., 28.-Ptol., 2, 14.) the summit of Mount Eta were two castles, named Tichius and Rhoduntia, which were successfully defended by the Etolians against the Romans. (Lev., 36, 19.-Strabo, 428.-Cramer's Anc, Greece, vol. 1, p. 445.) ETYLUS, a town of Laconia, so called from an Argive hero of that name, was situate eighty stadia from Thalamæ. (Pausan., 3, 26.) Homer has noticed it among the towns subject to Menelaus. (I., 2, 585.) Strabo observes that it was usually called Tylus. (Strab., 360.) Ptolemy writes the name Bityla (p. 90), and it is still known by that of Vitulo. (Gell's Itin., p. 237.) Pausanias noticed here a temple of Serapis, and a statue of Apollo Carneius in the forum. (Cramer's Anc. Greece, vol. 3, p. 187.) OFELLUS, a character drawn in one of the satires of Horace. Ofellus represents a Sabine peasant, whose plain good sense is agreeably contrasted with the extravagance and folly of the great. (Horat., Sat., 2, 2.) OGLASA, a small island off the coast of Etruria, some distance below Planasia, famed for its wine, now Monte Cristo. (Plin., 3, 7.) OGYGEs or OGYGUs (Ωγυγης or "Ωγυγος) is said to have been the first king of Athens and of Thebes. (Tzetz. ad Lycophr., 1206.) Thus, Pausanias tells us that the Ectenes, who were the most ancient inhabitants of Boeotia, were the subjects of Ogyges, and that Thebes itself was called Ogygian, an epithet which is also applied to it by Eschylus. (Pausan., 9, 5, 1. Esch., Pers., 37.) That Ogyges was closely connected with Thebes as well as Attica, appears from the tradition, according to which he was said to be the son of Bootus. (Schol. ad Apollon. Rh., 3, 1178.) It may also be mentioned, that the oldest gate in Thebes was called Ogygian. (Pausan., 9, 8, 3.) The name of Ogyges is connected with the ancient deluge which preceded that of Deucalion, and he is said to have been the only person saved when the whole of Greece was covered with water. We possess scarcely any particulars respecting him; and the accounts which have come down to us are too vague and unsatisfactory to form any definite opinion on the subject. He clearly belongs to mythology rather than to history. The earlier Greek writers, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, &c., make no mention of his name; but the accounts preserved by Pausanias and other authors appear to indicate the great antiquity of the traditions respecting him. Varro places the deluge of Ogyges, which he calls the first deluge, 400 years before Inachus, and, consequently, 1600 years before the first Olympiad. This would refer it to a period of 2376 years before Christ; and the deluge ETA, a celebrated chain of mountains in Thessaly, of Noah, according to the Hebrew text, is 2349, there whose eastern extremity, in conjunction with the sea, being only 27 years difference. Varro's opinion is forms the famous pass of Thermopyla. It extended mentioned by Censorinus (de Die Nat., c. 21). It its ramifications westward into the country of the Do- appears from Julius Africanus (ap. Euseb., Prap. Ev.) rians, and still farther into Ætolia, while to the south that Acusilaus, the first author who placed a deluge in it was connected with the mountains of Locris, and the reign of Ogyges, made this prince contemporary those of Boeotia. (Liv., 36, 15.-Strabo, 428.-He- with Phoroneus, which would have brought him very rod., 7, 217.) Its modern name is Katavothra. Soph- near the first Olympiad. Julius Africanus makes only ocles represents Jove as thundering on the lofty crags an interval of 1020 years between the two epochs; of Eta. (Trach., 436.) As regards the expression and there is even a passage in Censorinus conformaof Virgil," tibi descrit Hesperus tam," the meaning ble to this opinion. Some also read Erogatum in of which many have misconceived, consult the re-place of Ogygium, in the passage of Varro which we marks of Heyne (ad Eclog., 8, 30). The highest summit of Eta, according to Livy, was named Callidromus it was occupied by Cato with a body of troops in the battle fought at the pass of Thermopyla between the Romans under Acilius Glabrio and the army of Antiochus, and, owing to this manœuvre, the latter was entirely routed. (Liv., 36, 15-Plin., 4, 7.) Herodotus describes the path by which the Persian army turned the position of the Greeks as beginning at the Asopus. Its name, as well as that of the mountain, is Anopea. It leads along this ridge as far have quoted. But what would this be but an Erogitian cataclysm, of which nobody has ever heard? (Cuvier, Theory of the Earth, p. 144, Jameson's transl.)—In a note appended to Lemaire's edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses, Cuvier enumerates the Mosaic, Grecian, Assyrian, Persian, Indian, and Chinese traditions concerning a universal deluge, and concludes from them that the surface of the globe, five or six thousand years ago, underwent a general and sudden revolution, by which the lands inhabited by the human beings who lived at that time, and by the northern part of the island. According to Reichard, some traces of it still remain on the shores of the bay of Volpe. (Itin. Ant., p. 79.)-V. Or Borysthenis, called also Olbiopolis and Miletopolis, a city of European Sarmatia, according to Stephanus of Byzantium and Mela, at the mouth of the Borysthenes, but, acsea. It was colonized by the Milesians, and is at the present day, not Olchakow, as some have thought, but Kudak, a small place in the vicinity. (Bischoff und Möller, Wörterb. der Geogr., p. 195.) The latest of the ancient names of this place was Borysthenis, and the one preceding it Olbia. OLCHINIUM OF OLCINIUM, now Dulcigno, a town of Dalmatia, on the coast of the Adriatic. (Liv., 45, 26. OLEIROS. Vid. Antiparos. various species of animals known at the present day, were overflowed by the ocean; out of which emerged the present habitable portions of the globe. This celebrated naturalist maintains, that these regions of the earth were peopled by the few individuals who were saved, and that the tradition of the catastrophe has been preserved among these new races of people, va-cording to other writers, at some distance from the riously modified by the difference of their situation and their social condition. According to Cuvier, similar revolutions of nature had taken place at periods long antecedent to that of the Mosaic deluge. The dry land was inhabited, if not by human beings, at least by land animals at an earlier period; and must have been changed from the dry land to the bed of the ocean; and it might even be concluded, from the various species of animals contained in it, that this-Plin., 3, 22.) change, as well as its opposite, had occurred more than once. (Theory of the Earth, Jameson's transl., OLEN ('Nλýv), the name of one of the earliest bards p. 418.) This theory, however, has been ably attack- mentioned in the history of Greek Poetry. Accorded by Jameson.-Various etymologies have been pro-ing to a tradition preserved by Pausanias (10, 5, 4), posed for the name Ogyges. Kenrick supposes that the word was derived from the root yvyn, signifying darkness or night, and quotes a passage of Hesychius in support of his view, which appears, however, to be corrupt. The more favourite theory of modern scholars connects the name with Oceanus: which etymology is supported, as is thought, by the tradition that places Ogyges in the time of the deluge. In support of this view, it is remarked that Ogyges is only a reduplication of the radical syllable Og or Oc, which we find in Oceanus (vid. Oceanus II.), and also in Ogen (which is explained by Hesychius as equivalent to Oceanus : 'Lýýv, 'LKɛavóç). A similar reduplication appears to take place in Ervμos, ErnTvμος· ὅπτομαι, όπιπτεύω· ἄταλος, ἀτιτάλλω. (Kenrick, Philol. Museum, No. 5, "On the early Kings of Attica."- Thirlwall, Philol. Mus., No. 6, On Ogyges."-Creuzer und Hermann, Briefe über Homer und Hesiodus, p. 105, in notis.-Völcker, Mythol. des Iap. Geschl., p. 67.-Schwenck, Andeut., p. OLENUS, I. an ancient city of Etolia, in the vicin179.) Regarding, therefore, the name Ogyges as a ity of Pleuron, and known to Homer, who enumerates general type of the waters, we may trace a resem- it in his catalogue. (Il., 2, 638.) It was destroyed blance between its radical syllable and the forms ax-a, by the Etolians, and preserved but few vestiges in "water" (compare the Latin aq-ua); aly-eç, "the Strabo's time. (Strab., 460.) The goat Amalthea waves;" 'Ax-ins, "the water-god;" Alak-óc, anoth- is called Olenia by the poets (Ovid, Met., 2, 594), beer marine deity, and the ruler over the island Aly-tva. cause nurtured in the vicinity of this place.-II. One (Schwenck, l. c.) But, whatever may be the etymol- of the most ancient of the cities of Achaia, situate on ogy of the name, the adjective derived from it is fre- the western coast, at the mouth of the river Peyrus. quently employed by the Greek writers to indicate any According to Polybius (2, 41, 7), it was the only one thing ancient or unknown. We learn from the scho- of the twelve cities which refused to accede to the conliast on Hesiod, that, according to one tradition, Ogy- federation, upon its renewal after an interruption of ges was the king of the gods, and some think that the some years. In Strabo's time it was deserted, the inname originally indicated nothing more than the high habitants, as Pausanias affirms, having retired to the adantiquity of the times to which it referred. (Encycl.jacent villages. (Cramer's Anc. Greece, vol. 3, p. 70.) Us. Knowl., vol. 16, p. 412.) 66 he came originally from the country of the Hyperboreans, and the Delphian priestess Boo called him the first prophet of Phoebus, and the first who, in early times, founded the style of singing in epic metre (πéwv ȧoidá). He appears to have settled in Lycia, and afterward to have proceeded to Delos, whither he transplanted the worship of Apollo and Diana, and the birth of which deities, in the country of the Hyperboreans, he celebrated in his hymns. Many ancient hymns, indeed, attributed to Olen, were preserved at Delos, which are mentioned by Herodotus (4, 35), and which contained remarkable mythological traditions and significant appellatives of the gods. Mention is also made of his nomes, that is, simple and antique songs, combined with certain fixed tunes, and fitted to be sung for the circular dance of a chorus. The time when Olen flourished is uncertain. It is supposed to have been before Orpheus. (Schöll, Hist. Lit. Gr., vol. 1, p. 33.-Müller, Hist. Lit. Gr., p, 24.) OLISIPPO, a city of Lusitania, at the mouth of the OGYGIA, I. an ancient name of Boeotia, from Ogy-Tagus, near the Atlantic Ocean. (Plin., 4, 35.—Id., ges, who reigned there. (Vid. Ogyges.)-II. The island of Calypso. (Vid. Calypso.) The name Ogygia is supposed to refer to its being in the middle of the ocean. (Vid. Ogyges.) OILEUS, king of the Locrians, was son of Ododocus, and father of Ajax the Less, who is called, from his parent, the Oïlean Ajax. Oileus was one of the Argonauts. (Apollod., 3, 10, 7.-Hygin., fab., 14, 18.) 8, 67.-Varro, R. R., 2, 1.) It was the only municipium in this section of the country, and, as such, had the appellation of Felicitas Julia. It was very probably of Roman origin, and the story of its having been founded by Ulysses is a mere fable, arising out of an accidental coincidence of name. The horses bred in the territory adjacent to this place were remarkable for their speed. (Plin., 8, 42.) Mannert and many other geographical writers make Olisippo coincide ÓLBIA, I. a city of Bithynia, in the eastern angle of with the modern Lisbon (Lissabon), but others opthe Sinus Olbianus, and probably the same with Asta-pose this. (Mannert, Geogr., vol. 1, p. 342.-Comcus. (Plin., 5, 27-Steph. Byz., p. 512.)-II. A pare Ukert, vol. 2, p. 394.) The name of this city is city on the coast of Pamphylia, west of Attalea. variously written. Thus we have Olisipo in some au(Ptol.Steph. Byz., p. 512.)-III. A town on the thors, and in others, who favour the account of its coast of Gaul, founded by Massilia. It was also call-foundation by Ulysses, we find Ulysippo. (Consult ed Athenopolis, and is supposed by Mannert to have Wesseling, ad Itin., p. 416.-Teschucke, ad Mel., 3, been the same with Telo Martius, or Toulon, these 1, vol. 2, pt. 3, p. 25.) three ancient names indicating, as he thinks, one and the same city. (Mannert, Geogr., vol. 2, p. 81.)IV. A town on the eastern coast of Sardinia, in the OLLIUS, a river rising in the Alps, and falling into the Po. It is now the Oglio, and forms in its course the Lake Sebinus, now Lago d'Iseo. (Plin., 3, 19.) esteemed an act of sacrilege. On this privilege the OLYMPIA (orum), I. the chief of the four great national games or festivals of the Greeks. They were celebrated at Olympia, a sacred spot on the banks of the Alpheus, near Elis, every fifth year. The exact interval at which they recurred was one of forty-nine and fifty lunar months alternately; so that the celebration sometimes fell in the month Apollonius (July), sometimes in the month Parthenius (August). (Böckh, ad Pind., Olymp., 3, 18.-Müller's Dorians, vol. 1, p. 281, Eng. transl.) The period between two cele brations was called an Olympiad.-The Olympic fes-test, who were called Hellanodica (Eλλavodíxai) tival lasted five days. Its origin is concealed amid the obscurity of the mythic period of Grecian history. Olympia was a sacred spot, and had an oracle of Jupiter long before the institution of the games. The Eleans had various traditions, which attributed the original foundation of the festival to gods and heroes at a long period prior to the Trojan war, and among these to the Idaan Hercules, to Pelops, and to Hercules the son of Alcmena. The Eleans farther stated, that, after the Etolians had possessed themselves of Elis, their whole territory was consecrated to Jupiter; that the games were revived by their king Iphitus, in conjunction with Lycurgus, as a remedy for the disorders of Greece; and that Iphitus obtained the sanction of the Delphic oracle to the institution, and appointed a periodical sacred truce, to enable persons to attend the games from every part of Greece, and to return to their homes in safety. This event was recorded on a disc, which was preserved by the Eleans, and on which the names Iphitus and Lycurgus were inscribed. (Plut., Vit. Lycurg., 1.-Pausan., 5, 20, 21.) Other accounts mention Cleosthenes of Pisa as an associate of Iphitus and Lycurgus in the revival of the festival. All that can safely be inferred from this tradition, which has been embellished with a variety of legends, seems to be, that Sparta concurred with the two states most interested in the plan, and mainly contributed to procure the consent of the other Peloponnesians. (Thirlwall's Greece, vol. 1, p. 386.) The date of the revival by Iphitus is, according to Eratosthenes, 884 B.C.; according to Callimachus, 828 B.C. Mr. Clinton prefers the latter date. (Fast. Hell., vol. 2, p. 408, note h.) The Olympiads began to be reckoned from the year 776 B.C., in which year Corobus was victor in the foot-race. We have lists of the victors from that year, which always include the victors in the foot-race, and in later times those in the other games. (Pausan., 5, 8, 3.)—The Olympic, like all the other public festivals, might be attended by all who were of the Hellenic race; though at first probably the northern Greeks, and perhaps the Achæans of Peloponnesus, were not admitted. Spectators came to Olympia, not only from Greece itself, but also from the Grecian colonies in Europe, Asia, and Africa. | Among them were solemn deputations sent to represent their respective states. Women, however, were forbidden to appear at Olympia, or even to cross the Alpheus, during the festival, under pain of death. But at a later period we find women taking part in the chariot-race, though it is doubtful whether they ever drove their own chariots. An exception was made to this law of exclusion in favour of the priestess of Ceres and certain virgins, who were permitted to be present at the games, and had a place assigned to them opposite the judges. The management of the festival was in the hands of the Eleans. Originally, indeed, Pisa, in whose territory Olympia lay, seems to have had an equal share in the administration; but in the fiftieth Olympiad the Eleans destroyed Pisa, and from that time they had the entire management of the games. They proclaimed the sacred truce, first in their own territories, and then throughout the whole of Greece. This truce took effect from the time of its proclamation in Elis, and while it lasted the Elean territory was inviolable, any armed invasion of it being *Αλμα, ποδωκείην, δίσκον, ἄκοντα, πάλην, that is, “leaping, running, throwing the quoit, throwing the javelin, wrestling." Others, however, give a different enumeration of the exercises of the pentathlon. In leaping, they carry weights in their hands or on their shoulders the object was to leap the greatest | oaths (Zeùç öрkios), where they swore that they had distance, without regard to height. The discus, or gone through all the preparatory exercises required by quoit, was a heavy weight of a circular or oval shape; the laws, and that they would not be guilty of any neither this nor the javelin was aimed at a mark, but fraud, nor of any attempt to interfere with the fair he who threw farthest was the victor. In order to course of the games. Any one detected in bribing gain a victory in the pentathlon, it was necessary to his adversary to yield him the victory was heavily fined. conquer in each of its five parts.-4. Boxing (πvyuń) | After they had taken the oath, their relations and counwas introduced in the 23d Olympiad (B. C. 688). The trymen accompanied them into the stadium, exhorting boxers had their hands and arms covered with thongs them to acquit themselves nobly.-The prizes in the of leather, called cestus, which served both to defend Olympic games were at first of some intrinsic value, them and to annoy their antagonists. Virgil (En., 5, like those given in the games described by Homer. 405) describes the cestus as armed with lead and iron; But, after the 7th Olympiad, the only prize given but this is not known to have been the case among was a garland of wild olive, cut from a tree in the the Greeks.-5. The Pancratium (пaукρáтiov) con- sacred grove at Olympia, which was said to have sisted of boxing and wrestling combined. In this ex- been brought by Hercules from the land of the Hyperercise, and in the cestus, the vanquished combatant boreans. Palm-leaves were at the same time placed acknowledged his defeat by some sign; and this is in the hands of the victors, and their names, together supposed to be the reason why Spartans were forbid- with the games in which they had conquered, were den by the laws of Lycurgus to practise them, as it proclaimed by a herald. A victory at Olympia, bewould have been esteemed a disgrace to his country sides being the highest honour which a Greek could that a Spartan should confess himself defeated. In obtain, conferred so much glory on the state to which these games the combatants fought naked. The he belonged, that successful candidates were frequenthorse-races were of two kinds. 1. The chariot-race, ly solicited to allow themselves to be proclaimed citigenerally with four-horse chariots (iññāv тeheiwv opó- zens of states to which they did not belong. Fresh Moc), was introduced in the 25th Olympiad (B.C. honours awaited the victor on his return home. He 680). The course (iññоdрóμoç) had two goals in the entered his native city in triumph, through a breach middle, at the distance probably of two stadia from made in the walls for his reception; banquets were each other. The chariots started from one of these given to him by his friends, at which odes were sung goals, passed round the other, and returned along the in honour of his victory; and his statue was often other side of the hippodrome. This circuit was made erected, at his own expense or that of his fellow-cititwelve times. The great art of the charioteer con- zens, in the Altis, as the sacred grove at Olympia was sisted in turning as close as possible to the goals, but called. At Athens, according to a law of Solon, the without running against them or against the other Olympic victor was rewarded with a prize of 500 chariots. The places at the starting post were as- drachmæ at Sparta the foremost place in battle was signed to the chariots by lot. There was another sort assigned him. Three instances are on record in which of race between chariots with two horses (duwpic or altars were built and sacrifices offered to conquerors ovvwpis). A race between chariots drawn by mules at the Olympic games.--It seems to be generally ad(unηvý) was introduced in the 70th Olympiad, and mitted that the chief object of this festival was to form abolished in the 84th-2. There were two sorts of a bond of union for the Grecian states. Besides this, races on horseback, namely, the xéλns, in which each the great importance which such an institution gave competitor rode one horse throughout the course, and to the exercises of the body must have had an imthe kann, in which, as the horse approached the mense influence in forming the national character. goal, the rider leaped from his back, and, keeping hold Regarded as a bond of union, the Olympic festival of the bridle, finished the course on foot.—In the 37th seems to have had but little success in promoting Olympiad (B.C. 632), racing on foot and wrestling be- kindly feelings between the Grecian states, and pertween boys was introduced.-There were also con- haps the rivalry of the contest may have tended to extests in poetry and music at the Olympian festival.-asperate existing quarrels; but it undoubtedly furnishAll persons were admitted to contend in the Olympic ed a striking exhibition of the nationality of the Greeks, games who could prove that they were freemen, that they were of genuine Hellenic blood, and that their characters were free from infamy and immorality. So great was the importance attached to the second of these particulars, that the kings of Macedon were obliged to make out their Hellenic descent before they were allowed to contend. The equestrian contests were necessarily confined to the wealthy, who displayed in them great magnificence; but the athletic exercises were open to the poorest citizens. An example of this is mentioned by Pausanias (6, 10, 1). In the equestrian games, moreover, there was no occasion for the owner of the chariot or horse to appear in person. Thus Alcibiades, on one occasion, sent seven chariots to the Olympic games, three of which obtained prizes. The combatants underwent a long and rigorous training, the nature of which varied with the game in which they intended to engage. Ten months before the festival they were obliged to appear at Elis, to enter their names as competitors, stating at the same time the prize for which they meant to contend. This interval of ten months was spent in preparatory exercises; and for a part of it, the last thirty days at least, they were thus engaged in the gymnasium at Elis. When the festival arrived, their names were proclaimed in the stadium, and after proving that they were not disqualified from taking part in the games, they were led to the altar of Jupiter the guardian of of the distinction between them and other races. Perhaps the contingent effects of the ceremony were after all the most important. During its celebration, Olympia was a centre for the commerce of all Greece, for the free interchange of opinions, and for the publication of knowledge. The concourse of people from all Greece afforded a fit audience for literary productions, and gave a motive for the composition of works worthy to be laid before them. Poetry and statuary received an impulse from the demand made upon them to aid in perpetuating the victor's fame. But the most important and most difficult question connected with the subject is, whether their influence on the national character was for good or evil. The exercises of the body, on which these games conferred the greatest honour, have been condemned by some philosophers, as tending to unfit men for the active duties of a citizen (Aristot., Polit., 7, 14, 18.-Athenæus, 10, p. 413); while they are regarded by others as a most necessary part of a manly education, and as the chief cause of the bodily vigour and mental energy which marked the character of the Hellenic race. The description which we have given of the Olympic games will, for the most part, serve also for the other three great festivals of Greece, namely, the Isthmian, Nemean, and Pythian games. (Pausan.. lib. 5, 6, seqq. -West's Pindar, Prelim. Diss.-Wachsmuth, Hellen. Alterthumsk., vol. 1, p. 108.—Potter's Grecian Antiquities, vol. 1, p. 495.-Thirlwall's Greece, vol. | 1, p. 384, seqq. -Encyclop. Us. Knowl., vol. 16, p. 430, seqq.)—ÎÎ. A name given to the aggregate of temples, altars, and other structures on the banks of the Alpheus in Elis, in the immediate vicinity of the spot where the Olympic games were celebrated. It was not, as many have incorrectly supposed, a city, nor did it at all resemble one. The main feature in the picture was the sacred grove Altis, planted, as legends told, by Hercules, and which he dedicated to Jupiter. (Pind., Olymp., 10, 51.) Throughout this grove were scattered in rich profusion the most splendid monuments of architectural, sculptural, and pictorial skill. The site was already celebrated as the seat of an oracle; but it was not until the Eleans had conquered the Pisatæ, and destroyed their city, that a temple was erected to the god with the spoils of the vanquished. This temple of the Olympian Jove was of Doric architecture, with a peristyle. It was sixty-inence, was placed the temple of Ceres Chamyne. eight feet in height from the ground to the pediment, ninety-five in width, and two hundred and thirty in length. Its roof, at each extremity of which was placed a gilt urn, was covered with slabs of Pentelic marble. The architect was a native of the country, named Libo. In the centre of one of the pediments stood a figure of victory, with a golden shield, on which was sculptured a Medusa's head. Twenty-one gilt bucklers, the offering of the Roman general Mummius on the termination of the Achæan war, were also affixed to the outside frieze. The sculptures of the front pediment represented the race of Pelops and Enomaus, with Myrtilus and Hippodamia; also Jupiter, and the rivers Alpheus and Cladeus; these were all by Pæonius, an artist of Mende in Chalcidic Thrace. In the rear pediment, Alcmenes had sculptured the battle of the Centaurs and Lapithæ. The other parts of the building were enriched with subjects taken from the labours of Hercules. On entering the gates, which were of brass, the spectator passed the statue of Iphitus crowned by Ecechiria, on his right; and, advancing through a double row of columns supporting porticoes, reached the statue of Jupiter, the chef-d'œuvre of Phidias. The god was represented as seated on his throne, composed of gold, ebony, and ivory, studded with precious stones, and farther embellished with paintings and the finest carved work. (Pausan., 5, 11.) The Olympian deity was portrayed by the great Athenian artist in the sublime attitude and action conceived by Homer. (Il., 1, 528, seqq.) The figure was of ivory and gold, and of such vast proportions that, though seated, it almost reached the ceiling, which suggested the idea that in rising it would bear away the roof. (Strabo, 354.) The head was crowned with olive. In the right hand it grasped an image of victory, and in the left a sceptre, curiously wrought of different metals, on which was perched an eagle. Both the sandals and vesture were of gold; the latter was also enriched with paintings of beasts and flowers by Pananus, the brother, or, as some say, the nephew, of Phidias. (Pausan., l. c.—Strabo, l. c.) An enclosure surrounded the whole, by which spectators were prevented from approaching too near; this was also decorated with paintings by the same artist, which are minutely described, together with the other ornamental appendages to the throne and its supporters, by Pausanias. The ivory parts of the statue were constantly rubbed with oil as a defence against the damp (Pausan., 5, 12), and officers, named paidpuvrai, or cleansers, were appointed to keep it well polished. The veil of the temple was of wool dyed with Phoenician purple, and adorned with Assyrian embroidery, presented by King Antiochus. Various other offerings are mentioned by Pausanias, to whom the student is referred for an account of these, as well as a description, &c., of the other buildings at Olympia. Among the altars, the most remarkable was that in the temple of Pelops. It was entirely composed of ashes collected from the thighs of victims, which, being diluted with water from the Alpheus, formed a kind of cement.-A conspicuous feature at Olympia was the Cronius, or Hill of Saturn, often alluded to by Pindar, and on the summits of which priests named Basila offered sacrifices to the god every year at the vernal equinox. (Pind., Olymp., 10, 56.) Xenophon mentions (Hist. Gr., 7, 4, 14) that, in a war waged by the Eleans with the Arcadians, Mount Cronius was occupied and fortified by the latter. Below that hill stood the temple of Lucina Olympia, where Sosipolis, the protecting genius of Elis, was worshipped. The stadium was a mound of earth, with seats for the Hellanodica, who entered, as well as the runners, by a secret portico. The hippodrome, which was contiguous to the stadium, was likewise surrounded by a mound of earth, except in one part, where, on an emNot far from this were the Olympic gymnasia, for all sorts of exercises connected with the games.Olympia now presents scarcely any vestiges of the numerous buildings, statues, and monuments so elaborately detailed by Pausanias. Chandler could only trace "the walls of the cell of a very large temple, standing many feet high and well built, the stones all injured, and manifesting the labour of persons who have endeavoured by boring to get at the metal with which they were cemented. From a massive capital remaining, it was collected that the edifice had been of the Doric order." (Travels, vol. 2, ch. 76.) Mr. Revett adds, that "this temple appears to be rather smaller than that of Theseus at Athens, and in no manner agrees with the temple of the Olympian Jove." The ruins of this latter edifice, as Sir W. Gell reports, are to be seen towards the Alpheus, and fiftyfive geographic paces distant from the Hill of Saturn. There are several bushes that mark the spot, and the Turks of Lalla are often employed in excavating the stones. Between the temple and the river, in the descent of the bank, are vestiges of the hippodrome, or buildings serving for the celebration of the Olympic games. These accompany the road to Miracca on the right for some distance. The whole valley is very beautiful. (Cramer's Anc. Greece, vol. 3, p. 95, seqq.) OLYMPIAS, I. an Olympiad, or the space of time intervening between any two celebrations of the Olympic games. (1 (Vid. Olympia I.) The Greeks computed time by means of them, beginning with B C. 776, each Olympiad being regarded as equal to four years. The last one (the 304th) fell on the 440th year of the Christian era. (Consult remarks at the commencement of the article Olympia I.)-II. daughter of Neoptolemus, king of Epirus, and wife of Philip, king of Macedon, by whom she had Alexander the Great. The conduct of Olympias had given rise to the suspicion that Alexander was not the son of Philip; and the brilliant career of the Macedonian conqueror made his flatterers assign to him for a parent the Father of the Gods. Olympias herself, in the intoxication of female vanity, hesitated not, at a later day, to sanction the story, and Jupiter was said to have approached her under the form of a serpent. (Consult Wieland, ad Lucian. Pseudomant., § 13.—Sueton., Vit. Aug 92.-Böttiger, Sabina, p. 212.) The haughtiness of Olympias, or, more probably, her infidelity, led Philip to repudiate her, and contract a second marriage with Cleopatra, the niece of King Attalus. The murder of Philip, which happened not long after, has been attributed by some to her intrigues, though with no great degree of probability. Alexander, after his accession to the throne, treated her with great respect, but did not allow her to take part in the government. At a subsequent period, after the death of Antipater, Polysperchon, in order to confirm his power, recalled |