316 HISTORICAL TALES.

tivity and endurance being highly essential in the
hand to hand conflicts of the ancient world. They
were designed to cultivate courage and create a
martial spirit, to promote contempt for pain and
fearlessness in danger, to develop patriotism and
public spirit, and in every way to prepare the con-
testants for the wars which were, unhappily, far too
common in ancient Greece.

Each city had its costly edifices devoted to this
purpose. The Stadion at Athens, within whose
restored walls the modern games took place, was
about six hundred and fifty feet long and one hun-
dred and twenty-five wide, the race-course itself
being six hundred Greek feet—a trifle shorter than
English feet—in length. Other cities were similarly
provided, and gymnastic exercises were absolute re-
quirements of the youth of Greece,—particularly so
in the case of Sparta, in which city athletic exercises
formed almost the sole occupation of the male pop-
ulation.

But the Olympic Games meant more than this.
They were not national, but international festivals,
at whose celebration gathered multitudes from all
the countries of Greece, those who desired being free
to come to and depart from Olympia, however
fiercely war might be raging between the leading
nations of the land. When the Olympic Games be-
gan is not known. Their origin lay far back in the
shadows of time. Several peoples of Greece claimed
to have instituted such games, but those which in
later times became famous were held at Olympia, a
town of the small country of Hlis, in the Peloponne-