Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, JULY 30, 1924. TENDENCY OF OLYMPIC GAMES

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 26, 30 July 1924, Page 6

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, JULY 30, 1924. TENDENCY OF OLYMPIC GAMES

The four principal ties which" held together, insofar as anything held together, the small but intensely active and sorely divided world of ancient Greece were, according to the Father of History, fellowship of blood, fellowship of language, fixed domiciles of gods and sacrifices common to all, and like manners and dispositions. These things said the Athenians in the great'reply to the Spartan envoys with which they are credited.by Herodotus when the Persians were knocking, for the second time in,ten years, at the gates of Athens, and Sparta was, as usual, hesitating—" These things Athens will not disgrace herself by betraying." Among these common ties no mention is made of the great part played by sport, but that agency lies concealed behind the reference to religion. In contrast with the modern youth, - who are accused of making a religion of their sport, the ancient Greek associated his sport with his religion.

The-habit of common sacrifice, says (jfote, on a small scale and between near neighbours, is a part of the earliest habits, of Greece. The sentiment of tratermty between two tribes, or villages, first manifested itself by sending a, sacred legation or Theoria to offer sacrifices at each other's festivals and to partake in the recreations which followed; thus establishing a truce with solemn guarantee and bringing themselves into solemn connection each with the god of the other under his approprivate local surname.

lfie villags festivals gradually expanded into city festivals; the circles of cities or city states taking part in them enlarged ; and ultimately it attained to national dimensions, embracing both the tribes of the peninsula and their many flourishing settlements all round the Aegean. The most successful of these festivals in its national appeal was that of the Olympian Zeus in Elis. Olympia appears to have been a collection of temples and public buildings rather than a town, but community of worship made it a point of union between the Eleans, the Spartans, and the ZSTessenians. The fouryearly festival and the games associated with it attracted in due sucoession the whole of the Peloponnese, the whole of Greece, and the whole of Magna Grecia. For about 300 years one day sufficed for' the festival, but as the programmes enlarged and the competitors multiplied five days were found to be needed. By that time it is not surprising to learn that the colonists had a way of annexing a very large share of the prizes. The winners of the great events were heroes not merely in their own cities but all over the Grecian world, and, though Sir Francis Galton estimated the average Athenian to be as much above us in intelligence as we are above the negro, it is to be feared that on a popular vote these heroes would often have been placed far above the sculptor whose statue of the Olympian Zeus was one of the glories of Greece, and the poets and philosophers to whom human thought will remain indebted to the end of time.

As a reconciling and unifying force, the Olympian games were of immense value to a people so admirably adapted, both by natural disposition and by geographical accident, to dissension. During the rest of the four years they might quarrel like cats, but for the Olympic games they assembled like welltrained dogs under perfect control, and a sense of sportsmanship appears to have restrained their natural pugnacity in a manner to which the experience of the last few^ weeks has shown that some modern nations have not been brought by two thousand years of Christianity. But it was not only upon, the competitors and their immediate partisans that the Olympian festival exerted this admirable influence. A sacred armistice was proclaimed by peace heralds from Elis in all parts of Greece, and for the month of the festival not only was the territory of Elis itself made inviolate but all warfare was stopped among the other tribes. Among the wonders of the first Christmas morning Milton mentions that J^or war or battle's sound Was held the world around. But for centuries the little world oE Gveeco had been accustomed to enjoy^ something of the same miracle at intervals of four years, and as fratricidal warfare was one of its principal industries the boon which these wonderful people thus owed to the solemn alliance of religion and sport was obviously incalculable.

Sometimes, no doubt, the sacred armistice wan violated : sumcLimcs U twvcd, n,jj tt u iyuoble <M\W for

defection and cowardice in the presence of a common foe.

t t-Harl? the full numerical strength of the Greeks been at Thermopylae, says Urote instead of staying behind for the festivals, they might have planted such a torce on the mountain-path as would have rendered it not less impregnable than the pass beneath.

But as the Greeks were more commonly concerned in fighting one another than in fighting anybody else, the effect of the Olympic peace was' on the whole a blessing. For eleven hundred years • the great festival endured. For fifteen hundred years the decree of Theodosius which abolished it was accepted as final. It was then successfully challenged by Baa-on Pierre 'de Coubertin, and on the 6th April, 1896, the first Olympiad of the new series was opened at Athens. The seventh has just been concluded at Paris. Has the experiment proved a success? It would be idle to pretend that under the Olympic games can ever do for the world of to-day, or even for its principal nations, what they did for the little world of . ancient Greece. But there is fortunately no reason to accept the desperate conclusion to which " The Times " and other pessimists have been driven by the unsportsmanlike proceedings of the Paris crowds. Fuller information is needed for a final judgment, but in the meantime let us accept the dilatory pleas of Lord Cardigan and Baron Pierre de Coubertin himself.