Respecting the Isthmian festival, our first historical information is a little earlier, for it has already been stated that Solon conferred a premium upon every Athenian citizen who gained a prize at that festival as well as at the Olympian—­in or after B.C. 594.  It was celebrated by the Corinthians at their isthmus, in honor of Poseidon, and if we may draw any inference from the legends respecting its foundation, which is ascribed sometimes to Theseus, the Athenians appear to have identified it with the antiquities of their own state.

We thus perceive that the interval between B.C. 600-560, exhibits the first historical manifestation of the Pythia, Isthmia, and Nemea—­the first expansion of all the three from local into pan-Hellenic festivals.  To the Olympic games, for some time the only great centre of union among all the widely dispersed Greeks, are now added three other sacred Agones of the like public, open, national character; constituting visible marks, as well as tutelary bonds, of collective Hellenism, and insuring to every Greek who went to compete in the matches, a safe and inviolate transit even through hostile Hellenic states.  These four, all in or near Peloponnesus, and one of which occurred in each year, formed the period or cycle of sacred games, and those who had gained prizes at all the four received the enviable designation of Periodonices.  The honors paid to Olympic victors, on their return to their native city, were prodigious even in the sixth century B.C., and became even more extravagant afterward.  We may remark that in the Olympic games alone, the oldest as well as the most illustrious of the four, the musical and intellectual element was wanting.  All the three more recent Agones included crowns for exercises of music and poetry, along with gymnastics, chariots, and horses.

It was not only in the distinguishing national stamp set upon these four great festivals, that the gradual increase of Hellenic family feeling exhibited itself, during the course of this earliest period of Grecian history.  Pursuant to the same tendencies, religious festivals in all the considerable towns gradually became more and more open and accessible, attracting guests as well as competitors from beyond the border.  The comparative dignity of the city, as well as the honor rendered to the presiding god, were measured by the numbers, admiration, and envy, of the frequenting visitors.  There is no positive evidence indeed of such expansion in the Attic festivals earlier than the reign of Pisistratus, who first added the quadrennial or greater Panathenae to the ancient annual or lesser Panathenaea.  Nor can we trace the steps of progress in regard to Thebes, Orchomenus, Thespiae, Megara, Sicyon, Pellene, AEgina, Argos, etc., but we find full reason for believing that such was the general reality.  Of the Olympic or Isthmian victors whom Pindar and Simonides celebrated, many derived a portion of their renown from previous victories acquired at