The sacred games and festivals took hold of the Greek mind by so great a variety of feelings as to counterbalance in a high degree the political disseverance, and to keep alive among their widespread cities, in the midst of constant jealousy and frequent quarrel, a feeling of brotherhood and congenial sentiment such as must otherwise have died away.  The Theors, or sacred envoys who came to Olympia or Delphi from so many different points, all sacrificed to the same god and at the same altar, witnessed the same sports, and contributed by their donatives to enrich or adorn one respective scene.  Moreover the festival afforded opportunity for a sort of fair, including much traffic amid so large a mass of spectators; and besides the exhibitions of the games themselves, there were recitations and lectures in a spacious council-room for those who chose to listen to them, by poets, rhapsodes, philosophers and historians—­among which last the history of Herodotus is said to have been publicly read by its author.  Of the wealthy and great men in the various cities, many contended simply for the chariot-victories and horse-victories.  But there were others whose ambition was of a character more strictly personal, and who stripped naked as runners, wrestlers, boxers, or pancratiasts, having gone through the extreme fatigue of a complete previous training.  Cylon, whose unfortunate attempt to usurp the scepter at Athens has been recounted, had gained the prize in the Olympic stadium; Alexander son of Amyntas, the prince of Macedon, had run for it; the great family of the Diagoridae at Rhodes, who furnished magistrates and generals to their native city, supplied a still greater number of successful boxers and pancratiasts at Olympia, while other instances also occur of generals named by various cities from the list of successful Olympic gymnasts; and the odes of Pindar, always dearly purchased, attest how many of the great and wealthy were found in that list.  The perfect popularity and equality of persons at these great games, is a feature not less remarkable than the exact adherence to predetermined rule, and the self-imposed submission of the immense crowd to a handful of servants armed with sticks, who executed the orders of the Elean Hellanodice.  The ground upon which the ceremony took place, and even the territory of the administering state, was protected by a “Truce of God” during the month of the festival, the commencement of which was formally announced by heralds sent round to the different states.  Treaties of peace between different cities were often formally commemorated by pillars there erected, and the general impression of the scene suggested nothing but ideas of peace and brotherhood among Greeks.  And I may remark that the impression of the games as belonging to all Greeks, and to none but Greeks, was stronger and clearer during the interval between B.C. 600-300 than it came to be afterward.  For the Macedonian conquests had the effect of diluting and corrupting Hellenism, by spreading an exterior varnish of Hellenic tastes and manners over a wide area of incongruous foreigners who were incapable of the real elevation of the Hellenic character; so that although in later times the games continued undiminished both in attraction and in number of visitors, the spirit of pan-Hellenic communion which had once animated the scene was gone forever.