Theseus is a semi-historical personage.  It is recorded of him that he united the several tribes by whom the territory of Attica was then possessed into one state, of which Athens was the capital.  In commemoration of this important event, he instituted the festival of Panathenaea, in honor of Minerva, the patron deity of Athens.  This festival differed from the other Grecian games chiefly in two particulars.  It was peculiar to the Athenians, and its chief feature was a solemn procession in which the Peplus, or sacred robe of Minerva, was carried to the Parthenon, and suspended before the statue of the goddess.  The Peplus was covered with embroidery, worked by select virgins of the noblest families in Athens.  The procession consisted of persons of all ages and both sexes.  The old men carried olive branches in their hands, and the young men bore arms.  The young women carried baskets on their heads, containing the sacred utensils, cakes, and all things necessary for the sacrifices.  The procession formed the subject of the bas-reliefs which embellished the outside of the temple of the Parthenon.  A considerable portion of these sculptures is now in the British Museum among those known as the “Elgin marbles.”

OLYMPIC AND OTHER GAMES

It seems not inappropriate to mention here the other celebrated national games of the Greeks.  The first and most distinguished were the Olympic, founded, it was said, by Jupiter himself.  They were celebrated at Olympia in Elis.  Vast numbers of spectators flocked to them from every part of Greece, and from Asia, Africa, and Sicily.  They were repeated every fifth year in mid-summer, and continued five days.  They gave rise to the custom of reckoning time and dating events by Olympiads.  The first Olympiad is generally considered as corresponding with the year 776 B.C.  The Pythian games were celebrated in the vicinity of Delphi, the Isthmian on the Corinthian isthmus, the Nemean at Nemea, a city of Argolis.

The exercises in these games were of five sorts:  running, leaping, wrestling, throwing the quoit, and hurling the javelin, or boxing.  Besides these exercises of bodily strength and agility, there were contests in music, poetry, and eloquence.  Thus these games furnished poets, musicians, and authors the best opportunities to present their productions to the public, and the fame of the victors was diffused far and wide.

DAEDALUS

The labyrinth from which Theseus escaped by means of the clew of Ariadne was built by Daedalus, a most skilful artificer.  It was an edifice with numberless winding passages and turnings opening into one another, and seeming to have neither beginning nor end, like the river Maeander, which returns on itself, and flows now onward, now backward, in its course to the sea.  Daedalus built the labyrinth for King Minos, but afterwards lost the favor of the king, and was shut up in a tower.