ork of Phidias, the greatest of Grecian sculptors,
and was a seated statue of gold and ivory, over forty feet in height.
The throne of the king of the gods was mostly of ebony and ivory, inlaid
with precious stones, and richly sculptured in relief. In the figure,
the flesh was of ivory, the drapery of gold richly adorned with flowers
and figures in enamel. The right hand of the god held aloft a figure of
victory, the left hand rested on a sceptre, on which an eagle was
perched, while an olive wreath crowned the head. On the countenance
dwelt a calm and serious majesty which it needed the genius of a Phidias
to produce, and which the visitors to the temple beheld with awe.

The Olympic festival, whose date of origin, as has been said, is
unknown, was revived in the year 884 B.C., and continued until the year
394 A.D., when it was finally abolished, only to be revived at the city
of Athens fifteen hundred years later. The games were celebrated after
the completion of every fourth year, this four year period being called
an "Olympiad," and used as the basis of the chronology of Greece, the
first Olympiad dating from the revival of the games in 884 B.C.

These games at first lasted but a single day, but were extended until
they occupied five days. Of these the first day was devoted to
sacrifices, the three following days to the contests, and the last day
to sacrifices, processions, and banquets. For a long period single
foot-races satisfied the desires of the Eleans and their visitors. Then
the double foot-race was added. Wrestling and other athletic exercises
were introduced in the eighth century before Christ. Then followed
boxing. This was a brutal and dangerous exercise, the combatants' hands
being bound with heavy leather thongs which were made more rigid by
pieces of metal. The four-horse chariot-race came later; afterwards the
pancratium (wrestling and boxing, without the leaded thongs); boys'
races and wrestling and boxing matches; foot-races in a full suit of
armor; and in the fifth century, two-horse chariot-races. Nero, in the
year 68 A.D., introduced musical contests, and the games were finally
abolished by Theodosius, the Christian emperor, in the year 394 A.D.

Olympia was not a city or town. It was simply a plain in the district of
Pisatis. But it was so surrounded with magnificent temples and other
structures, so adorned with statues, and so abundantly provided with the
edifices necessary to the games, that