Che Bippodrome:

WITH SOMETHING ABOUT

THE ANCIENT GAMES.

HE ancient sports of the Greeks and Romans were very different to the modern ones of the English. They did not tolerate pigeon shooting, or dog fighting, or rat killing, or duck hunting but they had no Grand Exhibition like ours, and in that particular we excel them greatly. But the Greeks were in general a vivacious, pleasure-loving people, and began at a very early period to mark their time by local festivals, and the Olympic games celebrated a great national jubilee at the completion of every fourth year. These games, which, in the midst of war, were not only signals for a general truce, but, like our Glass Palace, used for a fraternal commingling of the fiercest enemies in the common enjoyment of sports,

pastimes, and festivities, which had a most healing and humanizing effect upon the whole Grecian people, while they enlivened their chronology with pleasing remembrance of the past, and joyous anticipation of the future.

The festivals and public games took place in different parts of Greece, and, being open to the participation of every inhabitant of the country, might be strictly termed national. The most celebrated of them were, the Olympic, the Pythian, the