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Pythian Games: The games included chariot and horse races in a hippodrome, foot races in a stadium, athletic contests in a gymnasium, musical, dramatic, and literary competitions in a theater; works of painting and sculpture also were exhibited. Prizes of laurel wreaths and palm branches generally were awarded to the victors, who also were allowed to have their statues erected in the plain. Though prohibited by legislation in 394 A.D., the games appear to have survived as late as 424 A.D. (our last certain reference). Almost 30 minor Pythian Games were celebrated in other parts of the Greek world.
PYTHIAN GAMES, pith'i-an gamz, one of the four national festivals of the ancient Greeks. They were celebrated partly in the Crisean Plain near Delphi (formerly Pytho), Greece, and partly in Delphi itself, in honor of Apollo, god of prophecy (among other functions), whose oracle was at Delphi and who had slain Python (q.v.), who had guarded the oracle. The games, ranking second in importance to the Olympic Games were believed to have been instituted by Apollo himself and were conducted by the Delphians every eighth year before 583 B.C., but in the next year their management was transferred to the Amphictyonic League (q.v.), which held them at four-year intervals.
Innumerable choirs—of men, women, boys, or girls -sang in religious ceremonies, at marriages and funerals, at sowing and harvest, or to celebrate athletic victories, and the great poets wrote songs for them. Choirs were sent from all parts of the Greek world to religious centers like Delphi and Delos. Less formal gatherings—for instance, symposia, or drinking parties—gave occasion for solo songs. Professional string instrumentalists (kitharoidoi) and wind instrumentalists (auletai) competed at festivals such as the Pythian Games at Delphi and the Panathenaea at Athens.
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