Records of At Olympia the names of victors had been recorded on
MEMES stone from an early date. When the three other great
festivals were reconstituted, a similar practice was doubt-
less observed. Cities, too, kept local registers of the suc-
Tributes to cessful athletes’. Nor had a poetical tribute been wholly
victors. wanting at Olympia. Before the days of the epinikion, an
Olympic victor used to be greeted with that song of
Archilochus which Pindar calls ‘the triumphal hymn, with


1 See Introd. to Ode 1.
THE EPINIKION. 37


threefold loud refrain’ (καλλίνικος ὁ τριπλόος κεχλαδώς)", The old
The refrain was τήνελλα καλλίνικε, in which the first word καλλίνικος.
represented the sound of the lyre. Two of the verses
remain :—
Xaip’ ἄναξ Ἥρακλεες,
αὐτός τε καὶ ᾿Ιόλαος, αἰχμητὰ δύο.
This song was still used in Pindar’s age by a comos escort-
ing an athlete on the day when his victory was announced.
The earliest epinikia of Simonides belonged to the Zpinitia
latter years of the sixth century. In mentioning Eualcidas % ss.
