The New International Encyclopædia/Pythian Games

​PYTHIAN GAMES (Lat. Pythia, from Gk. Πυθία). The second of the four great national festivals of the Greeks, held in the Crissæan Plain, near Delphi. Their origin was attributed to Apollo, in celebration of his destruction of the dragon Python. At first they were celebrated under the superintendence of the priests of Delphi every ninth year, i.e. once in each cycle, and consisted solely of a musical contest between singers to the cithara. After the first Sacred War, the character of the festival was changed, and the Amphictyons assumed charge. The first of the new series was held in B.C. 586, but it was not till the second celebration in B.C. 582 that the laurel wreath was given as a prize, and from this date the Pythian series was reckoned. They were from this time held in the summer of the third year of each Olympiad, probably in August, and seem usually to have occupied four days. The first day was occupied with the musical contests which always held the chief place. Among them the most important was the Pythian Nomos, a solo on the double flute, which represented the victory of Apollo over the dragon. On the second day came athletic games, much like those at Olympia (q.v.), and on the third the horse-racing. The latter contests were held in the Crissæan plain. On the fourth day seem to have come the festival procession and sacrifices. The musical contests were increased in later times; even poets and historians competed. Consult: Krause, Die Pythien, Nemeen und Isthmien (Leipzig, 1841); Mommsen, Delphika (ib., 1878); Schömann-Lipsius, Griechische Altertümer, vol. ii. (Berlin, 1902); Stengel, “Griechische Kultus-Altertümer," in Müller’s Handbuch der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, vol. v. (Munich, 1898).