History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Thucydides. The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Hobbes, Thomas. translator. London: John Bohn, 1843.

And now after the hallowing of it, the Athenians instituted the keeping, every fifth year, of the Delian games. There had also in old time been great concourse in Delos, both of Ionians and of the islanders round about. For they then came to see the games, with their wives and children, as the Ionians do now the games at Ephesus.

There were likewise matches set of bodily exercise and of music; and the cities did severally set forth dances. Which things to have been so, is principally declared by Homer in these verses of his hymn to Apollo:

  1. But thou, Apollo, takest most delight
  2. In Delos. There assemble in thy sight
  3. The long-coat Ions, with their children dear
  4. And venerable bedfellows; and there
  5. In matches set of buffets, song, and dance,
  6. Both show thee pastime and thy name advance.