Also known as the Pythian Games
The Pythia, or the Pythian Games, was an important religious and athletic festival held every four years in honour of the god Apollon. The games took place at the sanctuary of Apollon at Delphi, and featured a variety of athletic and musical competitions. The games were named after the mythical serpent Python, who was slain by Apollon.
Said to have started on an eight year cycle, then moved to once every 4 years in Olympiad year 3. From 5-10 days in length. The games included the 7th, but may have started before then. Perhaps the 4th, given its assocations with gods of atheletics, such as Hermes and Herakles. Public business could be conducted on the 11th, which indicates that it may have finished by then:
Schol. Pi. P. hypoth. (II 2 Drachmann), ἀγωνίζεται τὸν Πυθικὸν ἀγῶνα κατὰ ἑβδόμην ἡμέραν. Gaspar & Pottier (1906, 792) estimated five days for the festival; perhaps a week, Amandry (1990, 306). Public business could be conducted at Delphi on 11 Boukatios, and the Labyads voted their decree on the 10th (FD III.1 294.vii.8, CIDelphes I 9.19, both IV BC).
| Nth Hemisphere (~July) | Sth Hemisphere (~January) | Great Year? |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 2024 | ✔︎ |
| 2027 | 2028 | |
| 2031 | 2032 | ✔︎ |
| 2035 | 2036 | |
| 2039 | 2040 | ✔︎ |
| 2043 | 2044 | |
| 2047 | 2048 | ✔︎ |
| 2051 | 2052 | |
| 2055 | 2056 | ✔︎ |
| 2059 | 2060 |
The festival included athletic and musical competitions, and were first held in the 6th century BCE. The origins of the festival and its earliest events are unclear, but it is known that it originally included a hymn-singing competition and later expanded to include athletic competitions similar to those held at the Olympic Games.
The winners of the games were awarded a crown of laurel leaves, retrieved from Tempe during the festivals of Septerion and Daphnephoria. This was considered a great honour. The Pythian Games were an important cultural and religious event in ancient Greece, and were considered to be the second most prestigious of the Panhellenic Games, after the Olympic Games.
The Pythian Games continued to be held up until the 4th century CE, when they were abolished by the Roman Emperor Theodosius I
The Pythian games started as a musical event, perhaps commemerating and atoning for the death of the Python, but by the Classical period had become famous as a sports competition.
The oldest contest and the one for which they first offered prizes was, according to traditional memory, the singing of a hymn to the god.
– Pausanias 10.7.2
On that occasion, they also offered for the first time prizes for athletes, the competitions being the same as those at Olympia, except the four horse chariot, and the Delphians themselves added to the contests running races for boys, the long course, and the double course.
– Pausanias 10.7.5
The rest of the ennaeteric cycle preserves a more agrarian meaning, related to the material subsistence of the people, although without losing its purification (or, better, evil-averting) function
Emilio Suárez de la Torre, Neoptolemos at Delphi $^{15}$