The Greek Crown Games

Abstract

The crowns of the four major Panhellenic crown games reveal the religious and symbolic meaning of the plants of whose leaves they were made. Special attention will also be paid to the historical, political, and socio-economic reasons why these four festivals became the most prestigious and popular in the Greek world from the archaic period onwards. Texts and inscriptions reveal many organizational features of the games. The wider regional function of the festivals is evidenced even in organization. The games were also important occasions for trading, for communicating news of international relevance, for announcing military and political initiatives and building up alliances, or for advertising literary and artistic works. Victor lists, ‘archival documents’, monuments and dedications at the sites preserved public memories and created cultural unities. The prestige of crown games was shared by many local games designated as ‘isolympic’, ‘isopythian’, and so on during the Hellenistic and Roman periods.