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built by Caesar Julius the dictator, where the statue of the same Caesar stood outside the conch of the basilica. The same Caesarion was opposite the temple of Ares, where the so-called Macellum was, because only pork was cut there, near the temple of Ares. The scribe was first appointed by the senate and the people, by name Pompeianus the Quaestor, who, being from a senatorial family of Rome, also wore a white robe and a solid gold crown in the fashion of laurel leaves. Whom they honored and worshipped like, he says, some Apollo. The same senate and the people again put forward an Amphithales by name Cassius Illustrius, likewise wearing a white all-silk robe and a crown woven from laurel leaves and in the middle a golden breastplate bearing Zeus. Whom, the Amphithales, they honored and worshipped as Hermes, just as the wise Domninus the chronicler wrote all these things. To the same sacred contest of the Olympians came from each city and country noble youths competing in order, and they divided themselves opposite one another. And they conducted themselves with much sobriety and fairness, taking nothing from anywhere; for they were wealthy, each having his own slaves for 288 service according to his own wealth; and many of them were also virgins; and they also brought much gold from their own homeland; but they competed for the sake of a vow and of their order and to have glory in their own homeland. Therefore they had great struggle and fear in coming; and some wrestled, others ran, others blew the trumpet, others competed in the pancration, others boxed with leather thongs on their fingers in boxing matches, others drove chariots with first-class horses, and others performed tragic songs. There were also virgin maidens who were philosophers, coming in the order of sobriety and competing and wrestling with bombanarii and running and singing tragedies and reciting certain Hellenic hymns; these women fought with women, competing fiercely both in wrestling and in running and in recitation. And if any of them, whether a woman or a youth, was crowned while the sacred, he says, people were shouting, the one crowned as victor remained sober until his death; for he was sealed immediately after the contest and became a priest. Likewise also the virgin philosophers who were crowned became priestesses after the contest. And from there they all returned. And those having possessions of lands did not contribute but remained tax-exempt; from when they were crowned their property, for the time and only of the 289 life of the one who was crowned. And if he also was master of any workshops, the workshops which the contestant had remained exempt from liturgies for the time of his life alone. And those coming to compete were such that they were not limited by number, but however many happened to come in order, whether youths or virgin maidens, they watched all of them. And sometimes a great crowd came, sometimes it did not come, according to the seasons and the winds of the sea. And during the reign of the same Commodus, Nicomedia, the metropolis of Bithynia, suffered from the wrath of God, its third suffering, as far as Moudoupolis and the surrounding areas of the river Sagaris in the month of Maius, also known as Artemisius, on the 3rd, at dawn. And the emperor granted many things to the same city and raised it up again. And during the reign of the same Commodus, a certain landowner and citizen of Antioch the great, named Artabanes, an alytarch, after he fulfilled the small crown of the Olympians in Daphne showed his generosity by throwing in sacred Daphne to the people many short reed-baskets of everlasting loaves, calling the same loaves "civic" because he had granted them to his own city, setting aside from his own lands a corresponding revenue for the account of the same 290 loaves. and

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κτισθὲν ὑπὸ τοῦ Καίσαρος Ἰουλίου τοῦ δικτάτορος, ὅπου ἵστατο ὁ ἀνδριὰς τοῦ αὐτοῦ Καίσαρος ὁ ἔξω τῆς Κόγχης τῆς βασιλικῆς. τὸ δὲ αὐτὸ Καισάριον κατέναντι τοῦ ἱεροῦ τοῦ Ἄρεως ὑπῆρχεν, ὅπου τὸ λεγόμενον Μάκελλον, διὰ τὸ ἐκεῖ τὰ χοίρεια κρέα κόπτεσθαι μόνον, πλησίον τοῦ Ἄρεως τοῦ ἱεροῦ. Ὁ δὲ γραμματεὺς προεχειρίσθη πρώτοις ἀπὸ τῆς βουλῆς καὶ τοῦ δήμου ὀνόματι Πομπηιανὸς Κοιαίστωρ, ὃς ἐκ γένους συγκλητικῶν Ῥώμης ὑπάρχων, φορέσας καὶ αὐτὸς στολὴν ἄσπρον καὶ στέφανον ὁλόχρυσον τύπῳ φυλλοδαφνῶν. ὅντινα ἐτίμων καὶ προσεκύνουν ὥς τινα, φησίν, Ἀπόλλωνα. Ἡ αὐτὴ δὲ βουλὴ καὶ ὁ δῆμος πάλιν προεβάλοντο Ἀμφιθαλὴν ὀνόματι Κάσιον Ἰλλούστριον, φοροῦντα ὡσαύτως στολὴν ἄσπρον ὁλοσηρικὸν καὶ στέφανον πεπλεγμένον ἀπὸ δαφνίνων φύλλων καὶ ἐν τῷ μέσῳ στηθάριν χρυσοῦν ἔχον τὸν ∆ία. ὅντινα Ἀμφιθαλὴν ἐτίμων καὶ προσεκύνουν ὡς τὸν Ἑρμῆν, καθὼς ὁ σοφὸς ∆ομνῖνος ὁ χρονογράφος πάντα ταῦτα συνεγράψατο. Εἰς δὲ τὸν αὐτὸν ἱερὸν ἀγῶνα τῶν Ὀλυμπίων ἤρχοντο ἀπὸ ἑκάστης πόλεως καὶ χώρας νεώτεροι εὐγενεῖς κατὰ τάγμα ἀγωνιζόμενοι, καὶ ἐμέριζον αὑτοὺς κατέναντι ἀλλήλων. μετὰ δὲ πολλῆς σωφροσύνης καὶ ἐπιεικείας διῆγον μηδαμόθεν μηδὲν κομιζόμενοι· ἦσαν γὰρ εὔποροι, ἔχοντες καὶ δούλους ἰδίους εἰς ὑπηρε 288 σίαν ἕκαστος κατὰ τὸν ἴδιον πλοῦτον· οἱ δὲ πολλοὶ ἐξ αὐτῶν καὶ παρθένοι ὑπῆρχον· ἦσαν δὲ ἐπιφερόμενοι καὶ πολὺν χρυσὸν ἐκ τῆς ἰδίας πατρίδος· ἀλλ' εὐχῆς χάριν καὶ τάγματος ἠγωνίζοντο καὶ διὰ τὸ ἔχειν δόξας εἰς τὴν ἰδίαν πατρίδα. πολὺν οὖν εἶχον ἀγῶνα καὶ φόβον ἐρχόμενοι· καὶ οἱ μὲν ἐπάλαιον, οἱ δὲ ἔτρεχον, οἱ δὲ ἐσάλπιζον, οἱ δὲ ἐπαγκρατίαζον, ἕτεροι δὲ ἐπύκτευον πυξίνοις δακτύλοις πυκτικὰς συμβολάς, ἄλλοι δὲ ἡνιόχουν ἵπποις πρωτοβόλοις, οἱ δὲ ἐφωνάσκουν τραγικὰ μέλη. ἦσαν δὲ καὶ παρθένοι κόραι φιλοσοφοῦσαι καὶ κατὰ τάγμα σωφροσύνης ἐρχόμεναι καὶ ἀγωνιζόμεναι καὶ παλαίουσαι μετὰ βομβωναρίων καὶ τρέχουσαι καὶ τραγῳδοῦσαι καὶ λέγουσαι ὕμνους τινὰς Ἑλληνικούς· αἵτινες γυναῖκες μετὰ γυναικῶν ἐμάχοντο ἀγωνιζόμεναι πικρῶς καὶ περὶ τὰ παλαίσματα καὶ περὶ τοὺς δρόμους καὶ τὸ φώνημα. καὶ εἴ τις ἐξ αὐτῶν εἴτε γυνὴ εἴτε νέος τοῦ ἱεροῦ, φησί, δήμου κράζοντος ἐστέφθη, ὁ στεφανούμενος ὡς νικητὴς σώφρων ἔμενεν ἕως τῆς τελευτῆς αὐτοῦ· ἐσφραγίζετο γὰρ εὐθέως μετὰ τὸν ἀγῶνα καὶ ἐγίνετο ἱερεύς. ὡσαύτως δὲ καὶ παρθένοι φιλόσοφοι αἱ στεφανούμεναι ἐγίνοντο μετὰ τὸν ἀγῶνα ἱέρειαι. κἀκεῖθεν ἀπεστρέφοντο πάντες. οἱ δὲ ἔχοντες κτήσεις χωρίων οὐ συνετέλουν ἀλλὰ ἀσυντελεῖς ἔμενον ἀφ' οὗ ἐστέφθησαν ἡ κτῆσις αὐτοῦ τὸν χρόνον καὶ μόνον τῆς 289 ζωῆς τοῦ στεφθέντος. εἰ δὲ καὶ ἐργαστηρίων τινῶν ἐδέσποζεν, ἀλειτούργητα ἔμενε τὸν χρόνον τῆς ζωῆς αὐτοῦ μόνου ἃ εἶχεν ἐργαστήρια ὁ ἀγωνισάμενος. τοσοῦτοι δὲ ἦσαν οἱ ἐρχόμενοι ἀγωνίσασθαι ὅτι οὐχ ὑπερεβάλλοντο ἀριθμῷ, ἀλλ' ὅσους συνέβη ἐλθεῖν κατὰ τάγμα καὶ εἴτε νέους εἴτε παρθένους κόρας πάντας ἐθεώρουν. καὶ ποτὲ μὲν πλῆθος ἤρχετο πολύ, ποτὲ οὐκ ἤρχετο, πρὸς τοὺς χρόνους καὶ τοὺς ἀνέμους τῆς θαλάσσης. Ἐπὶ δὲ τῆς τοῦ αὐτοῦ Κομμόδου βασιλείας ἔπαθεν ὑπὸ θεομηνίας Νικομήδεια, μητρόπολις τῆς Βιθυνίας, τὸ τρίτον αὐτῆς πάθος ἕως τῆς Μουδουπόλεως καὶ τοῦ ποταμοῦ τοῦ Σαγάρεως τὰ πέριξ μηνὶ μαΐῳ τῷ καὶ ἀρτεμισίῳ γʹ εἰς τὸ αὖγος. καὶ πολλὰ ἐχαρίσατο ὁ βασιλεὺς τῇ αὐτῇ πόλει καὶ ἀνήγειρεν αὐτήν. Ἐπὶ δὲ τοῦ αὐτοῦ Κομμόδου κτήτωρ τις καὶ πολιτευόμενος Ἀντιοχείας τῆς μεγάλης ὀνόματι Ἀρταβάνης, ἀλυτάρχης, μετὰ τὸ πληρῶσαι τὸ στεφάνιον τῶν Ὀλυμπίων ἐν ∆άφνῃ ἐφιλοτιμήσατο ῥίψας ἐν τῇ ἱερᾷ ∆άφνῃ τῷ δήμῳ καλαμίων συντόμια πολλὰ ἄρτων διαιωνιζόντων, καλέσας τοὺς αὐτοὺς ἄρτους πολιτικοὺς διὰ τὸ τῇ ἰδίᾳ αὐτοῦ πόλει τούτους χαρίσασθαι, ἀφορίσας ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων χωρίων πρόσοδον ἀναλογουμένην εἰς λόγον τῶν αὐτῶν ἄρ 290 των. καὶ