. The Burton Holmes lectures;. TO THE AMERICAN INVINCIBLES branch ever bestowed since that far-off day in the year of ourLord 394, when the last of the old Olympiads was solemnlyinaugurated in the land of Elis. The name of the winner ofthe one-hundred-meter race was always given to the quad-rennial period following the games. Therefore the last fouryears of the nineteenth century must be known to history asthe Olympiad of Thomas Burke, of Boston ! It must have been a thrilling moment for him as he stoodthere face to face with the King, the Crown-Prince, anda host of royal personages,
. The Burton Holmes lectures;. TO THE AMERICAN INVINCIBLES branch ever bestowed since that far-off day in the year of ourLord 394, when the last of the old Olympiads was solemnlyinaugurated in the land of Elis. The name of the winner ofthe one-hundred-meter race was always given to the quad-rennial period following the games. Therefore the last fouryears of the nineteenth century must be known to history asthe Olympiad of Thomas Burke, of Boston ! It must have been a thrilling moment for him as he stoodthere face to face with the King, the Crown-Prince, anda host of royal personages, while on every side there arosetier on tier of eager faces, a cloud of witnesses which seemedto touch the sky — that same blue sky of Greece which haslooked down upon so many heroes. But again the heralds voice is heard Dromos tetra-kosioi-metron, and the prizes for the four-hundred-meter raceare thrust into the already well-filled arms of Burke, who,with his double set of trophies, bows himself from the roval. THE OLYMPIAN GAMES 89 presence and reaching the arena receives congratulations of ahundred friends. What are the prizes ? First, the diplomascontained in large pasteboard rolls, trimmed with gold paper ;next, a silver medal, on which is stamped a splendid head ofZeus, and the classic outlines of the Acropolis and of the Par-thenon ; last and most important, the priceless branch ofolive from the sacred groves of far-away Olympia, a prizepurposely valueless that it may thereby be invaluable. Theseare the official prizes, but they are not the only ones, noreven the first, for during the preceding days the people had
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectvoyages, bookyear1901
