The Panathenaea were said to have been founded, or perhaps refounded, by Theseus, who, according to legend, united into one state the village communities of Attica. Certainly there existed an ancient yearly festival in honour of Athene, though we cannot say if it bore the name Panathenaea. This festival continued to be celebrated every year after the founding of the greater festival, and was called the Little Panathenaea.[86] The Great Panathenaea were a pentaëteris, and were held in the third year of each Olympiad in the month of Hekatombaion or about the end of July. The programme of the festival was even more varied than that of the Isthmia. The great event of the festival, the procession that bore the peplos to the temple of Athene on the Acropolis, afforded an opportunity for the display of all the forces of Athens. The competitions included, besides athletics and horse-races, musical contests, recitations, torch-races, Pyrrhic dances, a regatta, and even a competition for good looks. For most of the events the prizes consisted in jars of Attic oil. Olive-oil was the most valuable product of Attica: the olive trees were under the control of the state, and the export of olive-oil was a state monopoly. As many as 1300 amphorae of oil were distributed as prizes, the winner in the chariot-race receiving as many as 140 amphorae. As even at a later period an amphora of oil was worth 12 drachmae, it is clear that the prizes had a considerable commercial value. Some of the jars containing the oil were ornamented with scenes representing the various competitions. It is probable that only one such painted vase was given for each victory. The manufacture and painting of vases was already an important industry at Athens, and the prize vase full of oil represented, therefore, the chief natural product and the chief industry of early Attica. These prize vases must have been greatly cherished. Numbers of them have been found in Italian tombs and elsewhere, and the variety of the subjects depicted throws no little light on the events of the festival. But details must be reserved for another chapter.
The multiplication of athletic festivals and the valuable prizes offered at them must have been a source of no small profit to the successful athlete. The victor at the Panhellenic games, it is true, received no other reward from the authorities than the wreath of leaves;[87] but at the lesser festivals, where he would be a welcome and an honoured guest, he was sure of a rich harvest of prizes. Moreover, he received substantial rewards at the hands of his grateful fellow-citizens. For in these games the individual was regarded as the representative of his state: the herald who proclaimed his victory proclaimed, too, the name of his state, and in his success the whole state shared and rejoiced. Hence we can understand the righteous indignation of the people of Croton in Ol. 75, when their famous fellow-countryman, Astylus, who had already won the stade-race and the diaulos in two successive Olympiads, on the third occasion entered himself as a Syracusan in order to ingratiate himself with the tyrant Hieron. Such an act was felt to be almost a sacrilege, and the Crotoniats in their wrath destroyed the statue of Astylus, which they had erected in the precinct of Lacinian Hera, and converted his house, perhaps the house which they had given him, into a common prison.[88]