After the name of the victor had been announced, sacrifices and banquets took place. It is not certain whether the great sacrifice of the Elians, a hecatomb offered to Zeus as the supreme director of the contests, took place at the conclusion of the festival, or at the beginning; in any case, numerous sacrifices of thanksgiving were offered by the victors and also by the delegates sent from other states. Very often the victor's sacrifice was combined with that of his countrymen; for the state to which the conqueror belonged considered itself honoured by his victory, and it was the duty of the delegates to exhibit as much splendour as possible at the sacrifice as well as at the procession connected with it. These solemn processions, which made the last day of the feast a specially magnificent one, were accompanied by flutes and citharas, and, perhaps, also by the singing of choruses. They probably marched at first round the altars, while the flames of the sacrifices were burning on them, and afterwards touched at all the sacred places near the holy Altis.
In the afternoon a great banquet, given by the Elians to the victors, united them all in the town hall ([Greek: prytaneion]); but even this was not the end of the festivities, for feasting continued in the evening and far into the night at entertainments given by the victors to their relations and friends, who had hurried to the spot. These were more or less magnificent according to the means of the givers, though sometimes the state to which they belonged bore a part of the expenses. These festive gatherings were also honoured by music and song, and it was on these occasions that the songs of victory ([Greek: epinikia]), specially composed in praise of the victor and his family, were often sung, along with old songs, supposing it to have been possible in this short interval to write, compose, and study one of these hymns of victory. Most of the odes, especially those of Pindar, which have come down to us, were not performed on these occasions, but at the festivities held in honour of the victor in his own country, which were often celebrated there from year to year.
Herewith the official programme of the festivities came to an end, but there was no lack of further entertainment; for the opportunity of appearing before so great a number of their countrymen, and thus attaining sudden fame, was a very attractive one for poets and writers, who in those days were little assisted by the bookselling trade. The custom of holding lectures or reciting poems before the assembled people originated in the 5th century, when it is said to have been introduced by Herodotus, who read aloud a portion of his history at Olympia, though this story is not entirely removed from doubt. It is, however, a fact that from that time onwards recitations of this kind became commoner; thus Gorgias the Sophist, and Hippias the Elian, held long discourses here; and similarly, Prodicus and Anaximenes, Lysias, Isocrates, etc., lectured at Olympia; and in later times this was a frequent occurrence. Occasionally, though less often, works of art were here exposed to view; thus, a painter, Aetion, exhibited his picture of the marriage of Alexander the Great and Roxana, and the astronomer, Oinopides, of Chios, exhibited a brass tablet which was to explain a new method of calculating the time, discovered by him. This last, however, turned out a failure. The publicity of the Olympic festival was also used in other ways. Important decrees relating to solemn pledges, treaties among states, mutual acknowledgment of meritorious actions, decisions to confer crowns, or other matters of importance, which it was desirable to bring into universal notice as soon as possible, were proclaimed by the solemn voice of the herald and then graven in bronze or stone, and set up in the Altis.