Pythian Games,

Pythian Games, one of the four great national festivals of the Greeks, held in the Crissæan plain, near Delphi (anciently called Pytho), are said to have been instituted by Apollo after vanquishing the snaky monster, Python, and were celebrated in his honour every four years. Originally the contests were restricted to singing, with the accompaniment of cithern-playing; but flute-playing, athletic contests, horseracing, contests in poetry and art were afterwards introduced, and long continued a distinguishing feature of these games, which are believed to have lasted down to nearly the end of the 4th century A.D. The prize was a laurel-wreath and the symbolic palm-branch. Several of Pindar's extant odes relate to victors in the Pythian Games.