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In these games described in the Iliad we see an example of the origin of the later athletic festivals in the cult of the dead. Homer knows only of funeral games42 and there is no trace in the poems of the later athletic meetings held in honor of a god.43 However, the association of the later games with religious festivals held at stated times can be traced to the games with which the funeral of the Homeric chief was celebrated. The oldest example of periodic funeral games in Greece of which we have knowledge were those held in Arkadia in honor of the dead Azan, the father of Kleitor and son of Arkas, at which prizes were offered at least for horse-racing.44

Though the origin of the four national religious festivals in Greece—at Olympia, Delphi, Nemea, and on the Isthmus—is buried in a mass of conflicting legend, certain writers agree in saying that all of them were founded on funeral games, though they were later dedicated to gods.45 Thus the Isthmian were instituted in honor of the dead Melikertes,46 the Nemean in honor of Opheltes or Archemoros,47 the Pythian in honor of the slain Python,48 the Olympian in honor of the hero Pelops.49 To both Pindar and Bacchylides the Olympian games were associated with the tomb of Pelops; Pausanias, on the other hand, records that the ancient Elean writers ascribed their origin to the Idæan Herakles of Crete.50 It was a common tradition that Herakles founded the games, some writers saying that it was the Cretan, others that it was the Greek hero, the son of Zeus and Alkmena.51