PYTHIAN GAMES (Pythia, or Pythici Ludi), one of the four great national festivals of the Greeks, were celebrated near Delphi, in honour of Apollo, originally every ninth year, and afterwards every fifth year, iu the autumn of the third year of each Olympiad, in the second or third month of the year, according to Clinton. Corsini and others, followed by Boeckh, place them in the spring, in the month Munychion, the tenth of the year. Their origin is assigned by some to Amphic tyon, the son of Deucalion, or to the Amphictyonic council ; by others to Agamemnon ; by Pausanias to Dionied ; by Strabo to the Delphians, after the Crissman war; but most commonly to Apollo, after be had vanquished the serpent Python. (Ovid, Met', i. 445.) There is an account that the gods and heroes contended in the first celebration of these games, when Castor conquered in the horse-race, Pollux in boxing, Calais in the foot-race, Zetes in fighting in armour, Peleus in throwing the quoit, Telamon in wrestling, and Heracles in the Pancratium. But the fact seems to be, as stated by Pausanias (x. 7, 2) and Strabo (ix., p. 421), that the contest was originally in music : the songs (nothuol ,Ificol) were in honour of Apollo, celebrating his victory over the Python ; and the instrument used was the lyre. In the third year of the 48th Olympiad (R.o. 586), at the close of the Cirrhxan war, the Amphictyons added a contest on the flute, which was afterwards discontinued, as the music of the flute was considered too mournful for a joyous festival. In the same year the Amphic tyons also introduced athletic contests and races (but not with four horsed chariots), the foot-race being confined to boys ; and the games, according to Strabo, were then for the first time called Pythia ; at all events the subsequent Pythia are computed from this year by Pausa nias and the Pariah marble, though the scholiast on Pindar, and Eusebius, date them from the second celebration, in 01 49, 3 : Boeckh and Clinton prefer the former date. Chariot-racea were added in the time of Cleisthenes, the tyrant of Sicyon. Statues, pictures, and other
works of art, were also exhibited at the Pythia, and prizes adjudged to the most successful artists. The prize in the Pythian games was originally of silver or gold, or something else of intrinsic value ; but afterwards a crown of laurel, or (according to Ovid, Met:, i. 449-50) at first, of the bay-oak or beech-tree (neidas), for which the laurel was afterwards substituted. The ceremonies observed at these games in common with the three other great festivals, are described under OLYMPIAN GIMES. The attendance at the games was very great, as all Oreeke were permitted to be present at them. The Pythia are believed not to have been entirely discontinued till about the same time as the Olympian games, 394 A.D.
(Pausanias, x. 7; Strabo, ix.; Potter's Archccologia Grace, vol. i.; Wachsmuth, Hellenische Alterthumsk. ; Clinton, Fasti Mellen. ; Krause, Pythien.) PYX, or PIX, the box or casket in which is kept the consecrated host reserved for the sick in the Romish church. Among the ancients the pyxis (NL(tt) was the casket in which ladies kept their jewels and other ornaments. It was itself often made of the most costly materials, and enriched with sculpture or with gems. There can be little doubt that it was from the ancient jewel-box that the mediaeval ecclesiastics derived the name of their pyx, and perhaps also the idea of its enrichment. At any rate the pyxes of mediaeval date which still remain are among the costliest examples of the art-workmanship of the middle ages. Some good ones are in the South Kensington Museum ; others are preserved among the plate of some of the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, but the finest are in tho treasuries of continental churches. The pyx was placed upon the altar under a covering or canopy, and at its elevation the sacring bell was rung. Among the French especially the pyx seems to have been not unfrequently in the form of a dove, enamelled and enriched with gems. The term pyx was sometimes applied to the casket in which relics were kept. [RELIQUARY.]