providing release of particular tensions. They are collective and 
popular art forms with strict conventions. Ancient and 
nonliterate societies naturally regarded games as live dramatic 
models of the universe or of the outer cosmic drama. The 
Olympic games were direct enactments of the agon , or struggle 
of the Sun god. The runners moved around a track adorned 
with the zodiacal signs in imitation of the daily circuit of the 
sun chariot. With games and plays that were dramatic 
enactments of a cosmic struggle, the spectator role was plainly 
religious. The participation in these rituals kept the cosmos on 
the right track, as well as providing a booster shot for the tribe. 
The tribe or the city was a dim replica of that cosmos, as much 
as were the games, the dances, and the icons. How art became 
a sort of civilized substitute for magical games and rituals is 
the story of the detribalization which came with literacy. Art, 
like games, became a mimetic echo of, and relief from, the old