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Olympic Games Bema Reference?

Posted: November 27th, 2015, 11:44 am
by Alan Patterson
While searching on Perseus, I ran across this comment.

Plutarch. Pericles (English) [ Plut. Per. chapter 28 section 4 ]

... When Pericles, after his subjection of Samos, had returned to Athens, he gave honorable burial to those who had fallen in the war, and for the oration which he made, according to the custom, over their tombs, he won the greatest admiration. But as he came down from the bema, while the rest of the women clasped his hand and fastened wreaths and fillets on his head, as though he were some victorious athlete, Elpinice drew nigh and said: “This is admirable in thee, Pericles, and deserving of wreaths, in that thou hast lost us many brave citizens, not in a war with Phoenicians or Medes, like my brother Cimon, but in the subversion of an allied and kindred city.” On Elpinice's saying this, Pericles, with a quiet smile, it is said, quoted to her the verse of Archilochus...

Is this an indirect reference to the elusive bema of the Olympic games?