A very old festival in honor of Apollo, the Aktia were revived by Emperor Augustus and rose to prominence as the Actian Games at the end of the 1st century BC. As well as athletics events (the gymnikos agon), the great new Actian games included contests in the arts for poets, sophists, tragedians, comic playwrights, heralds and trumpeters, voice-training and recitation teachers (phonaskoi), flute players (auletes) and mimes (pantomimes).  Despite their popularity throughout the Roman world, gladiatorial and wild animal fights were not included in the Actian games. The god Apollo did not succumb to the times and customs of the Romans.