Political Crimes: In addition to religiously-based violations of the games' statutes, there were politically-motivated violations as well. As panhellenic institutions, both Olympia and Delphi held important positions in city-states' political spectra. For this reason, Olympia and Delphi were attractive means by which to influence intra- and intergovernmental activities. At Delphi in particular, where Apollo's oracle was consulted before virtually any political operation was undertaken, the prophetess transmitting the oracle was targetted by parties desiring her to exert their own political wills. Thucydides, for instance, notes that Pleistoanax and Aristocles "had bribed the prophetess of Delphi to tell the Lacedaemonian deputations which successively arrived at the temple to bring home the seed of the demigod son of Zeus," for Pleistoanax and Aristocles knew that people would follow the oracle's decree (Thucydides, 5.16.1).

Delphi was not alone in being subjected to crimes against the state, nor was it alone in experiencing the political ripples created when panhellenic sites were used as pawns. When the Eleans at Oympia, for example, violated the honor of Corinth's tyrant Cypselus, the Corinthians requested that the Eleans be excluded from the Isthmian games; yet, the Corinthians could hardly expect the Eleans to be banned from the Isthmian games if the Corinthians still expected to participate in the Olympic games, which the Eleans controlled (Pausanius 5.2.2). Political misdemeanors involving panhellenic sites therefore had cascade effects in the political realm. Many political crimes were serious in their own right, too; Olympia and Delphi, housing such riches and bearing such national and international weight, were subject to government ordered attacks and military invasions (Pausanius 10.7.1).