2, c.

4.
[108] But at Argos, at least, the name, though not the substance, of the kingly government was extant as late as the Persian war.
[109] Those who meant to take part in the athletic exercises were required to attend at Olympia thirty days previous to the games, for preparation and practice.
[110] It would appear by some Etruscan vases found at Veii, that the Etruscans practised all the Greek games--leaping, running, cudgel-playing, etc., and were not restricted, as Niebuhr supposes, to boxing and chariot-races.
[111] It however diminishes the real honour of the chariot-race, that the owner of horses usually won by proxy.
[112] The indecorum of attending contests where the combatants were unclothed, was a sufficient reason for the exclusion of females.

The priestess of Ceres, the mighty mother, was accustomed to regard all such indecorums as symbolical, and had therefore refined away any remarkable indelicacy.
[113] Plut.

in Alex.

When one of the combatants with the cestus killed his antagonist by running the ends of his fingers through his ribs, he was ignominiously expelled the stadium.