Alexander Stuart Murray

“ As the torch gave way to the lamp in fact, so also it gave way in mythology. In the earlier myths, as in that of Demeter, it is a torch with which she goes forth to search for her daughter, but in the late myth of Cupid and Psyche it is an oil lamp which Psyche carries, and from which to her grief a drop of hot oil falls on Cupid and awakes him. Terra-cotta lamps have very frequently the name of the maker stamped on the foot. ”

“ He could appear again as a youth against his equals, and though always unsuccessful, could go on competing till the age of 35, when he was debarred, it being assumed that after this period of life he could not improve. It some times happened that an athlete would agree to allow his rival to win ”

“ On the other hand, the term was restricted so as to exclude those who, for mere exercise, without the incentive of a prize, prac tised in the daily gymnastic competitions. For such the name was dyuviorat, and this distinction was the more necessary in the later period of Greek history, when trained athletes became a professional class (400-300 B.C.) Yet it was not the value of the prizes themselves which led men to devote their lives to athletic exercises. ”

“ Against specially trained athletes the better class of citizens refused to compete, and the lists of the public games being thus left practically open only to professionals, training became more a matter of system and study, particularly in regard to diet, which was rigorously prescribed for the athletes by a public functionary, styled the Aleiptes, who also had to salve their bodies when practising. ”

“ These vases, found in the tombs, probably, of the winners, are made of clay, and painted on one side with a repre sentation of the contest in which they were won, and on the other side with a figure of Pallas Athena, with an inscription telling where they were gained, and in some cases adding the name of the eponymous magistrate of Athens, from which the exact year can be determined. ”