e supple and vigorous. At first they
made use of a belt, with an apron or scarf fastened to it, for their more
decent appearance in the combats; but one of the combatants happening to
lose the victory by this covering's falling off, that accident was the
occasion of sacrificing modesty to convenience, and retrenching the apron
for the future. The Athletae were naked only in some exercises, as
wrestling, boxing, the pancratium, and the foot-race. They practised a
kind of novitiate in the Gymnasia for ten months, to accomplish themselves
in the several exercises by assiduous application; and this they did in
the presence of such, as curiosity or idleness conducted to look on. But
when the celebration of the Olympic games drew nigh, the Athletae who were
to appear in them were kept to double exercise.

Before they were admitted to combat, other proofs were required; as to
birth, none but Greeks were to be received. It was also necessary, that
their manners should be unexceptionable, and their condition free. No
foreigner was admitted to combat in the Olympic games; and when Alexander,
the son of Amyntas, king of Macedon, presented himself to dispute the
prize, his competitors, without any regard to the royal dignity, opposed
his reception as a Macedonian, and consequently a barbarian and a
stranger; nor could the judges be prevailed upon to admit him, till he had
proved in due form his family originally descended from the Argives.

The persons who presided in the games were called _Agonothetae_,
_Athlothetae_, and _Hellanodicae_: they registered the name and country of
each champion; and upon the opening of the games a herald proclaimed the
names of the combatants. They were then made to take an oath, that they
would religiously observe the several laws prescribed in each kind of
combat, and do nothing contrary to the established orders and regulations
of the games. Fraud, artifice, and excessive violence, were absolutely
prohibited; and the maxim so generally received elsewhere,(125) that it is
indifferent whether an enemy is conquered by deceit or valour, was
banished from these combats. The address of a combatant, expert in all the
niceties of his art, who knows how to shift and ward dexterously, to put
the change upon his adversary with art and subtlety, and to improve the
least advantages, must not be confounded here with the cowardly and
knavish cunning of one who, without regard to the laws prescribed, employs
the m