[e] It is a fact well known, that in Greece the most illustrious of both sexes thought it honourable to exercise themselves in the exhibitions of the theatre, and even to appear in the athletic games. Plutarch, it is true, will have it, that all scenic arts were prohibited at Sparta by the laws of Lycurgus; and yet Cornelius Nepos assures us, that no Lacedæmonian matron, however high her quality, was ashamed to act for hire on the public stage. He adds, that throughout Greece, it was deemed the highest honour to obtain the prize in the Olympic games, and no man blushed to be a performer in plays and pantomimes, and give himself a spectacle to the people. _Nulla Lacedæmoni tam est nobilis vidua, quæ non in scenam eat mercede conducta. Magnis in laudibus totâ fuit Græciâ, victorem Olympiæ citari. In scenam vero prodire, et populo esse spectaculo nemini in iisdem gentibus fuit turpitudini._ Cor. Nep. _in Præfat._ It appears, however, from a story told by Ælian and cited by Shaftesbury, _Advice to an Author_, part ii. s. 3, that the Greek women were by law excluded from the Olympic games. Whoever was found to transgress, or even to cross the river Alpheus, during the celebration of that great spectacle, was liable to be thrown from a rock. The consequence was, that not one female was detected, except _Callipatria_, or, as others called her, _Pherenicè_. This woman, disguised in the habit of a teacher of gymnastic exercises, introduced her son, _Pisidorus_, to contend for the victor's prize. Her son succeeded. Transported with joy at a sight so glorious, the mother overleaped the fence, which enclosed the magistrates, and, in the violence of that exertion, let fall her garment. She was, by consequence, known to be a woman, but absolved from all criminality. For that mild and equitable sentence, she was indebted to the merit of her father, her brothers, and her son, who all obtained the victor's crown. The incident, however, gave birth to a new law, whereby it was enacted, that the masters of the gymnastic art should, for the future, come naked to the Olympic games. _Ælian_ lib. x. cap. 1; and see _Pausanias_, lib. v. cap. 6. [f] Nicostratus is praised by Pausanias (lib. v. cap. 20), as a great master of the athletic arts. Quintilian has also recorded his prowess. "Nicostratus, whom in our youth we saw advanced in years, would instruct his pupil in every branch of his art, and make him, what he was himself, an invincible champion. Invincible he was, since, on one and the same day, he entered the lists as a wrestler and a boxer, and was proclaimed conqueror in both." _Ac si fuerit qui docebitur, ille, quem adolescentes vidimus, Nicostratus, omnibus in eo docendi partibus similiter uteretur; efficietque illum, qualis hic fuit, luctando pugnandoque quorum utroque in certamine iisdem diebus coronabatur invictum._ Quint. lib, ii. cap. 8. Section XI.