[102] To a much later period in the progress of this work I reserve a somewhat elaborate view of the history of Sicily. [103] Pausanias, in corroboration of this fact, observes, that Periboea, the daughter of Alcathous, was sent with Theseus with tribute into Crete. [104] When, according to Pausanias, it changed its manners and its language. [105] In length fifty-two geographical miles, and about twenty-eight to thirty-two broad. [106] A council of five presided over the business of the oracle, composed of families who traced their descent from Deucalion. [107] Great grandson to Antiochus, son of Hercules.--Pausanias, l. 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. The cestus itself made of thongs of leather, was evidently meant not to increase the severity of the blow, but for the prevention of foul play by the antagonists laying hold of each other, or using the open hand. I believe that the iron bands and leaden plummets were Roman inventions, and unknown at least till the later Olympic games. Even in the pancratium, the fiercest of all the contests--for it seems to have united wrestling with boxing (a struggle of physical strength, without the precise and formal laws of the boxing and wrestling matches), it was forbidden to kill an enemy, to injure his eyes, or to use the teeth. [114] Even to the foot-race, in which many of the competitors were of the lowest rank, the son of Amyntas, king of Macedon, was not admitted till he had proved an Argive descent. He was an unsuccessful competitor.