diskoi in their hands or, driving their fists through the foemen’s shields, cast them out of their land? Crowns should be given to the good and wise, to him who guides his city best, a temperate man and just, or who by his words drives away evil deeds, putting away war and faction.” How did the Athenians in the theatre receive this daring denunciation of their idols? Many, at least, with sympathy, and among the number, I believe, would have been the poet’s inveterate foe, Aristophanes. While athletics were passing into the hands of professionals and losing their hold upon the people, the richer classes devoted themselves more and more to chariot and horse races. These had long been the sport of tyrants and nobles; especially brilliant were the victories of the tyrants of Sicily and Italy at Olympia. But the Persian wars gave a fresh impulse to horse-breeding and riding in Greece. Cavalry and light-armed troops played a more and more important part in war. Themistocles, we are told, himself taught his sons to ride, to throw javelins standing on horseback, and perform other equestrian feats.[168] At the Panathenaea, besides a variety of races for chariots and horses, there were parades, processions, and military manœuvres on horseback. The frieze of the Parthenon bears witness to the grace and skill of the Athenian horsemen. The horsiness of the fashionable young Athenian is ridiculed by Aristophanes.[169] He spent large sums on horses, affected horsy names, and talked of horses all the day long. Alcibiades entered no less than seven chariots at Olympia in 416 B.C., and obtained first, second, and fourth places in the race.[170] He celebrated his success by entertaining the whole assembly at a sumptuous banquet. At Sparta chariot-racing had long been popular; one Euagoras in the sixth century had won the chariot-race in three successive Olympiads with the same team, and King Damaratus himself had won a victory there. After the Persian wars the Spartans gave increased attention to horse-breeding; their victories were frequent, and their enthusiasm for the sport is shown by the story of Lichas. Their victories at the Panathenaea are proved by the recent discovery at Sparta of a number of Panathenaic vases representing the chariot-race,[171] and an inscription detailing the victories of one Damonon in chariot and horse racing records the fact that his horses were got by his own stallion out of his own mares.[172] The addiction of the Spartans to chariot-racing did not meet with the approval of Agesilaus, if we may believe Plutarch’s story about his sister Cynisca, who won the chariot-race in Ol. 96, 97.