Little is known of the methods of training employed by Greek runners. The gymnasia at Olympia and Delphi were provided with running tracks corresponding in length to the actual stadia, and that at Olympia was provided with grooved starting sills. Thus the runners could practise the start, and, what was equally important, the turn, under the same conditions as obtained in competition. To gain endurance they ran in heavy sand. Aristotle mentions as an exercise practised in the palaestra running or rather waddling on the knees![527] At a later date we learn from Epictetus that the training for the long-distance runner was different from that of the sprinter in its regulations for diet, massage, and food; but he gives us no details.[528] Philostratus tells us that the long-distance runner instead of training over the whole course would run eight or ten stades only, a practice quite in accord with that of the present day.[529] In those degenerate days athletes had also recourse to quack medicines and charms. A concoction of equisetum was recommended as a cure for the stitch, and some runners for a similar purpose wore a girdle of horses’ teeth. Athletes have always been superstitious.[530] Footnote 456: Krause, _Gym._ p. 348. Footnote 457: Bacchylides, ix. τετραέλικτον ἐπεὶ κάμψεν δρόμον; Eurip. _Electra_, 825; Pausanias, vi. 16, 4; Ditt. _Syll._ 2nd Ed., 676. Footnote 458: _Leg._ viii. 833, C, D. Footnote 459: Pausanias, v. 16, 2. Footnote 460: _Ol. Inschr._ 56. Footnote 461: Pausanias, vi. 14, 1. Footnote 462: _Ib._ 15, 1. Footnote 463: _Ib._ 2, 10. Footnote 464: Mie, _Quaestiones Agonisticae_, p. 48; Ditt. _Syll._ 2nd. Ed., 677, 678. Footnote 465: Roberts and Gardner, _Greek Epigraphy_, ii. p. 166. Footnote 466: _C.I.G._ 1590. Footnote 467: Ditt. _Syll._ 2nd Ed., 524. Footnote 468: _I.G._ ii. 444. Footnote 469: Pausanias, v. 16, 2. Footnote 470: In _J.H.S._ xxiii. p. 266 I have myself made the mistake. Footnote 471: These figures are drawn up from the tables given in Hyde’s _De Olympionicarum Statuis_. Footnote 472: _I.G._ ii. 965. _Vide supra_, p. 234. Footnote 473: Mr. R. E. Macnaghten, in a very suggestive paper in the _Classical Review_, xxi. p. 13, attributes to the Athenians the degradation in meaning of all words denoting toil, among which he cites ἄθλιος. Footnote 474: Bacchylides, ix. Footnote 475: Krause, _Gym._ p. 362. Footnote 476: Pomtow, _Poetae Lyrici Graeci Minores_, ii. p. 154 βαλβῖδι ποδῶν θέντες πόδα παρ πόδα. Julian, 318. Footnote 477: Aristophanes, _Eq._ 1161. Footnote 478: Sophocles, _El._ 711. Footnote 479: Hdt. viii. 59. Footnote 480: