Running races formed at all times a part of the Greek games and of the exercises of the youth in the gymnasia and palæstræ. A scholiast on Pindar[1389] says that the running race had its origin in the first celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries. It figures largely in mythology, especially at Olympia, which also shows its antiquity.[1390] In historic times many varieties of running developed, but four chief ones were practised at the great games.[1391] First there was the simple stade-race (στάδιον, δρόμος), which was merely the length of the stadion or 600 Greek feet, corresponding with the running race of Homer.[1392] Then there was the double race (δίαυλος), twice as long as the preceding, to the end of the course and back again.[1393] The long race (δόλιχος, ὁ μακρὸς δρόμος), which Philostratos derives from the institution of messenger runners (_hemerodromoi_),[1394] is variously given as seven, twelve, fourteen, twenty, and twenty-four stades in length, _i. e._, from about four-fifths of a mile to nearly three miles.[1395] Lastly there was the race in armor (ὁπλιτοδρόμος,[1396] ὁπλίτης,[1397] ἀσπίς.[1398]) The long race was instituted not so much as a contest of fleetness as of endurance. At Olympia only men were admitted, though there was such a race for boys at Delphi.[1399] The Cretans were famed in this style of running.[1400] The race in armor, which was a double race or two stades at Olympia, we shall discuss further on. Probably the boys’ stade-race at Olympia was shorter than that of the men. Plato, who gives the historic division of running races outlined above, has the boys run one-half of the men’s course and the ephebes (ἀγένειοι) two-thirds.[1401] Just so Pausanias has the girl runners at the Olympia _Heraia_ run one-sixth of the men’s stadion.[1402] At Olympia, as at the _Panathenaia_ in Athens and probably elsewhere, the first event preceding all others was the stade-race. Pausanias says that it was the oldest event at Olympia,[1403] and it existed there all through antiquity from the first recorded Olympiad (= 776 B. C.), when Koroibos of Elis won.[1404] But the notion generally held[1405] that the stade-race for men was honored above all other events at Olympia, because the winner became ἐπώνυμος for the Olympiad and because his name occurs in the lists of Africanus for every Olympiad, is incorrect. In two passages Thukydides cites Olympic pancratiasts for dates,[1406] and in the earliest inscription which makes use of Olympiads for chronology the later introduced pankration is the event used.[1407] The literary supremacy of Athens, where, at the _Panathenaia_, the stade-race was the most important event, doubtless helped later in making the stade runner at Olympia eponymous. This custom, however, was not generally employed before the third century B. C. [Illustration: FIG. 36.—Athletic Scenes from a Bacchic Amphora in Rome. A. Stadiodromoi and Leaper. B. Diskobolos and Akontistai.]