Just as soldiers on returning from successful campaigns might dedicate their spoils of victory, victors in athletic contests might consecrate to the gods their prizes. In the Homeric poems we have no certain evidence of such a custom. A Delphic tripod was ascribed to Diomedes and possibly this was a prize won at the funeral games in honor of Patroklos.[159] The first literary example of such a dedication of which we are certain is the prize tripod dedicated to the Helikonian Muses by Hesiod.[160] Frequently such dedications were tripods; thus a Pythian tripod was dedicated to Herakles at Thebes by the Arkadian musician Echembrotos in 586 B. C.;[161] a tripod was dedicated in the sixth century B. C. or perhaps earlier at Athens for some acrobatic or juggling trick;[162] a victorious boxer dedicated one at Thebes.[163] It became customary by the fifth century B. C. for victors at the _Triopia_ to offer prize tripods to Apollo.[164] Tripods or fragments of them have been found at Olympia[165] and elsewhere. Many other objects were also offered.[166] Sometimes a victor would dedicate the object by which he won his victory instead of his prize, just as a soldier might dedicate his arms instead of his spoils of war. Certain types of victors, _e. g._, those especially in running, the race in armor, singing, etc., would be excluded from making such dedications owing to the nature of the contest. Pausanias[167] tells us, for instance, that twenty-five bronze shields were kept in the temple of Zeus at Olympia for the use of hoplite runners, which shows that these runners did not use all at least of their own armor. In some cases diskoi were lent to pentathletes. Pausanias[168] says that three quoits were kept in the treasury of the Sikyonians at Olympia for use in the pentathlon. There are, however, as we shall see, instances of quoits being dedicated by victors. The pentathlete might consecrate either his diskos, javelin, or jumping-weights.[169] Perhaps the huge red-sandstone block of the sixth century B. C., weighing 315 pounds and inscribed with the name and feat of Bybon, may have been such an _ex voto_,[170] since Pausanias says the contestants at Olympia originally used stones for quoits.[171] A stone, weighing 480 kilograms (about 1,056 pounds), was found on Thera, inscribed “Eumastos raised me from the ground.”[172] Poplios (Publius) Asklepiades, who won the pentathlon at Olympia in the third century A. D.,[173] dedicated a bronze diskos to Zeus, showing the old custom was kept up till late. Many bronze diskoi have been found in the excavations of the Altis.[174] We have instances of the dedication of jumping-weights (ἁλτῆρες).[175] Examples of dedicated strigils have been found at Olympia.[176] Torches were dedicated at Athens.[177] Actors dedicated their masks,[178] while some of the ivory lyres and plectra conserved in the Parthenon were probably offerings of musical victors at the Panathenaic games.[179]