but was freed because of his exploits at Olympia.[348] The honor in which a victor was held may also be judged by the story of the Spartan ephor Cheilon, who died of joy while embracing his victorious son Damagetos.[349] To quote from Ernest Gardner: “The extraordinary, almost super-human honours paid to the victors at the great national contests made them a theme for the sculptor hardly less noble than gods and heroes, and more adapted for the display of his skill, as trained by the observation of those exercises which led to the victory.”[350] Some of the greatest artists were employed, and great poets from Simonides of Keos down, including such names as Bacchylides and Pindar, were employed in singing their praises. Although it must be confessed that the majority of the artists of victor statues at Olympia are little known or wholly unknown masters, Pausanias mentions among them such renowned names as Hagelaïdas, Pythagoras, Kalamis, Myron, Polykleitos, Lysippos, and possibly Pheidias. Certain other great names, however, are absent from his lists, _e. g._, Euphranor, Kresilas, Praxiteles, and Skopas. Such extravagant reverence of Olympic and other victors as we have outlined met, of course, with violent protests all through Greek history, just as the excessive popularity of athletics has in our time. The philosopher Xenophanes of Kolophon, who died 480 B. C., was scandalized at the offering of divine honors to athletes.[351] While he denounced the popularity of athletics, Euripides later denounced the professionalism which had begun to creep in after the middle of the fifth century B. C.[352] Plato, though a strong advocate of practical physical training for war, was opposed to the vain spirit of competition in the athletics of his day. He complained that professional athletes paid excessive attention to diet, slept their lives away, and were in danger of becoming brutalized.[353] The last attack on professional athletics in point of time was made in the second century A. D. by Galen, in his _Exhortation to the Arts_.[354] In this essay the eminent physician contended that the athlete was a benefit neither to himself nor to the state. When we study the brutal portraits of prize-fighters on the contemporary mosaics of the Baths of Caracalla at Rome, we can see to what depths the old athletic ideal had sunk, and the justness of his rebuke.[355] VOTIVE CHARACTER OF VICTOR DEDICATIONS.