That chariot and hippic monuments were votive in character can scarcely be doubted. Pausanias distinguishes between gymnic victors and equestrian ones.[356] All authorities agree that equestrian monuments were different in origin and character from those of other victors.[357] Gardiner believes that if the Olympic games developed out of a single event, it was not the stade-race, but the chariot-race or heavy-armed-race. He shows that the custom of making the stade runner eponymous for the Olympiad is not earlier than the third century B. C., and did not arise from the importance of that event, but from the accident of its coming first on the program and first on the list of victors.[358] Equestrian monuments were dedicated at Olympia all through antiquity, from the sixth century B. C. to the second A. D. The oldest was that of the Spartan Euagoras already mentioned, who won in the chariot-race three times in Ols. (?) 58-60 (= 548-540 B. C.).[359] The latest dated example is that of L. Minicius Natalis of Rome, who won in Ol. 227 (= 129 A .D.).[360] Some of the inscriptions pertaining to equestrian groups are in verse,[361] while others are in prose.[362] Most of them have the usual dedicatory word ἀνέθηκε,[363] or the formula Διὶ Ὀλυμπίῳ,[364] while others have the word ἔστησε[365] and a few have no dedicatory word at all.[366] The question arises, then, whether ordinary victor monuments in the Altis were votive in the sense that these equestrian ones were, or merely honors granted to the victors. The crown of wild olive was merely a temporary reward suiting the occasion of the victory. The privilege of setting up a statue was granted in order to perpetuate the fame of that occasion. In a well-known passage Pausanias makes a sweeping generalization about monuments at Athens and Olympia.[367] He says that all objects on the Akropolis—including statues—were ἀναθήματα or votive offerings, while some of those at Olympia were dedicated to the god, but that the statues of athletes were mere prizes of victory. In another passage[368] also, in distinguishing the various sorts of monuments at Olympia, he expressly says that the statues of athletes were not devoted to Zeus, but were marks of honor (ἐν ἄθλου λόγῳ) bestowed on the victors. These statements of the Periegete have given rise to a good deal of fruitless discussion. Furtwaengler follows Pausanias in saying that the right of setting up statues was _ein wesentlicher Theil des Siegespreises_.[369] That such erections at Olympia were considered as high honors is implied by the wording of many of the inscriptions which have been recovered from the bases of the statues. Thus on that of the boxer Euthymos are the words εἰκόνα δ’ ἔστησεν τήνδε βροτοῖς ἐσορᾶν.[370] Furtwaengler, therefore, has promulgated the theory that the victor statues at Olympia were in no sense votive, though they were considered to be the property of the god in whose grove they stood. He cites the fact that the inscribed bases