There were exceptions to the rule of nudity. Statues of charioteers were usually partly or wholly dressed in the long chiton, a custom explained in various ways.[453] The Delphi bronze _Charioteer_ (Fig. 66) is a good example of a draped one. Another _auriga_ almost nude is shown on a decadrachm of Akragas in the British Museum, dating from the end of the fifth century B. C.[454] There are also several examples of nude charioteers.[455] The Olympic runners and athletes generally were also bareheaded and barefoot. The only exceptions were the hoplite-runners, who wore helmets, and possibly charioteers, who wore sandals.[456] Statues of women victors also were draped. Though Ionian women could witness games,[457] and Spartan girls took part in athletic contests with boys,[458] women were rigorously excluded from crossing the Alpheios during the festival at Olympia.[459] They were allowed, however, to enter horses for the chariot-race and, if victorious, to set up monuments.[460] Only one woman was allowed to witness the games, the priestess of the old earth cult of Demeter Chamyne, who could sit at the altar in the stadion during the contests.[461] Pausanias notes but one exception of a woman infringing the rule of admission, Pherenike, the mother of the Rhodian victor Peisirhodos already mentioned. She was pardoned because her father, brothers, and son were victors, but the umpires passed a law that thereafter even trainers should be nude.[462] While excluded from the games proper, women had their own festival at Olympia in honor of Hera, which was known as the _Heraia_. These games occurred every four years[463] and included a foot-race between virgins, in which the course was one-sixth less than the stadion. The victress received an olive crown and also a share of the cow sacrificed to Hera, and was allowed to set up a painted picture of herself in the Heraion.[464] It has been generally assumed that the statue of a girl runner in the Galleria dei Candelabri of the Vatican represents one of these victresses (Plate 2),[465] since Pausanias says they ran with their hair down and wore a tunic which reached to just above the knees, leaving the right shoulder bare to the breast. That the statue represents a girl runner seems certain,[466] but that it can be referred to one of the Olympic girl victresses is doubtful. The description of Pausanias fits it in many respects, except that the chiton of the statue is too short, and he does not mention the girdle just below the bosom. Furthermore, he does not mention statues of girl victresses, but only pictures. Nothing can be argued from the palm-branch on the tree-stump, except that the Roman copyist thought it the statue of a victress. It does not necessarily refer to a victress at Olympia, for Pausanias elsewhere says that the palm-branch was given at many contests.[467] The statue represents a young girl leaning forward awaiting the signal to start,[468] but it is impossible to say