to what games we should refer it. There were girls’ contests in and out of Greece—such as at the _Dionysia_ in Sparta[469] and in her colony Kyrene.[470] Such games were also held in the stadion of Domitian at Rome.[471] In fact the Palatine estate of the Barberini, from whom the Vatican acquired the statue, embraced the area of the old stadion of Domitian on the Palatine. It is probably of Doric workmanship, as it certainly represents a Dorian victress, though not necessarily by a Peloponnesian sculptor.[472] THE ATHLETIC HAIR-FASHION. [Illustration: PLATE 2 Marble Statue of a Girl Runner. Vatican Museum, Rome.] The assumption long held that short hair was always characteristic of the athlete is incorrect.[473] It is controverted equally by literary evidence and by the monuments. The Homeric Greek took pride in his long hair,[474] and doubtless the contestants at the games of Patroklos in the Iliad had long hair. Long hair was worn by some Athenians throughout Athenian history. From the end of the fifth century B. C., long hair was regarded as a mark of effeminacy[475] and was regularly worn only by the knights.[476] Short hair was worn as a sign of mourning in Athens from early days down.[477] Only the slaves regularly wore very short hair in the fifth century B. C.[478] The change to short hair in Athens was certainly due to the influence of the palæstra and to athletics in general.[479] We see just the opposite custom in vogue in Sparta. There, according to the code of Lykourgos,[480] men were compelled to wear long hair and children short hair. Thus the heroes of Leonidas entered the battle of Thermopylæ after combing their long locks.[481] After the Persian wars only children and men with laconizing or aristocratic sympathies[482] wore their hair long at Athens. When boys arrived at the age of ἔφηβοι, they had their hair cut at the feast of the οἰνιστήρια[483] and dedicated it to a god.[484] Soon after the Persian war period, athletes wore their hair short. Before that time, the wearing of long hair had already been discarded for obvious reasons in wrestling.[485] Similarly, in boxing and the pankration long hair was in the way, and was therefore early braided into two long plaits which were wound around the head in a peculiar way and tied into a knot at the top, the so-called Attic κρωβύλος, the oftenest mentioned manner of dressing the hair in Greek literature.[486] The oldest notice of this style of wearing the hair is found in a fragment of Asios.[487] Herakleides Ponticus[488] says it was used up to the time of the Persian wars. The _locus classicus_ is in Thukydides, who says it was worn in his day by old people only.[489] Earlier young men wore it,[490] but it went out of fashion between 470 and 460 B. C. In this connection we should mention that the professional athlete under the Roman Empire wore his hair uncut and tied up in an unsightly topknot known as the _cirrus_.[491]