There was no want of excitement and of circumstance about them. In the case of the four great meetings there was even a public truce proclaimed, and the competitors and visitors were guaranteed a safe journey to visit them and to return to their homes. The umpires at the Olympic games were chosen ten months before at Elis, and seem to have numbered one for each clan, varying through Greek history from two to twelve, but finally fixed at ten. They were called both here and at the other great games _Ἑλλανοδίκαι_, judges of the Hellenes, in recognition of their national character. Three superintended the pentathlon, three the horse races, and the rest the other games. They had to reside together in a public building, and undergo strict training in all the details of their business, in which they were assisted by heralds, trumpeters, stewards, etc. Their office was looked upon as of much dignity and importance. When the great day came, they sat in purple robes in the semicircular end of the racecourse—a piece of splendor which the modern Greeks imitate by dressing the judges of the new Olympic games in full evening dress and white kid gloves. The effect even now with neatly-clothed candidates is striking enough; what must it have been when a row of judges in purple looked on solemnly at a pair of men dressed in oil and dust—_i. e._, in mud—wrestling or rolling upon the ground? The crowd cheered and shouted as it now does. Pausanias mentions a number of cases where competitors were disqualified for unfairness, and in most of them the man’s city took up the quarrel, which became quite a public matter; but at the games the decision was final, nor do we hear of a case where it was afterward reversed.(131) They were also obliged to exact beforehand from each candidate an oath that he was of pure Hellenic parentage, that he had not taken, or would not take, any unfair advantage, and that he had spent ten months in strict training. This last rule I do not believe. It is absurd in itself, and is contradicted by such anecdotes as that of the sturdy plough-boy quoted above, and still more directly by the remark of Philostratos (_Γυμν._ 38), who ridicules any inquiry into the morals or training of an athlete by the judges. Its only meaning could have been to exclude random candidates, if the number was excessive, and in later times some such regulation may have subsisted, but I do not accept it for the good classical days. There is the case of a boy being rejected for looking too young and weak, and winning in the next Olympiad among the men, But in another instance the competitor disqualified (for unfairness) went mad with disappointment. Aristotle notes that it was the rarest possible occurrence for a boy champion to turn out successful among the full-grown athletes, but Pausanias seems to contradict him, a fair number of cases being cited among the selection which he makes.