“Ranged in a line the ready racers stand, Pelides points the barrier with his hand. All start at once, Oileus led the race; The next Ulysses, measuring pace with pace, Behind him diligently close he sped, As closely following as the mazy thread The spindle follows, and displays the charms Of the fair spinster’s breast and moving arms. Graceful in motion, thus his foe he plies, And treads each footstep ere the dust can rise; The glowing breath upon his shoulder plays, Th’ admiring Greeks loud acclamations raise, To him they give their wishes, heart, and eyes, And send their souls before him as he flies. Now three times turned, in prospect of the goal, The panting chief to Pallas lifts his soul; Assist, O Goddess, (thus in thought he prayed,) And present at his thought descends the maid; Buoyed by her heavenly force he seems to swim, And feels a pinion lifting every limb.” Footnote 660: Accumenes, the friend of Socrates, advised persons to walk on the high-road in preference to the places of exercise, as being less fatiguing and more beneficial.—Plat. Phæd. t. i. p. 3. On the rapidity of public runners see Herod. vi. 106. Cf. on the Pentathlon West, Dissert. on the Olympic Games, p. 77. They appear to have acquired so equable and steady a pace that time was measured by their movements, as distance is by that of caravans in the East. Thus Dioscorides, ii. 96. gives direction that gall should be boiled while a person could run three stadia. Footnote 661: Il. ψ. 754. sqq. Cf. Odyss. η. 119.—As an illustration of the necessity there was of going through all the various exercises, it is mentioned by Xenophon that runners had large legs, wrestlers small ones.—Conviv. ii. 17. Next in the natural order, proceeding from the simplest to the most artificial exercises, was leaping, in which the youth among the Greeks delighted to excel. In the performance of this exercise they usually sprang from an artificial elevation (βατὴρ), and descended upon the soft mould, which, when ploughed up with their heels, was termed ἐσκαμμένα.[662] The better to poise their bodies and enable them to bound to a greater distance, they carried in their hands metallic weights, denominated _halteres_,[663] in the form of a semi disk, having on their inner faces handles like the thong of a shield, through which the fingers were passed. Extraordinary feats are related of these ancient leapers. Chionis the Spartan and Phaÿllos the Crotonian, being related to have cleared at one bound the space of fifty-two, or according to others, of fifty-five feet. Footnote 662: Poll. iii. 151. Footnote 663: Paus. v. 26. 3; 27. 12. With the latter account agrees the inscription on the Crotonian’s statue: