their greatest efficiency unless the competitors are armed. The runner
should enter the lists in armour, and in the races which our heralds
proclaim, no prize is to be given except to armed warriors. Let there be
six courses--first, the stadium; secondly, the diaulos or double course;
thirdly, the horse course; fourthly, the long course; fifthly, races (1)
between heavy-armed soldiers who shall pass over sixty stadia and
finish at a temple of Ares, and (2) between still more heavily-armed
competitors who run over smoother ground; sixthly, a race for archers,
who shall run over hill and dale a distance of a hundred stadia, and
their goal shall be a temple of Apollo and Artemis. There shall be three
contests of each kind--one for boys, another for youths, a third for
men; the course for the boys we will fix at half, and that for the
youths at two-thirds of the entire length. Women shall join in the
races: young girls who are not grown up shall run naked; but after
thirteen they shall be suitably dressed; from thirteen to eighteen they
shall be obliged to share in these contests, and from eighteen to twenty
they may if they please and if they are unmarried. As to trials of
strength, single combats in armour, or battles between two and two, or
of any number up to ten, shall take the place of wrestling and the heavy
exercises. And there must be umpires, as there are now in wrestling,
to determine what is a fair hit and who is conqueror. Instead of the
pancratium, let there be contests in which the combatants carry bows
and wear light shields and hurl javelins and throw stones. The next
provision of the law will relate to horses, which, as we are in Crete,
need be rarely used by us, and chariots never; our horse-racing prizes
will only be given to single horses, whether colts, half-grown, or
full-grown. Their riders are to wear armour, and there shall be a
competition between mounted archers. Women, if they have a mind, may
join in the exercises of men.