Note 39 — Chapter I · EARLY GREEK GAMES AND PRIZES.

The true hoplomachia described by Homer and later practised by the Mantineans and Kyreneans (cf. Athenæus, IV, 41, p. 154) should not be confounded, as Gardiner, p. 21, n. 3, remarks, with the later competition of the same name held at the Athenian Theseia and taught in the gymnasia, which was a purely military exercise like fencing: Plato, Laches, 182B and passim; Gorgias, 456D; de Leg., 833E; cf. Dar.-Sagl., s. v. Hoplomachia.