Note 451 — Chapter II · GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF VICTOR STATUES AT OLYMPIA.

I. 6. Here the historian is speaking of athletes in general; Dionysios, VII, 72 and P., I, 44.1, speak only of runners.

Scherer, p. 20, n. 1 (following Krause, I, pp. 405 and 501, n. 18) thought that the words of Thukydides (τὸ δὲ πάλαι) referred to the time antedating Ol. 15, and not later, and concluded that in wrestling (introduced in Ol. 18 = 708 B. C.) and boxing (introduced in Ol. 23 = 688 B. C.) the contestants were always nude. Boeckh, however, rightly concluded that the historian meant that in Ol. 15 only the runners laid off the loin-cloth, while other athletes did so just before his day: C. I. G., I, p. 554.