Ath. Then our herald, in accordance with the prevailing practice,will first summon the runner;-he will appear armed, for to anunarmed competitor we will not give a prize. And he shall enterfirst who is to run the single course bearing arms; next, he who is torun the double course; third, he who is to run the horse-course; andfourthly, he who is to run the long course; the fifth whom we start,shall be the first sent forth in heavy armour, and shall run acourse of sixty stadia to some temple of Ares-and we will send forthanother, whom we will style the more heavily armed, to run oversmoother ground. There remains the archer; and he shall run in thefull equipments of an archer a distance of 100 stadia overmountains, and across every sort of country, to a temple of Apollo andArtemis; this shall be the order of the contest, and we will waitfor them until they return, and will give a prize to the conquerorin each.
Cle. Very good.
Ath. Let us suppose that there are three kinds of contests-one ofboys, another of beardless youths, and a third of men. For theyouths we will fix the length of the contest at two-thirds, and forthe boys at half of the entire course, whether they contend as archersor as heavy armed. Touching the women, let the girls who are not grownup compete naked in the stadium and the double course, and thehorse-course and the long course, and let them run on therace-ground itself; those who are thirteen years of age and upwardsuntil their marriage shall continue to share in contests if they arenot more than twenty, and shall be compelled to run up to eighteen;and they shall descend into the arena in suitable dresses. Let thesebe the regulations about contests in running both for men and women.
Respecting contests of strength, instead of wrestling and similarcontests of the heavier sort, we will institute conflicts in armour ofone against one, and two against two, and so on up to ten against ten.
As to what a man ought not to suffer or do, and to what extent, inorder to gain the victory-as in wrestling, the masters of the art havelaid down what is fair and what is not fair, so in fighting inarmour-we ought to call in skilful persons, who shall judge for us andbe our assessors in the work of legislation; they shall say whodeserves to be victor in combats of this sort, and what he is not todo or have done to him, and in like manner what rule determines who isdefeated; and let these ordinances apply to women until they marriedas well as to men. The pancration shall have a counterpart in a combatof the light armed; they shall contend with bows and with lightshields and with javelins and in the throwing of stones by slingsand by hand: and laws shall be made about it, and rewards and prizesgiven to him who best fulfils the ordinances of the law.
Next in order we shall have to legislate about the horse contests.
Now we do not need many horses, for they cannot be of much use in acountry like Crete, and hence we naturally do not take great painsabout the rearing of them or about horse races. There is no one whokeeps a chariot among us, and any rivalry in such matters would bealtogether out of place; there would be no sense nor any shadow ofsense in instituting contests which are not after the manner of ourcountry. And therefore we give our prizes for single horses-forcolts who have not yet cast their teeth, and for those who areintermediate, and for the full-grown horses themselves; and thus ourequestrian games will accord with the nature of the country. Letthem have conflict and rivalry in these matters in accordance with thelaw, and let the colonels and generals of horse decide togetherabout all courses and about the armed competitors in them. But we havenothing to say to the unarmed either in gymnastic exercises or inthese contests. On the other hand, the Cretan bowman or javelin-manwho fights in armour on horseback is useful, and therefore we may aswell place a competition of this sort among amusements. Women arenot to be forced to compete by laws and ordinances; but if fromprevious training they have acquired the habit and are strong enoughand like to take part, let them do so, girls as well as boys, and noblame to them.