tand in need of a great quantity of substantial food, such as roasted beef and pork, to restore their strength. If they require only two minae a-day, with bread in proportion, they give a very favourable idea of their temperance. But several are mentioned who have made a terrible consumption of provisions. Thaegenes of Thasos, for instance, is said to have eaten a whole ox in a day. The same exploit is attributed to Milo of Crotona, whose usual quantity of food for a day was twenty minae of meat, as many of bread, and three congi of wine. It is said likewise, that Astydamas of Miletus, when at the table of Ariobarzanes... Palamedes the Persian fatrap, devoured alone the supper prepared for nine guests. These stories, no doubt exaggerated, prove at least the idea generally entertained of the voracity of this class of wrestlers. When they are able to gratify it without danger, they acquire extraordinary strength: their stature becomes sometimes gigantic; and their adversaries, struck with terror, either decline entering the lists, or sink under the weight of their enormous bodies.

"They are so oppressed by excess of nutriment as to be obliged to pass part of their lives in a profound sleep, and soon become extremely corpulent as to be no longer known to be the same persons: this is succeeded by disorders which render them as wretched as they have always been unfavourable to their country; for it cannot be denied that wrestling, boxing, and all those combats disputed with so much fury and obstinacy in the public solemnities, are no longer anything but ostentatious exhibitions, since tactics have been brought to perfection. Egypt at no time adopted them, as they give only a temporary strength. Lacedemon has corrected their inconveniences by the wisdom of her institutions. In the other states of Greece men have discovered, that, by subjecting their children to them, they incur the risk of injuring their shape and preventing their growth; and that, in a more advanced age, professed wrestlers never make good soldiers, because they are unable to support hunger, thirst, watching, the smallest wants, or the most trifling deviation from their usual habits." See Pentathlum and Pancratium.

PALASTROPHYLAX, was the director of the palaestra, and the exercises performed there.