Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/46

Rh V. THE TRAINING OF GREEK ATHLETES. Against specially trained athletes the better class of Greek citizens refused to compete, and the lists of the public games being thus left practically open to professionals, training became more a matter of system and study, particularly in regard to diet, which was rigorously prescribed for the athletes by a public functionary.

At one time the principal food of Greek athletes consisted of fresh cheese, dried figs, and wheaten bread. Afterward meat was introduced, generally beef or pork; but the bread and meat were taken separately, the former at breakfast and the latter at dinner. Except in wine, the quantity was unlimited, and the capacity of some of the heavy weights must have been enormous, if such stories are true as those about Milo.

Milo was not a boxer, but a wrestler. He was six times victor at the Olympian games. He was a great soldier, a successful general. He carried a four-year-old heifer on his shoulders through Olympia, and afterward eat the whole of it in one day. Poor Milo, strong as he was, died horribly