23
You, therefore, being well aware that slaves and aliens share in the other sports but that dismounting is open only to citizens and that the best men aspire it, have eagerly applied yourself to this sport.The contestants were called apobates, desultores, i.e. dismounters. The drivers seem to have dismounted at times and raced with the teams. Dion. Halicarn. Roman Antiq. 7.73; E. Norman Gardiner, Greek Athletic Sports and Festivals, pp. 237-239.
24
Discerning, moreover, that those who train for the footraces add nothing to their courage nor to their morale either, and that those who practice boxing and the like ruin their minds as well as their bodies, you have singled out the noblest and grandest of competitive exercises and the one most in harmony with your natural gifts, one which approximates to the realities of warfare through the habituation to martial weapons and the laborious effort of running, in the magnificence and majesty of the equipment simulates the might of the gods,Certain gods were represented as using chariots, particularly Ares and Poseidon.
