The Code of Health and Longevity

9N ATHLETIC EXERCISES. I I 9 dcrn times. The ancients occalionally ate goats flefli, which was reckoned highly nutritious, but is faid to have imparted a moft foetid and difagreeable odour to the bodies of thofe who ufed it. The preparation of meat by roafting, or broiling, was univerfally preferred to boiling, in which procefs they conceived a great part of the nutritive juices of themeat were loft in the water. Bread made of the whole flour, and unfermented {pants a%ymus)y was preferred to that prepared with leaven. I have myfelf heard a feafaring man obferve, that he was always fenfible of a diminution of mufcular llrength, when he left offthe ufe of bifcuit, and ate common bread. For breakfaft they took a little dry bread i but after the exercifes of the day were over, they always ate to fatie- ty, andwere fometimes even forced to gorge themfelves with food. Milo of Crotona is faid to have confuqued fifty pounds of folid food in one day. Their drink was water, or fome fpecjes of thick fweet wine. But they were allowed a very fmall quantity of fluid. This dry 1 diet, or^potpxyia, as it was termed, feems to have confti- tuted an eflential and important part of their regimen. They were regularly exercifed for many hours daily, in every variety of mufcular effort. Before engaging in the combat of the pancratium, or wreftling and boxing, the ikin was anointed either with oil, or with a mixture of oil and wax, termed ceroma. This was fuppofed to prevent too great a lofs by perfpiration, as well as to fupple the limbs. To grapple aman whofe Ikin was co- vered with an unduous matter of this kind was impof- lible ; they therefore rubbed themfelves with the duft that covered the palajlra. When people of rank enga­ ged in thefe contefts, they made ufe of odoriferous un­ guents, and rubbed themfelves with a peculiar kind of jpulverable earth, brought from a certain cavern near h 4 Pttteoli,