History of the Peloponnesian War

An unpretentious costume after the present fashion was first adopted by the Lacedaemonians, and in general their wealthier men took up a style of living that brought them as far as possible into equality with the masses.

And they were the first to bare their bodies and, after stripping openly, to anoint themselves with oil when they engaged in athletic exercise; for in early times, even in the Olympic games, the athletes wore girdles about their loins in the contests, and it is not many years since the practice has ceased. Indeed, even now among some of the Barbarians, especially those of Asia, where prizes for wrestling and boxing are offered, the contestants wear loin-cloths.

And one could show that the early Hellenes had many other customs similar to those of the Barbarians of the present day.

However, the cities which were founded in more recent times, when navigation had at length become safer, and were consequently beginning to have surplus resources, were built right on the seashore, and the isthmuses[*](i.e. fortified cities were established on peninsulas, connected with the mainland by an isthmus, which was then walled off as Epidamnus (Thuc. 1.26.5) and Potidaea (Thuc. 4.120.3).) were occupied and walled off with a view to commerce and to the protection of the several peoples against their neighbours. But the older cities, both on the islands and on the mainland, were built more at a distance from the sea on account of the piracy that long prevailed—for the pirates were wont to plunder not only one another, but also any others who dwelt on the coast but were not sea-faring folk—and even to the present day they lie inland.