History of the Peloponnesian War

And they were the first who stripped themselves, and undressing in public, smeared themselves with grease, [*]( The rude original of the κήρωμα in later times.) in their gymnastic exercises. And formerly even at the Olympic games the combatants contended with girdles round their middle; and it is not many years since it ceased to be so. Nay even now amongst some of the barbarians, and especially those of Asia, prizes for boxing and wrestling are given, and they wear girdles when they contend for them.

And in many other respects also one might show that the ancient Greeks lived in a manner similar to the barbarians of the present age

Of the cities, again, such as were founded most recently and when there were now greater facilities of navigation, having greater abundance of wealth, they were built with walls on the very shores; and occupied isthmuses, with a view both to commerce and to security against their several neighbours: whereas the old ones, owing to the [*]( Goeller reads ἀντισχοῦσαι instead of ἀντισχοῦσαν, which he pronounces inexplicable, and interprets it thus, Veteres urbes ob latrocinia, post quam diu et restiterunt et perduraverunt, longius a mari conditae sunt. ) long continuance of piracy, were built farther off from the sea, both those in the islands and those on the mainlands; (for they used to plunder one another, and all the rest who lived by the sea without being seamen;) and even to the present day they are built inland.

And the islanders especially were pirates, being Carians and Phoenicians. For it was these that had colonized most of the islands. And this is a proof of it:—When Delos was purified by the Athenians in the course of this war, and all the sepulchres of those who had died in the island were taken up, above half were found to be Carians; being known by the fashion of the arms buried with them, and by the manner in which they still bury.