a race seeks by training to reduce all superfluity of flesh, and in the contest lays aside all undue confidence and every encumbrance of dress. There can be little doubt that the image is taken from the immediate preparation for the decisive effort, so that the first sense is inapplicable, and it is hardly possible that ἀποθέσθαι ὄγκον could be used of the effects of training. The last interpretation is in every way the most appropriate. The writer seems to have in his mind the manifold encumbrances