Although competitions for girls definitely existed, certainly in the Roman period, we find only rarely inscriptions for female athletes. While male athletes were real professionals, for girls � read rich girls � athletics could be nothing more than a hobby, as long as they were unmarried. In this text, however, we meet three young female champions, from the forties of the first century AD. Technically speaking, the monument is not a honorary inscription as for male champions � these were traditionally erected by the city � but a dedication to the god Apollo by the father of the girls. Unlike most of their competitors, these girls were semi-professionals and traveled from contest to contest. Probably, this is a classical example of the doting father who projected his ambitions for the son he never had on his three girls.

Hermesianax, son of Dionysios, citizen of Kaisarea Tralles and of Corinth, for his daughters who were citizens of the same cities:
Thryphosa was the first girl to successively win the stadion of the Pythian games under the presidency of Antigonos and Kleomachidas, and the Isthmian games under president Iuventius Proclus.
Hedea won the race for war chariots of the Isthmian games under president Cornelius Pulcher, the stadion of the Nemean games, when Antigonos was president, and in Sicyon when Menoitas presided. Afterwards she won the kithara-contest for children in the imperial games in Athens, under president Nouios, son of Philinos. As first girl ever she became [??].
Dionysia won the stadion at the ? games under the presidency of Antigonos and at the Asklapeia in Epidauros under president Neikoteles.
Monument for the Pythian Apollo.

Greek