The Project Gutenberg eBook of Greek Athletics, by F. A. Wright This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: Greek Athletics Author: F. A. Wright Release Date: June 7, 2021 [eBook #65554] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 Produced by: Al Haines, Chuck Greif & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREEK ATHLETICS *** {2} THE AGIAS OF LYSIPPUS (Delphi) Greek Athletics by F. A. Wright London Jonathan Cape Ltd FIRST PUBLISHED IN MCMXXV MADE & PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY BUTLER & TANNER LTD FROME AND LONDON CONTENTS PREFACE 9 1. ATHLETICS AND ATHLETIC FESTIVALS 13 2. GYMNASTICS AND MILITARY TRAINING 28 3. PHYSICAL EDUCATION 61 4. HEALTH AND BODILY EXERCISE 83 5. GALEN’S TREATISE ON THE SMALL BALL 108 {3} {4} {5} I SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 123 ILLUSTRATIONS THE AGIAS OF LYSIPPUS (Delphi) Frontispiece THE WRESTLERS (Uffizi Gallery, Florence) 30 A WRESTLING CONTEST (Athens) 36 THE DISKOBOLOS OF MYRON 40 INDOOR SPORTS (Athens) 76 THE VICTORY OF PAIONIOS (Olympia) 104 THE THROW-IN AT THE SMALL BALL GAME (Athens) 110 A HOCKEY MATCH (Statue base discovered at Athens, 1922) 116 PREFACE N a previous volume[A] an attempt was made to set out the principles followed by the Greeks in the three sister arts of acting, music, and painting; and to show how in some respects we have failed to improve upon their practice. It is perhaps doubtful whether the mass of our countrymen will ever take a very deep interest in the laws that govern the right use of colour, sound, and gesture; and even if our inferiority in art were proved, it is probable that the position would be regarded with equanimity. But as regards athletics the case is different; and it is with some hesitation that in this book, after giving a brief account of Greek gymnastics and physical training, I have ventured to raise the question whether Greek systems of bodily culture were not in some ways superior to ours, and whether on the whole the Athenians of the fifth century b.c. were not a finer and a healthier people than are the Englishmen of to-day. Before the year 1914 such doubts might never have presented themselves. But one of the many unpleasant truths that the War revealed was that the physical condition of our average middle-aged citizen was very far from being what it should be. Indeed, anyone whose business it was then to examine recruits, if he was at all familiar with the work of Greek sculptors, must often have noticed with positive pain the difference that was apparent between the figure of the typical Greek athlete and the figure of the typical English town- dweller. The reasons for this poverty of physique were manifold—city life, alcohol, nicotine, sedentary occupations, unsuitable food among the most frequent—but there was one that overshadowed all the rest, a complete ignorance of the structure and functions of the human body. Accompanying this ignorance nearly always came an utter lack of acquaintance with the elementary principles of gymnastics. There were very few men who did not take a passionate interest in the progress of some football team, and there were equally few who had ever given any intelligent thought to their own physical condition. Games have certainly been of immense value to modern England, and we have succeeded in making of them a real instrument of moral education. On the cricket and the football field our national qualities of individual initiative and cheerful obedience have been developed, the virtues of courage, endurance, and self-control fostered. But the average man to-day is inclined to take games too seriously, and to the competitive element in them he attaches an altogether absurd importance. In cricket, football, or tennis it really makes little difference which side wins, as long as all the participants get their due share of exercise. The true object of a game is not to secure runs or points or goals, but rather to develop and increase the strength of every part of our body. On the other hand, gymnastics, in their widest sense, are not taken seriously enough. It is the duty, and it should be the pleasure, of every man and woman amongst us to make themselves as healthy and as beautiful as Nature meant them to be. For this purpose the playing—not of course the mere watching—of games has a definite value, but it does not take the place of a properly devised system of gymnastic exercises. Knowledge of the right methods is here of the first importance, and I therefore dedicate this book to our real experts in physical science, the gymnastic instructors of His Majesty’s Army. 1 Athletics and Athletic Festivals {6} {7} {8} {9} {10} {11} {12} {13} ATHLETICS, whether ancient or modern, is a wide term covering a large field of bodily activities, while the boundaries between sport and athletics are often hard to fix. But we may safely distinguish four main branches of physical energy. 1. Athletics proper, where the essential feature is the competition with its almost invariable concomitant the prize,—athlon; the two things going so closely together that, as in the ‘Grand Prix,’ the same word is used for race and reward. 2. Gymnastics, the training of the body by a system of exercises in which the naked limbs are allowed free play. Competition is here often replaced by united action, and there is a close connexion with the sister arts of music and medicine. 3. Drill, the particular form of bodily training which is necessary to fit a man for the duties of a soldier. It includes all the varieties of military exercise and practice with arms, and differs from athletics and gymnastics in that its formal purpose is purely utilitarian. 4. Games of various kinds, played either singly or in company, and usually requiring some sort of implement, a ball, a stick, or a hoop. The elements of competition and united effort are usually present, but a prize is not essential. The history of organized athletics in Greece is a very long one, and extends for some twelve hundred years. The Olympic register of winners in the foot-race begins 776 b.c., this year being taken as the first Olympiad when, in the third century b.c., the Olympic register came into use as the recognized method of reckoning dates. From 776 b.c. to a.d. 217 the list, as drawn up by Julius Africanus, has been preserved intact for us by Eusebius. In the third century of our era the Roman Empire, attacked by Goths, was forced to call in the Greeks to fight once more for their native land, and even when the invading hordes were repulsed the effects of their ravages were still felt. The Olympic games, as a permanent institution, apparently ceased after the Gothic invasion, and the policy of Constantine hastened the process of decay. Christianity, now the official religion, looked with little favour on the ancient festivals, and finally Theodosius I, probably on the advice of St. Ambrose, in a.d. 393 abolished the games by imperial edict, the last Olympic victor known to history being a certain Armenian knight, a man of gigantic strength, named Varaztad. There is hardly any other Greek institution which had so long a career. Through the centuries, from the age of the tyrants to the great era of the free States; from the rise of Macedonia to supremacy, through the troubled years of the Achæan and Ætolian Leagues; while Greece lay crushed under the rule of the Roman Senate and while it had its brief revival of prosperity under the Roman Empire; in spite of every vicissitude of fortune, year by year the Olympic games took place. There is something impressive in this continuity which links together periods otherwise so different, and historians have laid full stress on the services that Olympia rendered in emphasizing the sense of national unity and goodwill. But exaggeration is very possible here, and no one can say that these athletic festivals created or maintained an atmosphere of peace among the constantly warring Greek States, any more than that their recent revival as an international event has succeeded in bringing harmony to our modern empires. The chief benefit of all these gatherings is the stimulus they afford to local and national patriotism; but whether the dangers of such competitions are not greater than the advantages is a question still undecided, and it may be useful to remember that in Greece, despite the general popularity of athletics, the two leading States, Athens and Sparta, during the greatest period of their history held somewhat aloof. The reasons that actuated them were different: for Athens, athletics were too specialized; for Sparta, they were not specialized enough. But the fact remains that the two cities which give to us most of what is valuable in Greek culture took but little interest in this particular organization. The Athenian, in his indifference, was influenced probably by various currents of thought. There was the old Ionian vein of softness, which made the arduous straining of the athlete distasteful and led to the formation of the adjective athlios, ‘distressful,’ from the noun athlon; the spirit that regarded work as a ‘plaguy nuisance,’ the carrying of burdens as ‘vulgar,’ and any form of manual labour as beneath the dignity of a gentleman. There was also the finer feeling that the excessive pursuit of athletics tended to coarsen rather than to refine the human body by developing particular muscles at the expense of general grace, and thus destroying that eutrapelia, the ready nimbleness of mind and limb, which the Athenian valued most. Lastly, there was the just belief that athletics in themselves are but a means to an end, the health of the body, and that although that end is a desirable one, a healthy mind is even more important. This is the point of view that Xenophanes of Colophon (576-480 b.c.) represents when he says: ‘It is not right to prefer strength to the blessings of wisdom: our wisdom is better than the strength of men and horses. It is not speed of foot that gives a city good government; nor does it bring fatness into the dark places of a land.’ In the next century Euripides repeats the complaint, and in more bitter language: ‘Of all the countless evils in Greece, none is worse than the athlete tribe. Slaves of their belly, they know neither how to make money nor to bear poverty. In early manhood they seem fine fellows and strut about, the darlings of the town; but when old age comes, like worn-out cloaks they are flung aside.’ And for all this mischief the athletic gatherings, with their crowds of useless spectators, are chiefly responsible. The principle of valuation is wrong, for ‘Who by skill in wrestling, or by lifting the diskos, or by a shrewd blow on the jaw ever helped his native land, even though he won the prize? Will men fight the foe holding a diskos in both hands, or will they get home with one fist through the foemen’s shield? No one thinks of such folly when he is standing near cold steel.’ These last lines, though written by an Athenian poet, represent the Spartan reasons for withdrawal from Olympia. In the early days of the festival—from 720 to 576 b.c.—the number of Spartan victors in the list is very large, and shows, indeed, an undisputed Spartan supremacy. After 576 they cease almost entirely, and the disappearance of Sparta coincides with the specialization of athletics which then began. At Delphi, Corinth, and Nemea small local games were changed into national festivals which hoped to rival Olympia. Besides the four great festivals, there were countless smaller competitions established—at Athens, for example, at Argos and at Pellene, and the first result was a distinct rise in the standard of athletic performances, so that definite training became necessary to win success. Secondly, people began to attend the meetings purely as spectators, and additional competitions—in music, poetry, even in beauty—were introduced to please an idle audience, with the result that at last these gatherings presented almost as many attractions as a mediæval fair. It was against this combination of international merrymaking and individual prize-winning that the Spartan system was a protest. ‘Sparta for the Spartans’ was the ruling principle of the Spartan State, and aliens who tried to establish themselves at Lacedæmon were removed by somewhat drastic methods. In a State where all personal initiative was discouraged, the international athlete, honoured by poets and sculptors for his mere personal prowess, could have no place. Moreover, athletics, which the Spartans {14} {15} {16} {17} {18} were prepared to support as a useful recreation tending to produce that which alone in their judgment was of importance to a State, good soldiers, had in the sixth century before Christ become an end in themselves, and the gulf between the specialized athlete and the soldier very quickly began to widen. The athlete soon became a professional in fact if not in name, with little time for anything else but training. A class of professional instructors came into existence, and Sparta, after first excluding the trainers, finally forbade her citizens to take part in such competitions. She saw that the spirit of the professional athlete was at enmity with the military ardour which she made it her business to create, and so after about the middle of the sixth century she practically withdrew from active participation in the Olympic festival. The withdrawal of Sparta, however, had also its political reasons, and was only part of her general disapproval of the Tyrants. While she, the Dorian ox, represented the principle of individual isolation, the tyrannis, the Ionian horse, was the champion of expansion and national unity. Athletic festivals were to the tyrants one of several means whereby the commercial and social intercourse of all the Greek States, on the mainland or across the seas, might be encouraged, and the period of the tyrants’ prosperity was also the period when most of the Panhellenic Games were instituted. Periander, tyrant of Corinth, founded the Isthmia about 586 b.c.: Cleisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon, about the same time helped the Amphictyons to establish the Pythia: the Nemea, which began in 573, almost certainly owed their importance to one of the tyrants of Argos who succeeded Phidon. As for Phidon himself, it is probable that he should be regarded as the second founder of the Olympic Games, and that his was the influence which changed a local festival into a national gathering where East and West could meet. We know that the chief object of his policy was to promote free intercourse with South Italy and Sicily, and the geographical position of Elis, looking across the western sea, was probably an important factor in his plans. But however this may be, and we know too little of Phidon to be dogmatic, it is a certain fact that the Olympic games were reorganized by the managers at Elis some time in the early part of the sixth century b.c. The festival, which had been for one day only, was now enlarged and the chief competitions became races for chariots and single horses, these taking the place of importance given formerly to the simple running and wrestling matches of which alone the Spartans approved. Chariot races, except in so far as they improve the breed of horses, have no military value, and they also require a considerable expenditure of money, time and trouble, things of which Sparta thought better use might be made; but they exactly suited the merchant princes of the West, and after 550 b.c. we find the Greeks of Italy and Sicily playing always a very prominent part at Olympia. Of the ten treasure-houses there that have been identified five belonged to them, and possessing those material resources which the home-staying Greeks so painfully lacked they were able both very frequently to win the chariot race and also to commission Pindar to celebrate their victories. Among other places that were especially successful in the athletic contests we find the great African colony of Cyrene, the island of Rhodes, whence came the famous athlete Dorieus, and, curiously enough, the little State of Ægina for whose citizens Pindar wrote no fewer than eleven of the forty-four epinikian odes we now possess. Athens was occasionally represented, Sparta never. At the beginning of the fifth century the four great games were all firmly established. The Olympic took place in the first year of each Olympiad; the Nemean and the Isthmian came in the second year, the Pythian in the third, and the Nemean and the Isthmian again in the fourth. Every year therefore the Greek athlete had one competition open to him and in alternate years two. Of the four, the Nemean games were the most purely athletic, as befitted a festival where the old Peloponnesian traditions still maintained some of their vitality. The Pythians gave rather more importance to literary and musical competitions than did the others; one of the chief events was a recital of the ‘Hymn to Apollo’ and there were also contests in flute playing. The Isthmians, which were the most frequented by the Athenians, catered especially for sightseers and there was a large number of side shows of every kind. But the Olympic festival, the first of the four to be established, always maintained its premier place, having furthermore the distinct advantage of a site especially designed and reserved for this one great occasion. The games were to the ruling families of Elis what the oracle was to the ruling families of Delphi, a source of honour, profit and wealth, and every effort was made to glorify and embellish the precinct of Olympian Zeus. Of that precinct, the Altis, we have a very full description by the old Greek traveller Pausanias, who visited it in the second century of our era. Following his indications German archæologists, assisted by their Government, excavated the greater part of the site with the most careful thoroughness between the years 1875-1881, and discovered there, inter alia, nearly all the exterior temple sculptures, the Hermes of Praxiteles, and the Victory of Pæonius, although they failed to find any trace of the greatest treasure of all, the sitting figure of Zeus by Pheidias. The Altis is a quadrilateral space, where goats now feed, about 750 feet long by 570 feet broad, lying between the river Alpheus on the south and a low but steep hill, thickly wooded with pine trees, the ancient Mount of Cronos, which rises to the north. Immediately to the west, the river Cladeus flows between high sandy banks into the Alpheus, which now in the summer is only a trickle of muddy water running over a broad gravelly bed, but in old times was a navigable stream. In the precinct itself stood the Temple of Zeus, built by the architect Libon, about 460 b.c., to house the statue of the god; the Temple of Hera, one of the oldest of Greek shrines, dating back perhaps to the tenth century b.c.; the Treasuries of the various states; and the Council House. The stadion, some 230 by 32 yards, where the athletic contests took place, was just outside the precinct at the north-east corner, the spectators being accommodated on raised embankments of earth which may have contained as many as forty- five thousand people standing. The festival took place at the time of one of the summer full moons, and as soon as the sacred truce was proclaimed, sightseers began to flock in by sea and land from all parts of the Greek world. The first day of the five, to which the games in 472 b.c. were extended, was spent in sacrifices and general festivity, while the competitors and the judges, the Hellanodicæ, took the oath of fair dealing. On the second morning at daybreak the judges, in purple robes, were conducted to the special seats reserved for them, the herald proclaimed the names of competitors, and the day was spent in chariot and horse races and in the pentathlon competition for men; the crown of wild olive, which was the only prize, being presented by the judges to the victors at the conclusion of each event. The boys’ contests came on the third day; the men’s foot-races, wrestling, boxing and pankration on the fourth; and the last event of all was the race for men in armour. On the fifth day there were sacrifices again, and in the evening a ceremonial banquet at which the victors were entertained. This was the beginning of that athletic glorification to which Sparta so strongly objected, and their {19} {20} {21} {22} {23} {24} T homecoming was usually made the occasion of the most elaborate celebrations. Exainetos of Agrigentum, for example, who won the foot-race in 416 b.c., was brought into the city in a chariot to which his fellow townsmen harnessed themselves and was escorted by three hundred cars drawn by white horses. In the western states especially they sometimes received almost divine worship: their exploits were recorded on stone monuments, and songs composed in their honour were sung by bands of youths and maidens, while for the rest of their lives they had the privilege of a front seat at all public festivals, and often also the right of taking their meals free in the town hall. All this was part of the exaggerated pomp with which the festival itself in all its details was conducted; its processions, feastings, proclamations, and sacrifices, where each state vied with the others in making a show of gold and silver plate and displaying all the wealth they possessed. Ostentation was not a common fault in Greece, but it had full scope at Olympia. The two worst defects of the Greek character were also prominent there—a contempt for women which forbade any female even to be present, and an exaggerated idea of racial purity which shut out all competitors except those of undisputed Greek descent. But the spectacle must have been a splendid one, and it undoubtedly inspired some of the finest works of Greek art. The erection of a statue in the Altis was one of the honours given to victorious athletes to glorify their triumph, and if the victor was unable himself to meet the expense of setting up such a monument, the cost was often borne for him by his native city. ‘In the courts of Olympia,’ as Walter Pater says, ‘a whole population in marble and bronze gathered quickly,—a world of portraits out of which, as the purged and perfected essence, the ideal soul, of them, emerged the Diadumenus and the Discobolus.’ Pausanias gives us a list of some of the great sculptors whose works were still standing there in his time—Hagelaidas, Pythagoras, Kalamis, Myron, Polycleitus, Lysippus, and possibly Pheidias—and these nude figures established a canon of bodily perfection which had no little influence in actual life. Poets also vied with sculptors in glorifying the Olympic victor. Simonides of Keos and Bacchylides sang his praise, and in the Epinikian Odes of Pindar we have the greatest of all memorials to the athletic spirit—‘Verse that is all of gold and wine and flowers, and is itself avowedly a flower, or “liquid nectar,” or “the sweet fruit of his soul, to men that are winners in the games.” “As when from a wealthy hand one lifting a cup, made glad within with the dew of the vine, maketh gift to a youth”: the keynote of Pindar’s verse is there.’ With a choral music unsurpassed in any language, with wealth of legend and myth, with accumulation of epithet and metaphor, Pindar bears his witness to the pride of physical perfection. And with all the grandeur of his odes it is significant that he lacks conspicuously both the Spartan virtue of simplicity and the Athenian desire for economy of effort. ‘His soul rejoiced in splendour—splendour of stately palace halls where the columns were of marble and the entablature of wrought gold; splendour of temples of the gods, where the sculptor’s waxing art had brought the very deities to dwell with man; splendour of the white-pillared cities that glittered across the Ægean and Sicilian seas; splendour of the holy Panhellenic games, of whirlwind chariots and the fiery grace of thoroughbreds, of the naked shapely limbs of the athlete, man and boy.’[B] Splendour was the ideal alike of the Achæan chieftain, the Corinthian tyrant, and the Olympic judge. But the stern lesson of the Persian Wars led the Greek people in the fifth century to higher things, and the true spirit of athletics passed from the magnificent precinct of Olympian Zeus to the simple exercising grounds which every town possessed. Olympia and its prizes fell into the hands of professionals; but gymnastics remained an essential part of national education. 2 Gymnastics and Military Training HE various athletic exercises, which are here for convenience classed together under the word ‘gymnastics,’ fall into three main classes, depending respectively on strength of body, of leg, and of arm. To the first class belong boxing and wrestling, to the second running and jumping, to the third throwing the diskos and the javelin. The last five of these six sports—boxing being excluded —formed the Pentathlon, a combined competition of five events arranged to suit the all-round military athlete, for whom Greek athletic training at its best was especially designed. In such a competition the foot-race probably came first and the wrestling last; the three middle events—the field events, as we should call them, jumping, throwing the javelin, and hurling the diskos—being those that were particularly identified with the five-sport system which aimed at producing, not a specialized athlete, but a man who combined strength with agility and skill. Victory in the Pentathlon depended, not on success in all events, but on a system of marks; victory in three of the competitions was sufficient in itself, but if no competitor won three times, and two competitors tied with two victories each, it is highly probable that account was taken of second and third places. Of the separate exercises, wrestling perhaps was the favourite. It was the oldest of all sports, and to the Greeks one of the most important. To them it was both a science and an art. Theseus, its inventor, was, according to the myth, taught the rules by Athena herself. Victory alone was not sufficient; the winner must win gracefully and according to the precepts of the schools. It was from wrestling that the palæstra took its name, and the Greek language is full of metaphors and expressions borrowed from the technical phraseology of the ring. The contests between Heracles and Antæus, and between Atalanta and Peleus, are two of the best known and most frequently depicted episodes of the heroic saga, and wrestling was one of the sports in which women were allowed by some States—by Sparta and Chios, for example—to take part, competing even against men. Instruction was given in the school; there were separate rules for men and boys, and the different movements, grips, and throws were taught on a system of progressive difficulty; textbooks were used, and fragments of such a manual have recently been found on an Egyptian papyrus. There were two principal styles, the upright wrestling, in which the object was to throw one’s opponent to the ground, three falls being necessary for victory, and the ground wrestling, in which the struggle was continued even after a fall until one of the combatants yielded. The first style, however, was the only one regarded as strictly legitimate, the second being merely part of the pankration. The attitude of a Greek before coming to grips was very similar to that of modern wrestlers, and is beautifully illustrated in the pair of boy statues from Naples which may be seen in the Embankment gardens. Standing square to one another, they endeavoured to get a hold from the front or the side. The defence was often a grip on the opponent’s wrist, which might lead to the offensive if his elbow could also be seized and the throw we call ‘the flying mare’ be then executed. Of front body-holds, the most effective was gained by catching the waist with both hands and {25} {26} {27} {28} {29} {30} then lifting the opponent off his feet, such a hold as Heracles used against Antæus. Of side-throws the best known was ‘the heave,’ usually ascribed to Theseus, where one hand was passed round the opponent’s back and the other hand slipped underneath him. Another favourite hold was by the neck—a strong neck was essential for a wrestler—and when this was secured a sudden turn of the body would lead to the throw that we call a ‘cross-buttock.’ In all wrestling tripping played an important part, and there are a very large number of technical terms in Greek for the different trips that are [Image unavailable.] THE WRESTLERS (Uffizi Gallery, Florence) employed. Every district in Greece had a style of its own, and these diversities of method helped to keep active an interest in wrestling and to preserve it from the disease of professionalism, so that even when other sports had been ruined the wrestling ring still remained a useful and a popular institution. It is this popularity in actual life that accounts for the frequency of descriptions of wrestling matches in Greek literature. Two of them at least are worth quoting; the first from the Iliad, Book XXIII, the contest between Ajax and Odysseus at the funeral games of Patroclus: He said; and straight uprose the giant form Of Ajax Telamon: with him uprose Ulysses, skilled in every crafty wile. Girt with the belt, within the ring they stood, And each, with stalwart grasp, laid hold on each; As stand two rafters of a lofty house, Each propping each, by skilful architect Designed the tempest’s fury to withstand. Creaked their backbones beneath the tug and strain Of those strong arms; their sweat poured down like rain; And bloody weals of livid purple hue Their sides and shoulders streaked, as sternly they For victory and the well-wrought tripod strove. Nor could Ulysses Ajax overthrow, Nor Ajax bring Ulysses to the ground, So stubbornly he stood; but when the Greeks Were weary of the long protracted strife, Thus to Ulysses mighty Ajax spoke: ‘Ulysses sage, Laertes’ godlike son, Or lift thou me, or I will thee uplift: The issue of our struggle rests with Jove.’ He said, and raised Ulysses from the ground; Nor he his ancient craft remembered not, But locked his leg around, and striking sharp Upon the hollow of the knee, the joint Gave way; the giant Ajax backwards fell, Ulysses on his breast; the people saw, And marvelled. Then in turn Ulysses strove Ajax to lift; a little way he moved, But failed to lift him fairly from the ground; Yet crooked his knee, that both together fell, And side by side, defiled with dust, they lay. (Homer: Iliad, XXIII, 820-851, Derby’s translation.) The second description is separated from Homer by some twelve centuries, but it is equally vigorous. In the tenth book of The Æthiopian History of Heliodorus, the hero Theagenes, as his last trial before winning his beloved Chariclea, is matched against a stalwart Æthiopian, and in Underdowne’s quaint Elizabethan version the passage thus appears: ‘Then hee tooke dust, and cast it upon his armes and shoulders, and stretched foorth his hands, and tooke some footing, and bent his legges a little, and stouped lowe, at a word all partes of his body were ready, so that he stoode, and with great desire awayted for the advantage at the close. The Æthiopian seeing this laughed irefully, and triumphed scornefully upon him: and ranne suddenly upon him, and with his elbowe hit Theagenes in the necke, as sore as if he had stricken him with a leaver, and then drewe backe, and laughed againe at his owne foolish conceite. But Theagenes like a man alway from his cradle brought up in wrastling, and throughly instructed in Mercuries arte, thought it good to geve place at first, and take some triall of his adversaries strength, and not to withstand so rude a violence, but with arte to delude the same. Therefore he stouped lower, and made semblance as though he had beene very sorrowfull, and layde his other side to receive his other blowe. And when the Æthiopian came upon him againe, he made as though hee would have fallen flat upon his face; but as soon as the Æthiopian began to despise him, and was incouraged well, and came unadvisedly the third time, and lyfted up his arme againe to take holde of him, putting his right arme under his left side, by lifting up his hande he overthrew him in a heape, and casting himselfe under his arme pittes gryped his gorbelly with much a doo, and forced him with his heeles to fall on his knees, and then leapt on his backe, and clasping his feete about his privie parts made him stretch out his legges, wherewith he did stay up himselfe, and pulled his armes over his head behinde him, and laide his bellie flatte upon the earth.’ Boxing also, like wrestling, always retained its attractiveness, and in its ancient form offers some varieties from the modern mode. There were three stages in its history, depending largely upon the instruments of fighting used. Down to the beginning of the fourth {31} {32} {33} {34} century b.c. it was customary to wind soft strips of leather—meilichai—round the hands and arms, which served, like our light gloves, to protect the knuckles and so increased the power of attack, but did not in themselves add to the severity of the blow. Early in the fourth century the meilichai were superseded by gloves—sphairai—made of hard pieces of leather with projecting and cutting edges, real weapons of offence, like our knuckle-dusters. From these the Roman cæstus was developed, where the glove was weighted with pieces of iron and metal spikes placed in position over the knuckles. In Greek boxing there was no ring and therefore little close fighting, there were no rounds and therefore the pace was slow, for rushing tactics marked the untrained man; lastly, there was no classification by weight; the heavier the man the greater his chance of success, so that a meat diet for boxers was almost compulsory, and boxing became practically the monopoly of the heavy-weights. As thongs or gloves were always used on the hands, wrestling was impossible, and in later times at least the defence was all-important. It seems fairly well established that body-hitting was not practised, and in the Hellenistic age a fight was usually decided by a knock-out blow on the jaw. But in the best period the Greek boxer used both his hands freely, was active on his feet, and had a considerable variety of attack. The introduction of heavy gloves vitiated the art, and boxers began to rely merely on their weight and defensive powers. Of all these stages we have plentiful evidence both in art and literature, for boxing and its preliminaries are among the favourite subjects of vase painters, while in poetry, beside the account of the fight between Odysseus and the beggar Irus in the Odyssey and between Entellus and Dares in the Æneid, we have a really enthusiastic and expert description by Theocritus of the great struggle between Amycus and Polydeuces. The battle is as vividly described as the epic contest in the Dell between Lavengro and the Flaming Tinman, and the poet, by making it a fight between the old school of scientific activity and the new method of stolid strength, ingeniously enlists our sympathies from the first upon the side of skill against brute force. ‘Then Amycus came on furiously, making play with both hands; but Pollux smote him on the point of the chin as he charged, maddening him the more, and the giant confused the fighting, laying on with all his might, and going in with head down.... But the son of Zeus stepped now this side, now that, and hit him with both fists in turn, and checked his onslaught, for all his monstrous strength. Like a drunken man he reeled beneath the hero’s blows, and spat out the red blood, while all the princes shouted together, as they marked the ugly bruises about his mouth and jaws, and saw his eyes half closed by puffy flesh. Next Pollux began to tease him, feinting on every side, and at last, seeing that he was now quite bewildered, he got in a smashing blow just above the middle of the nose beneath the eyebrows, and laid the bone of his forehead bare. Stretched on his back the giant fell amid the flowers; but he rose again, and the fighting went on fiercely. They mauled each other hard, laying on with the weighted thongs; but the giant was always busy with his fists on the other’s chest and outside his neck, while Pollux, the invincible, kept on smashing his opponent’s face with cruel blows.’ (Theocritus: Idyll, XXII, 87-111.) [Image unavailable.] A WRESTLING CONTEST (Athens) Boxing and wrestling were combined in the pankration and allied with many other devices, such as kicking, strangling, twisting, etc.; it was a versatile performance, the joint invention of Heracles and Theseus, and considered both by Pindar and Philostratus as ‘the fairest of all contests.’ There was an element of danger, but it was no more brutal than is the almost similar method of jujitsu; moreover, strict rules were enforced by umpires who closely watched the combatants. Biting and gouging were strictly forbidden, although frequently attempted, as for example by Alcibiades. ‘You bite like a woman,’ cried his opponent. ‘No,’ said the young Athenian, ‘like a lion.’ Of gouging we have a picture on a cup in the British Museum, where one figure has inserted his finger into his opponent’s eye, while the umpire hurries forward with uplifted rod. But nearly every manœuvre of hands, feet, and body was permissible. You might catch your opponent by his foot and throw him backwards; you might seize his heel or ankle, and then, if you could, twist his foot out of its socket; you might kick him violently in the stomach; you might plant your foot against the other man’s waist and throw him over your shoulder; you might even stand on your own head, if that position seemed expedient. All these tricks were used in the standing position, but the issue of the combat was usually decided on the ground. There you might twist arm or hand, break fingers, and strangle. All neck holds were allowed, but the favourite method of strangling was known as the ‘ladder grip,’ in which you mounted your opponent’s back and wound your legs round his stomach and your arms round his neck. Ground wrestling was indeed the distinctive feature of the pankration, and the well-known group in the Uffizi Palace at Florence represents one of the last stages in such a contest. Of running and jumping little need be said, for it is very possible that in neither sport had the Greeks much to teach modern athletes. They were a short-legged people, and although they may have had some advantages in long-distance races they probably would be much inferior to our specialized sprint runners: length of leg must tell, and as in horse-racing ‘a good big ’un’ is better than ‘a good little ’un,’ so in a short-distance race length of stride ensures victory. But running was very popular in Greece, and of the eight events in the early Olympic games no less than four were foot-races, three for men—at 200 yards, 400 yards, and three miles—and one for boys. The running course—the stade—was a straight 200 yards; for the diaulos of 400 yards the runners turned at a post and came back to the starting-point. The start was marked by two parallel lines, for a Greek runner began in a somewhat cramped position, with the feet close together. The runners ran naked, their bodies carefully oiled, and for each man there was a post at the starting and at the finishing point to which he ran; there were no dividing strings, nor was there any tape. Vase paintings of runners are very frequent and plainly show the difference of style between the sprinter and the long-distance man; in the early vases a short, thickset type is common, in the later the thin sprinter is preferred. The most famous names are those of long-distance runners—e.g. Pheidippides and Ladas, whose statue by Myron was even more admired than the same master’s Diskobolos,—and in these races the Cretans and Arcadians especially excelled, while the Athenians were better at short distances. Beside races proper there were various running contests; for example, the race in armour, which was introduced at Olympia towards the close of the sixth century and was the final event of the games, the competitors running in full panoply of shield, helmet, and greaves. Other similar events were the Oschophoria, where youths ran in women’s clothes, and the Lampadophoria, in which a lighted torch was carried by single runners or {35} {36} {37} {38} {39} by teams. These latter were very popular at Athens, and they illustrate the difference between the ancient and modern view of running. They were not serious and specialized enough for a modern athletic meeting, where everything is a matter of record and a fifth of a second is of vital importance. Jumping, also, was comparatively simple and restricted in its scope. Of high jumping and pole jumping the Greeks had none, for athletics were always practical, and as there were no hedges in Greece for soldiers to jump over it was unnecessary to practise high jumping in the school. Their long jump differed from ours in that it was always performed with the help of jumping weights —halteres—things much like our dumb-bells and used in a very similar fashion. With these implements a class of pupils would practise together to the music of the flute. Both standing and running jumps were performed from a take-off into a pit—skamma—and jumps of over twenty feet were common; the fifty-five feet ascribed to Phayllus is an impossible exaggeration. But if in running and jumping we have little to learn, it is very different in regard to the ‘field events,’ the throwing of the javelin and the diskos. Here the Greek system of body poise and muscular development gave their athletes an enormous advantage and enabled them easily to perform movements which to our modern bodies seem almost impossible. Both exercises were especially popular at Athens, and were there regarded as part of gymnastics rather than athletics: i.e. they were designed, not as THE DISKOBOLOS OF MYRON competitive sports, but as means to improve bodily efficiency. The javelin was a light stick of wood, usually pointless. Distance throwing was far more usual than throwing at a mark, and for this purpose a thong—amentum—was used, fastened near the centre of the javelin shaft. Such a thong practically quadruples the range of throw, but the process needs long practice and is of course highly artificial in comparison with the natural use of the spear in hunting or in war. Greek athletics had a definite purpose, and we may be sure that it was not the actual throw but the movements necessary for the throw that gave its value to the exercise. These movements, the short, quick steps before the cast and the sharp turn of the body to the right, are illustrated frequently on the vases; the throw itself is seldom represented, and then with very poor results. The diskos was a flat and fairly heavy circle of bronze. It was thrown from behind a line and in a restricted space, a throw of 100 feet being exceptionally good. II Such is a brief account of the gymnastic sports and exercises which formed so important a part of a Greek’s everyday round. Each one of them had its own special value in developing the strength of some particular part of the body, and taken together they formed a complete and adequate training for what was to an ancient citizen the chief business of life—war. To us, whose civilization is based on the habits of peace and to whom war means the negation of all the humanities, it may seem illogical to think of fighting as a business. But it was not so in Greece. Warfare was the art of life, so far surpassing all the other arts that it was regarded not so much as an accidental state but rather as a vital function, as necessary to existence as breathing, sleeping, eating, and drinking. It would accept what help the other arts could give: athletics made a soldier nimble and supple; medicine kept him in health; the music of the flute was useful in marching; the lyric poet and the dramatist could foster and elevate the martial spirit; but all these were subservient to the one engrossing purpose. Men fought to live and lived to fight. For the Greeks it was war, not peace, that seemed the natural state of an organized community. War was part of their civilization: {40} {41} {42} they liked fighting and they fought like gentlemen. The Romans, on the other hand, had no love for fighting in itself and fought without much regard to the rules of the game. And yet the Romans were more successful in the conduct of war, for, as our English general says, Courage, Common Sense and Cunning are the essentials of victory, and if by courage we mean endurance all three were Roman rather than Greek qualities. The Romans were always anxious to win and get finished with it, and for this purpose they were willing to fight on year after year in order that at last they might inflict a crushing defeat on the enemy and then return home to their flesh-pots. The Greeks were satisfied with one indecisive success and never tried to annihilate their opponents; for then the sport would have come to an end. To the Romans, in spite of their many campaigns, war was an unpleasant interruption of their usual way of life; to the Greeks, it was simply an exciting but somewhat dangerous diversion, which was, however, an integral part of the citizen’s service to the state. The Greek attitude may be easily understood if we consider their history. They were never, like the Romans, a pastoral or agricultural community. Their culture was cradled on the battle-field and the more intense the fighting the more intense the literary and artistic effort of the nation. The constant stress of battle wore the race out eventually, but it never hurt their civilization. From the earliest days peace was unknown in the land. The raids of sea pirates, the forced migrations of peoples, tribal wars, trade wars, dynastic wars: such is the history of Greece in its first, middle, and concluding stages. If war is a curse that can only bring evil, then the Greeks were the most unhappy of nations, for the noise of battle was seldom hushed, and instead of declaring war they thought themselves fortunate if occasionally they could declare peace. This constant presence of the martial spirit is visible in all that remains to us of their art and literature. Upon the silver ware of Mycenæ we see the Minoans fighting naked, crouching with bow and arrow behind their shields. The statues from Ægina are all of men arrayed for battle with lance, shield, and sword. Even Pallas Athene, the goddess of wisdom and the household arts, is usually represented wearing the panoply of war, and the decorations of her temple are mostly pictures of battle or of preparation for the fray, the combats between Centaurs and Lapithæ and the marshalling of the mounted soldiers for her solemn procession. Painters, like sculptors, found their chief subjects in war, either in the ancient combats of the epic lays or in the actual life of the parade-ground and the guard-room. The Attic vases of the sixth and fifth centuries, the best example we possess of truly popular art, repeat the warrior motif almost to satiety, and they did so because the potter knew that of this subject at least his clients would never be weary. It is the same in Greek literature, from first to last. In the Homeric poems fighting is the normal business of man. There are fairy- lands, the poet can imagine, where fighting is not the common rule of life, the land of the lotus-eaters, the orchards of the Phæacians, the island realms of Circe and Calypso: but these are all uncanny magic places where decent everyday rules do not hold good. In Homer it is a man’s function to fight, by sea and land, in a chariot or on foot, to use spear and sword, to attack and plunder, or to defend himself from the enemy’s raids. So also with the lyric poets of the next era, from Archilochus downwards; they are men of battle first and men of letters afterwards, squires of the War god, as Archilochus cries: ‘My spear is bread, white kneaded bread, My spear’s Ismarian wine, My spear is food and drink and bed, With it the world is mine.’ We get the same refrain in Hybrias the Cretan, the verses known to English musicians by Campbell’s translation: ‘My wealth’s a burly spear and brand And a right good shield of hides untanned Which on my arm I buckle. With these I plough, I reap, I sow, With these I make the sweet vintage flow And all around me truckle. But your wights that take no pride to wield A massy spear and well made shield, Nor joy to draw the sword, Oh I bring those heartless hapless drones Down in a trice on their marrow bones To call me king and lord.’ ‘King and lord’—they are the only words that the lyrists have for the soldier, and the elegiac poets repeat the idea in the more serious fashion appropriate to their poetical form. Tyrtæus, for example, the lame schoolmaster lent by Athens to Sparta, in those poems which the Spartans regarded as one of the chief causes of their military success, emphasizes the supreme importance of martial valo...